The Practice of Theorizing Fashion

Thinking through Fashion: A Guide to Key Theorists, a volume edited by fashion scholars Agnès Rocamora and Anneke Smelik, is an important contribution to the establishment and canonization of the major theoretical perspectives that have arisen in the last thirty years in fashion studies. Rather than proposing innovative theoretical perspectives on the study of fashion, this book solidifies a preliminary canon for fashion theory and, more specifically, for those theorists—philosophers, sociologists, anthropologists, and psychoanalysts—who have been seminal in the study of the mechanisms of production and consumption of fashion or have been adopted by fashion scholars to unlock the practices of fashion. Here, fashion is not reduced to just the study of dress and the appearance of style in society but, as Rocamora and Smelik stress, is intended as a “material and symbolic system . . . made of things and signs, as well as individual and collective agents, which all coalesce through practices of production, consumption, distribution and representation” (2). In this sense, the text adopts an inclusive vision of the phenomenon, perpetuating theoretical patterns that have emerged in fashion studies until today and that helped to critically look at fashion in relation to issues of value and labor, discipline of bodies, construction of identity and gender issues, and construction of elitist and popular aesthetics through design practices. At the same time, Thinking through Fashion differs from previous fashion readers, since it is the first book to focus exclusively on the role played by critical theory (and theorists) in constructing critical thinking in/about the culture of fashion. The urgency of the book, as the editors explain, is to “grasp both the relevance of social and cultural theory to the fields of fashion, dress and material culture, and, conversely, the relevance of those fields to social and cultural theory” (2).In more concrete terms, the volume consists of a collection of sixteen original texts by a vast range of expert and emergent fashion scholars, who sum up, discuss, and deepen the legacy of celebrated nineteenth-and twentieth-century thinkers in the understanding of fashion. The book begins with an effective and clear presentation of the theoretical origins and recent dérive of the field that the editors identify in “the linguistic turn,” “the politics of post-structuralism,” and the “new materialism.” The following chapters are organized via a chronological criteria, and each chapter is dedicated to a specific theorist. The first chapter by Anthony Sullivan presents the role of Karl Marx’s idea of capitalism in understanding the mechanics of fashion as an industry, while the final chapter, written by Elizabeth Wissinger, is dedicated to Judith Butler’s legacy in explaining the performativity of fashion as both a force of disciplinization and disruption of bodies and gender in society. Particularly worthy of mention are the chapter on Walter Benjamin by Adam Geczy and Vicky Karaminas, who explain the bound between fashion, modernity, and time; and the chapter on Roland Barthes by Paul Jobling, who not only maps the central contribution of this writer in the understanding of fashion as discourse but also challenges some misconceptions on his interest toward fashion as industry.The selection of the thinkers and topics mirrors a Western predominance in the field. It reflects the tendency to adopt canonical figures in Western critical theory instead of proposing other thinkers who have been, more or less outspokenly, relevant in the study of fashion. For example, it could have been interesting to explore the overlooked legacy of Michel de Certeau in the understanding of fashion practices or even explore the legacy of Arjun Appadurai, who has been crucial in opening up issues of consumption and biography of objects in fashion studies. Furthermore, the book also interestingly shows a male predominance. Only one chapter is dedicated to a female theorist, although other writers could have been included, like, for example, Simone de Beauvoir, who has highly influenced the discussion on the role of fashion in discourses on feminism and gender. On the contrary, it is interesting to notice how this percentage is completely inverted once we look at the writers of the chapters, testifying to the capacity of fashion studies to battle male predominance in academia.While Thinking through Fashion may, at first sight, suggest a problematic subject-centered idea of theory, it represents a very useful tool to teach and study fashion. The editors’ decision to approach thinkers as “historical subjects” (5) is particularly fortunate from both an organizational point of view—since many thinkers touch different and overlapping discussions on fashion—and conceptual point of view, as it helps to raise the overlooked issue of “historicization of theory” in fashion studies. As Rocamora and Smelik explain, “theoretical work can be produced and received at different times in different countries, depending on trends in thinking” (5). Whereas this does not only apply to fashion studies, it does attest to a fashion of theory and theorists in this field. At the same time, it is interesting to notice how this historicization of theory entails a contextualization of theory in historical terms, evaluating both the value of fashion in revealing cultural practices in society and the efficacy of theories in explaining specific practices of fashion emerging in specific historical periods. For example, when discussing the legacy of Pierre Bourdieu and his idea of “field” in the chapter “Pierre Bourdieu: The Field of Fashion,” Rocamora shows how Bourdieu’s studies on fashion have been neglected in sociology, although the field of haute couture “has been key to his understanding and theorizing of the logic of the field of cultural production” (234). Indeed, Thinking through Fashion not only helps to show the importance of social and cultural theory for fashion but also calls to attention other fields’ neglect of fashion as a cultural phenomenon worthwhile of study.By presenting different models of interpretation of fashion, this work instigates a discussion on the contemporary relevance of old theories in the study of fashion, a crucial point for fashion studies, since practices of production and consumption of fashion are in constant flux, often escaping rigid categorizations. Thus, in thinking through fashion, it is nevertheless important to remember, perhaps, that the theories presented in the book were, in the words of Michel de Certeau, “constructed for other objects and with other aims” (1989: 256). To some extent, the book reminds us of the need to both challenge old theories through contemporary fashion practices and rethink old practices in the light of contemporary theories. This becomes particularly evident in Joanne Entwistle’s chapter “Bruno Latour: Actor Network Theory and Fashion.” Here the scholar explains how Latour’s ideas of “network” and “actant” are more suitable theoretical tropes to highlight practices of value creation in fashion, while also suggesting new methodological paths. Objects, explains Entwistle, play a crucial role in the creation of social relations and thus help to fully understand the functioning of a “fashion actor-network than would be in conventional research focused only on the distinctly ‘social’ or ‘cultural’ human actors” (280).Rather than simply show the importance of critical theory for fashion, Thinking through Fashion stimulates new and more urgent questions on the state of the field like, for example, How do we “do” theory about fashion? Thus, the idea of “thinking through fashion” that this book proposes should not only be seen as a moment to look backward to the work of celebrated theorists, but it should further prompt new discussions about practices of theorizing fashion, especially in connection to methodological questions and the relation between theory and practice. This is central for seeking a specificity and relevance of the field of fashion studies as an evolution from early practices of theorizing fashion that often “forced” fashion into predetermined theoretical cages, leading to what fashion scholar Caroline Evans defined as a tendency to “eclipse fashion with theory” (2003: 3). In this sense, Thinking through Fashion becomes a very useful tool if read transversally, as an instigation to practices of hybridization and contextualization of theories able to indulge the polysemic nature of fashion

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