Diderot is famous for the creation of the Encyclopédie. A massive, multi-volume work dating to 1751-1772, it highlighted especially the mechanical arts and is often credited with launching the spirit of the French Revolution. Diderot also wrote a short piece critical of luxury in 1769, “Regrets for my Old Dressing Gown” (https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/diderot/1769/regrets.htm). His arguments are…
*I am delighted that Chris Wojtulewicz is making a new post. Chris is an English Catholic theologian interested in post-modernism. He is the author of monographs on medieval mysticism, especially Meister Eckhart, and is currently at work on a book about French theorist Jacques Lacan and the bodily resurrection. His previous post is here: http://www.ethicsoffashion.com/fabric-of-the-saints/ For…
Italian sculptor Jago has made a shirtless bust of Pope Benedict. The bust began with the pope clothed but upon his retirement from the active papacy, Jago chipped away the clothing. I am not aware of controversy, though maybe such exists. For me, it evokes the humility we saw at the end of Saint…
This article wonders what powers the avidity of young Bitcoin millionaries for streetwear (https://www.gq.com/story/bitcoin-streetwear-overlap). The early eighteenth century Francis Hutcheson can explain. Hutcheson was Adam Smith’s teacher at Glasgow University. Here’s one of the youth millionaires: “They’re like nerdy rappers,” Finman says of his peers. “Just the way that people flex in the crypto community,…
Carlos Carvalhal is the Portuguese manager of Welsh football club Swansea. In an interesting interview he speaks about his love of philosophy, especially the French tradition. Philosophy is about complexity, and so is football, he argues (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-5455533/Carlos-Carvalhal-interview-Swansea-City-manager.html). Philosophy is slowly but surely pulling Swansea away from relegation so likely they will remain in the…
Fast fashion leaders Zara are also a moral model in that much of their production is local to Galicia, Spain. Family headquarters, design, and production all aligned, as per Scheler’s estate (V&R Chapter 5). This article is about the city of Corunna, its economy flush with Zara money (https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/news-analysis/zara-hipsters-transform-their-hometown-into-a-spanish-powerhouse?utm_source=Subscribers&utm_campaign=96ec407a02-rei-kawakubo-s-pain-of-creation&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d2191372b3-96ec407a02-417297929). Corunna is also the…
Traditionally, shops were places where locals ran into each other. This became much less true with the rise of malls and shopping centres. Ironically, the upsurge in ecommerce is forcing shops to be less transactional and, in order to survive, they are having to think more about their place in the community (https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/video/amid-retail-apocalypse-the-future-of-commerce-is-community?utm_source=Subscribers&utm_campaign=59b7a64c0c-society-has-changed-victoria-s-secret-hasn-t&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d2191372b3-59b7a64c0c-417297929). …
I suspect John Galliano is a very peculiar man. He is also gifted, a true master of imagination and craft. There is a good profile of him and House Margiela in this month’s WSJ Magazine (“Step by Step,” March 2018: behind a paywall, sorry). V&R Chapter 7 explains Kolnai’s defence of the idea of…
Emirates Airlines offers an example backing up the brilliant study of French theorist, Roger Caillois, “Mimicry and Legendary Psychasthenia.” His short but tremendously interesting essay is here: http://www.generation-online.org/p/fpcaillois.htm. Caillois (1913-1978) offers a novel theory for the mimicry common throughout nature. Instead of thinking of it in Darwinian terms, e.g. prey disguising itself like its predator…
Fashion frequently compliments itself for being at the forefront of humanism: about the future, globalist, breaking down barriers, giving voice to all, etc.. Lacan argues the opposite: fashion is about repetition, an aggressive return to earliest human experience (Ecrits, p. 85). The self is a field of conflict, an internal social contest between a fragmented…