Is Under Armour a morally responsible company?

As a resident of Baltimore City, I am delighted Under Armour is thriving. Kevin Plank, the founder of the sports wear company, is justifiably proud of what he has accomplished and the good the company does. In a recent interview, he has strongly affirmed the company’s moral character (https://www.fastcompany.com/3065326/the-fast-company-innovation-festival/under-armours-founder-makes-a-passionate-defense-of-big).   He points to two things:…

Is Lady Gaga a Nazi?

There are lots of names to throw at political opponents. Tsarist, totalitarian, falangist, liberal, communist, ultramontanist, but the two perennial favourites are undoubtedly, fascist and Nazi. The media is awash with Nazi accusations these days. From the Right, we hear Lady Gaga is a Nazi (http://www.dailywire.com/news/10600/why-did-lady-gaga-introduce-hillary-while-dressed-hank-berrien) and from the Left that Donald Trump is one,…

Let’s hope Pierre Bergé is wrong

This post’s title might better run: Ethically, Pierre Bergé is wrong. A brief article describes how he is building two museums to house the YSL archive (http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-man-who-gave-us-trench-coats-and-pantsuits-1476895166).  YSL was something of a hoarder and unlike most designers a voluminous record of clothes, sketches, and accessories exists. So many, in fact, that the museums, one in…

Tolkien and Moral Realism

V&R develops arguments about the morality of the fashion industry using moral realism, a tradition of moral theory that holds we have access to an objective scale of discrete value tones that shape our moral judgements.  Watch this space for a soon-to-appear blog post of mine over at the Law & Liberty website on Tolkien…

Adam Smith on corsets

This post is really Part II of my recent post – Why do women buy Kate Middleton’s nose? That post took up Tim Gunn’s claim both that designers have contempt for fuller figured women and that no technical reason exists why designers cannot beautifully dress their bodies.   Likely Tim Gunn’s comments reflect some of…