Transcript Simmel and Fashion - University of Florida

Simmel and Fashion
► According
to Simmel fashion serves the
purpose of identifying social groups. More
specifically, it serves the purpose of both
demarcating social position, and serves as
an identifier for those within the
demarcated social positions.
► “Fashion
is merely a product of social
demands, even though the individual object
which it creates or recreates may represent
a more or less individual need.”
► This,
for Simmel, is why fashion changes for
no apparent reason yet it changes in the
same way for large groups of people
► He
goes on to describe what will later be
termed by marketers as “trend setters”
► “The only motivations with which fashion is
concerned are formal social ones. The
reason why even asthetically impossible
styles seem … elegant and artistically
tolerable… is that they affected by persons
who are generally the most elegant and pay
the greatest attention to their personal
appearance…”
► Of course, it’s the higher social positions
that dictate the course of fashion trends.
► For
our 4 theorists: What are their
conceptions of the progress of society from
“primitive” to “modern”?
► What is the effect of this march toward
modernity on society? On the individuals
residing within these societies? (alienation,
anomie, the iron cage, etc.)?
► How did these theorists view religion? What
role does it play in modern society?
History
Society
Religion
Marx
Durkehim
Class
conflict
mode of
production
Haves v.
have-nots
More
complex
division of
labor
Needs
norms
(rules)
Weber
Simmel
Increase More
in
groups
beuocracy less
contact
3
Compri
separate sed of
yet
types
related
interacti
hierarchie on is
s
the key
Like a drug Necessary Influence Doesn’t
componen s mode of say
t of
productio much
society
n