Value, Virtue, and Vivienne Westwood: On the Philosophical Importance of Fashion
In the aforementioned quote, Vivienne Westwood sketches a role for fashion that elevates it from the prosaic to the status of art, as something important, life-enhancing, and worthy of pursuit. Here, a philosophical treatment of Westwood’s vision of fashion that does justice to the artistic and life...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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De Gruyter
2023-08-01
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| Series: | Open Philosophy |
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| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1515/opphil-2022-0250 |
| _version_ | 1797740411200995328 |
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| author | Olive Colette |
| author_facet | Olive Colette |
| author_sort | Olive Colette |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | In the aforementioned quote, Vivienne Westwood sketches a role for fashion that elevates it from the prosaic to the status of art, as something important, life-enhancing, and worthy of pursuit. Here, a philosophical treatment of Westwood’s vision of fashion that does justice to the artistic and life-enhancing value that fashion can realise is offered, using an emergent theory in contemporary analytic aesthetics. The virtue theory of art delineates the intrinsic worth of art in terms of the opportunities it provides for us to exercise and cultivate virtues such as courage, self-expression, imagination, wit, or authenticity. Our engagement with art can subsequently be genuinely life-enhancing in lieu of the constitutive role the virtues play in living well. The present study takes Westwood’s claims as a jumping-off point, considering how they speak not just to her own designs but to our relationship with our clothes more broadly. Fashion is defended as a practice that performs this function in analogous ways to other genres of art and thus has clear artistic value as well as enables us to live well. Given this potential, just as Westwood claimed, there are reasons to perform the practice well because it has importance for the ways in which it can realise artistic value and aid us in living well. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-12T14:12:03Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-d7f6b52e966048cb80c8f59694d1f21c |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2543-8875 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-12T14:12:03Z |
| publishDate | 2023-08-01 |
| publisher | De Gruyter |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Open Philosophy |
| spelling | doaj.art-d7f6b52e966048cb80c8f59694d1f21c2023-08-21T06:42:44ZengDe GruyterOpen Philosophy2543-88752023-08-01614819510.1515/opphil-2022-0250Value, Virtue, and Vivienne Westwood: On the Philosophical Importance of FashionOlive Colette0Department of Philosophy, Kings College London, London, United KingdomIn the aforementioned quote, Vivienne Westwood sketches a role for fashion that elevates it from the prosaic to the status of art, as something important, life-enhancing, and worthy of pursuit. Here, a philosophical treatment of Westwood’s vision of fashion that does justice to the artistic and life-enhancing value that fashion can realise is offered, using an emergent theory in contemporary analytic aesthetics. The virtue theory of art delineates the intrinsic worth of art in terms of the opportunities it provides for us to exercise and cultivate virtues such as courage, self-expression, imagination, wit, or authenticity. Our engagement with art can subsequently be genuinely life-enhancing in lieu of the constitutive role the virtues play in living well. The present study takes Westwood’s claims as a jumping-off point, considering how they speak not just to her own designs but to our relationship with our clothes more broadly. Fashion is defended as a practice that performs this function in analogous ways to other genres of art and thus has clear artistic value as well as enables us to live well. Given this potential, just as Westwood claimed, there are reasons to perform the practice well because it has importance for the ways in which it can realise artistic value and aid us in living well.https://doi.org/10.1515/opphil-2022-0250fashionvirtueaesthetic valueartstylewell-being |
| spellingShingle | Olive Colette Value, Virtue, and Vivienne Westwood: On the Philosophical Importance of Fashion Open Philosophy fashion virtue aesthetic value art style well-being |
| title | Value, Virtue, and Vivienne Westwood: On the Philosophical Importance of Fashion |
| title_full | Value, Virtue, and Vivienne Westwood: On the Philosophical Importance of Fashion |
| title_fullStr | Value, Virtue, and Vivienne Westwood: On the Philosophical Importance of Fashion |
| title_full_unstemmed | Value, Virtue, and Vivienne Westwood: On the Philosophical Importance of Fashion |
| title_short | Value, Virtue, and Vivienne Westwood: On the Philosophical Importance of Fashion |
| title_sort | value virtue and vivienne westwood on the philosophical importance of fashion |
| topic | fashion virtue aesthetic value art style well-being |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1515/opphil-2022-0250 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT olivecolette valuevirtueandviviennewestwoodonthephilosophicalimportanceoffashion |