Art seen from outside: Non-artistic legitimation within the field of fashion design
Highlights
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- Art and fashion are two fields of cultural production marked by shifting boundaries.
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- The interaction produces cross-fertilization, metamorphosis, identity, and legitimation.
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- Milanese fashion designers do not use art as a means to acquire legitimacy.
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- They seek to legitimate their cultural production through a culture of wearability.
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- Field of cultural production can seek legitimation in ways other than artification.
Abstract
This
article focuses on the relation between art and fashion—two fields of
cultural production marked by contrasts and shifting boundaries—by
investigating it in light of the perceptions of art among ordinary
fashion designers. Drawing on an institutional perspective that
conceives fashion and art as social fields, we summarise the effects
produced between the two fields, and we outline the processes of
identity formation and the legitimation of fields of cultural
production. Empirical research on a sample of Milanese fashion designers
allow us to determine whether or not fashion designers use art as a
means to acquire legitimacy and to create an identity, thereby
institutionalising their field of cultural production (fashion) as
artistic. Our argument is that identification with art is often rejected
by ordinary fashion designers, who seek to legitimate their cultural
production, not through art, but through a culture of wearability. The
case of Milanese fashion adds breadth and depth to the theory of
artification and to the production of culture theory by showing that
comparison with the fine arts by actors in a field of cultural
production in constant search of legitimation may come about through
channels other than assimilation into the world of art.
Keywords
- Artistic identity;
- Artistic legitimation;
- Fashion designers;
- Fashion/art relationship;
- Aesthetic mobility;
- Artification
Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Paolo Volonté,
Ph.D. in Philosophy (University of Freiburg, Germany) and Sociology
(Università Cattolica of Milan, Italy), is an Associate Professor of
Sociology of Culture at the School of Design of Politecnico di Milano.
He is co-editor in chief of the International Journal of Fashion Studies.
His research activity especially concerns the sociology of science, of
design, and of fashion. His most recent book is Vita da stilista: Il
ruolo sociale del fashion designer (BrunoMondadori, 2008).
