541
‘Fashion is a form of imitation and so of social equalization, but, paradoxically, in changing incessantly, it differentiates one time from another and one social stratum for another. It unites those of a social effort to obliterate the external distinctions of class, abandons it for a newer mode – a process that quickens with the increase of wealth. Fashion does not exist in tribal or classless societies.’
‘It signalizes the lack of personal freedom; hence it characterizes the female and the middle class, whose increased social freedom is matched by intense individual subjugation.’
‘Man has ever had a dualistic nature.’
542
‘more unresolved tensions, more comprehensive conflicts and conciliations have been at work than their immediate reality would lead one to suppose.’
‘for we discover that human nature requires motion and repose, receptiveness and productivity – a masculine and a feminine principle that are united in every human being. This type of duality applied to our spiritual nature causes the latter to be guided by the striving towards a generalization on one hand, and on the other by the desire to describe the dingle, special element’
‘whether they be ground in practical conflict representing socialism on the one hand or individualism on the other we have always to deal with the same fundamental form of duality which is manifested biologically in the contrast between heredity and variation.’
543
‘a vessel of the social contents.’
‘the tendency towards imitation characterizes a stage of development in which the desire for expedient personal activity is present, but from which the capacity for possessing the individual acquirements is absent’
“the vital conditions of fashion as a universal phenomenon in the history of our race are circumscribed by these conceptions.’
‘Fashion is the imitation of a given example and satisfies the demand for social adaptation’
‘At the same time it satisfies in no less degree the need of differentiation, the tendency towards dissimilarity, the desire for change and contrast’
544
“the various psychological elements in fashion all conform to this fundamental principle.’
‘a product of class distinction’
‘Thus fashion on the one hand signifies union with those in the same class, the uniformity of a circle characterized by it, and, uno actu, the exclusion of all other groups’
‘Union and segregation are the two fundamental functions which are here inseparably united and one which, although or because it forms a logical contrast to the other, becomes the condition of its realization. Fashion is merely a product of social demand’
545
‘We encounter here a close connection between the consciousness of personality and that of the material forms of life, a connection that runs all through history.’
‘Social forms, apparel, aesthetic judgment, the whole style of human expression, are constantly transformed by fashion – i.e, the latest fashion – in all these things affects only the upper classes. Just as soon as the lower classed begin to copy their style’
‘the upper classes turn away from this style and adopt a new one, which in its turn differentiated them from the masses; and thus the game goes merrily on.’
‘The increase of wealth is bound to hasten the process considerably and render in visible, because objects of fashion, embracing as they do the externals of life, are mose accessible to the mere call of money’
546
‘Two social tendencies are essential to the establishment of fashion, namely, the need of union on the one hand and the need of isolation on the other. Should one of these be absent, fashion will not be formed – its sway will abruptly end’
547
‘Changes in fashion reflect the dullness of nervous impulses; the more nervous the age, the more rapidly its fashions change, simply because the desire for differentiation, one of the most important elements of fashion, goes hand in hand with the weakening of nervous energy’
‘As soon as the example has been universally adopted, that is, as soon as anything that was originally done only by a few has really come to be practices by all – as is the case in certain portions of our apparel and in various forms of social conduct – we no longer speak of fashion’.
‘Few phenomena of social life possess such a pointed curve of consciousness as does fashion. As soon as the social consciousness attains to the highest point designated by fashion, it makes the beginning of the end for the latter’
548
‘the individual derives the satisfaction of knowing that as adopted by him it still represents something special and striking, while at the same time he feels inwardly supported by a set of persons who are striving for the same thing’
‘the embodiment of a joint spirit’
549
‘in its very nature it represents a standard that can never be accepted by all.’
‘it is the mingling of the sensation of rulership with submission, the influence of which is here at work. In other words, we have here the mixing of a masculine and. Feminine principle.’
551
‘In general the history of woman in the outer as well as the inner life. Individually as well as collectively, exhibits such a comparatively great uniformity, levelling and similarity, that she requires a more lively activity at least in the sphere of fashion, which is nothing more nor less than change in order to add an attraction to herself and her life for her own feeling as well as for others.’
‘not because man is the more uniform but because he is the more many-sided creature’
‘in a certain sense fashion gives woman a compensation for her lack of position in a class based on a calling or profession’
552
‘fashion always stands…at the periphery of personality’
553
‘fashion also is only one of the forms by the aid of which men seek to save their inner freedom all the more completely by sacrificing externals to enslavement by the general public.’
554
Young people especially often exhibit a sudden strangeness in behaviour; an unexpected, objectively unfounded interest arises and governs their whole sphere of consciousness, only to disappear in the same irrational manner. We might call this a personal fashion, which forms an analogy to social fashion. The former is supported on the one hand by the individual demand for differentiation and thereby attests to the same impulse that is active in the formation of social fashion. The need of imitation, of similarity, of the blending of the individual in the mass, are here satisfied purely within the individual himself, namely through the concentration of the personal consciousness upon this on form or content, as well as through the imitation of his own self, as it were, which here takes the place of imitation of others.’
555
‘fashion is a complex structure in which all the leading antithetical tendencies of the soul are represented in one way or another’
‘The highest classes, as everyone knows, are the most conservative, and frequently enough they are even archaic. They dread every motion and change’
556
‘fashion, which represents the variable and contrasting forms of life
557
‘fashion, to be sure, is concerned only with change,’
‘which constitutes its very essence’
558
‘fashion lies in the contrast between its extensive, all-embracing distribution and its rapid and complete disintegration’
‘fashion is based on adoption by a social set, which demands mutual imitation from its members