A Philosophy of Fashion Through Film

On the Body, Style, and Identity

Laura T. Di Summa (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

176 Seiten

2022
Bloomsbury Academic (Verlag)
978-1-350-15700-2 (ISBN)

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The question of whether movies can deliver philosophical content is a leading topic in the cognitive and analytic debate on film. But instead of turning to the well-trodden terrain of narrative and emotional engagement, this is the first time fashion and costume choices are analyzed to demonstrate how movies can be said to be doing philosophy.

Considering how fashion and costumes can deliver the epistemic content of a film and act as a guidance to the interpretation of the philosophical content of a film, Laura T. Di Summa examines fashion and costume choices in classical and contemporary films. She discusses a number of cinematic examples, and the costumes and fashion elements within them, illustrating the importance of issues such as the performative side of fashion, the alteration between novelty and repetition, the pivotal role of the body, and the relation between fashion, style, and individual as well as collective identity.

Featuring close examinations of 1950s melodramas, Hollywood blockbusters and documentaries such as All That Heaven Allows, Mad Max Fury Road, and McQueen, Di Summa uses an innovative new lens to provide fresh philosophical analysis of films. The result is not only an advancement of our understanding of the aesthetic means through which film can do philosophy, but the first insights into a philosophy of fashion.

Laura T. Di Summa is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at William Paterson University, USA. She is a co-editor of The Palgrave Handbook of the Philosophy of Film and Motion Pictures (2019).

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. Defining Fashion
Fashion: An Item Performs
Fashion and the New
Fashion and Bodily Identity
Performance and Style
Fashion as a Performance and the Movies
Conclusions: Towards a Definition of Fashion
2. Repetition and the New
Fashion: What’s New
The Dynamic of Repetition and the New: Designing Fashion
The Power of Repetition: Three Movies
Cary's grey lady suit and the promise of the red dress
A homage to Doug Sirk: Two Movies by Todd Haynes
Twenty Qipaos
Conclusions: Rethinking Repetition
3. The Body
Exploring the Body
Fashion and the Body: Staring and Strategies for Aesthetic Exploration
Furiosa’s Strength
Black Panther: Carter’s Superhero Costumes, Worn Everyday
Moonlight: The Gold Grill
Conclusions: Aesthetic Explorations
4. Couture and Costumes
Acknowledging Costume Design
Costumes?
Fashion and Costumes: Avenues of Conversation
Phantom Thread: Filming the Couturier
Fashion and Costume Designers: Tom Ford and Arianne Phillips
Historical Accuracy and Imaginative Freedom: Dressing Marie Antoinette
30 Years of Geoffrey Beene
Conclusions: Two Industries
5. On Fashion and Identity
The Episodic Self: Fashion and Identity
Narrative Identity and its Shortcomings
All Chanel: Personal Shopper
McQueen: The Runway
L’Année dernière à Marienbad: Fashion or Identity?
Conclusions: Episodes and Fashion
6. Closing Thoughts: A Philosophy of Fashion – Through Film
What is Fashion?
Moving Pictures and Moving Bodies
Reassessing Identity
Fashion, Off-Screen

Epilogue
Notes
References
Index

Erscheinungsdatum	03.11.2022
Verlagsort	London
Sprache	englisch
Maße	138 x 216 mm
Themenwelt	Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Design / Innenarchitektur / Mode
	Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Film / TV
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Kommunikation / Medien ► Medienwissenschaft
ISBN-10	1-350-15700-7 / 1350157007
ISBN-13	978-1-350-15700-2 / 9781350157002
Zustand	Neuware