The degree to which bots will upend the work landscape and potentially make defunct whole categories of white and blue collar jobs is an open question. In all the talk, few have thought bots would pose a challenge to models. Not exactly bots, but digital avatars are starting to replace models. As our lives…
V&R is a book about the ethics of the fashion industry. As such, it is a sub-species of business ethics. I am currently reading Bad Blood, the story of Elizabeth Holmes and her fraudulent blood testing company. Fawned over by the media and celebrated as America’s only self-made female billionaire, Holmes, almost from the inception…
I thought readers might like to get a sense of the ideas in my new book, as well as a peak at how academics go about trying to get a book published. What follows is the book proposal I put together to send around to presses. The idea is to try to help the editors…
I am delighted to report that my new book Post-Modern Natural Law is forthcoming with University of Notre Dame Press. Hopefully, it’ll be in print by autumn 2019 but I’ll say more once the press clarifies the timetable. The book picks up on themes from V&R so I hope regular readers will enjoy it.
Fashion’s moral failings are widely broadcast. A leading polluter of the planet, a leading beneficiary of slavery, a pernicious influence on body image and self-esteem, to name a few. It is worth recalling perhaps that fashion is also a principal support of moral order. To some in fashion, this is not welcome news: they…
This article reports that faculty at the prestigious fashion school Central Saint Martins turn a blind eye to students who have their collections made by professionals (https://i-d.vice.com/en_uk/article/vbjv89/how-do-you-really-measure-the-success-of-a-fashion-degree). The work load and the pressure to excel tempts students to pay others to do the handcraft part of clothes construction. Getting such help can run as…
Tolkien-inspired tattoo design by up-and-coming Baltimore artist: https://www.instagram.com/jaynejezebelle/ ~~~~~~~~~~~ Personalism is the root philosophy of CST. Applications of CST to fashion, or any other industry, will have personalism in play. My previous post on the topic (http://www.ethicsoffashion.com/catholic-personalism-and-non-ego-psychology/) argued that Karol Wojtyla’s personalism affirms ego psychology. Before we point to a turn in his…
This long, but clever, assessment of the FT’s luxury drooling magazine How to Spend It (https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jul/19/how-to-spend-it-the-shopping-list-for-the-1-percent) includes the interesting details that not only has the British sense of luxury shifted from the origins of the magazine back in the `60’s but most of the FT’s sales are now overseas. A significant reason is because…
This video is a nice window on the bespoke craft at Louis Vuitton. The company has made the case that carries the Cup itself. The French company will certainly be hoping the Cup comes back to France. Football romantics will hope tiny Croatia can pull off an upset. The music is awful, so I’d…
A very interesting article on both the business of couture and why the young find it appealing: https://www.vogue.co.uk/article/millennials-coutures-biggest-clients As always with couture, Burke approves. Somewhat, he also approves of the financial instruments that make it possible: http://www.libertylawsite.org/2017/06/30/in-trusts-we-trust/