Fashion Statements

Brian Seitz is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Babson College, USA.

"To think about 'what we wear' may seem to be a waste of time to some, yet it cannot be denied that we seem to live in an epoch where living is more and more defined by the fashionable. Fashion Statements offers the reader a number of innovative and thoughtful investigations and provocations, stimulating a re-thinking of what exactly the 'fashionable' means. The diverse and talented authors of these writings shed a fascinating variety of lights upon the subject - Foucault and Westwood, denim and despair, the glory and the subjection of the naked and the dressed, just to mention a few. Open up this book to any page and you will find an original reflection on fashion and its power to signify, obfuscate, imprison, swindle, protect, seduce, delight, and foil. These essays are testimony to the fact that if philosophers, critics, and cultural observateurs are to truly live up to their respective tasks, not one of them could keep their title without examining the question of the fashionable. Fashion Statements shows that philosophy can and should do a thinking of the trend 'itself'. Herein is found more than a few replies to the question Quentin Crisp put to Calvin Klein: 'What does it all mean?'" - Kevin R. MacDonald, Professor of Philosophy, The Fashion Institute of Technology

• Just Looks; R.Scapp  & B.Seitz New Look You Cannes Come In Here Dressed Like That: A True Story in Two Shoes; E.Norris The Head Monkey at Paris: Henry David Thoreau on Fashion; D.Krell Tech Savvy: Technology as the New Fashion Statement; A.Chin Fashion Statements: Communication and Culture; M.Barnard Fleshing It Out: The Tyranny of the ALine Skirt; bell hooks Osh Kosh B'Gosh; M.O' Donoghue Is Clothing Art?; J.Weinstein Fashion Advice from the Anti-Christ; L.Hartunian Puro High Life; M.Rojas Irony killed by the Ironic T-shirt and the True Religion of the American Jean; A.O' Neil Jackie O., Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Chanel; E.Fridland & A.Porter The Hat's the Thing; J.Wagner 'Pod Peeps: Why The iPod And Other Gadgets Are Fashion Staples In The 'Hood; L.D.Johnson Dressed to Kill, Or: Women's Right to Bare Arms; K.Oliver The Naked Truth of Anti-Fashion Philosophy; N.Pappas Vivienne Westwood: Keeping Critique Alive; S.Murphy Fashion at a Glance; E.S.Casey Retro Look Plato's Greater Hippias; A.A.Anderson , translator