Bourdieu, P. (1995) “Haute couture and haute culture” in Sociology in Question. London: Sage.
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Excerpts
Fashion is a very prestigious subject in the sociological tradition, at the same time as being apparently rather frivolous … there are scientific profits to be drawn from scientifically studying ‘unworthy’ objects.
Can it stand up to the long-standing criticism of fashion's frivolity and futility? As Critical Fashion can do nothing but act as an antithesis, it cannot engage in the 'sociology of fashion'.
The established figures have conservation strategies aimed at deriving profit from progressively accumulated capital. The newcomers have subversion strategies … which presuppose a more or less radical reversal of the table of values … and … a devaluation of the capital of the established figures.
Will this still work in the 2020s? Designers who were once radical have now become mainstream - will the radicalism of a new avant-garde that runs counter to them still really work?
Courrèges made statements that went far beyond fashion: he was no longer talking about fashion, but about the modern woman, who had to be free, uninhibited, sporty, relaxed … he does not talk about fashion; he talks about lifestyle and says: ‘I want to dress the modern woman, who must be both active and practical’.
Why is this going beyond fashion? What does it mean to engage with fashion, or to talk about it? What does it mean to abandon conventional fashion?
Fashion is the latest fashion, the latest difference. An emblem of class (in all senses) withers once it loses its distinctive power. When the miniskirt reaches the mining villages of northern France, it’s time to start all over again.
It is an era where even people in mining villages in northern France are watching TikTok. So how should be this be adpated? Does everyone have to start from scratch?
Opening
Bourdieu viewed fashion and its value - or, more precisely, the value of high fashion such as haute couture - not as the couturier's or designer's (and nowadays creative directors) genius, but as the effect of a network of relations in which rarity is produced through actors within high culture conferring recognition on one another's authority. Could it be said then that creativity is not the source of the power a designer holds, but rather the collective belief that reproduces that power? if so, critical approach - as when Courrèges criticised Dior, and Hechter in turn criticised Courrèges - may be nothing more than confirmation that each is a target worth attacking. This consensual attack makes possible what Bourdieu calls 'collective misrecognition': mistaking power generated by relations for individual ability or the inherent value of things.
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