Task 7/8

According Sanda Miller from chapter 1 of ‘Fashion Media: Past and Present’ from eighteenth century the first start of the fashion magazine had emerged. Functioning as [1] “the most up-to-date social, cultural and artistic developments but also as self-styled…taste”. Once the fashion magazine (Le Mercure Galant) was accepted it was aimed to cover the aspects of the arts, as well as the opinions of others. Le Mercure Galant was short lived however ahead of its time and was reintroduced as Mercure de France.
During this time fashion magazines gradually introduced a wider “intellectual profile”, which lead to introduce products of ‘the Enlightenment’, also known as ‘Age of Reason’ during the French Revolution. This then soon led to the publication of an altogether different type of magazine ‘Le premiere journal des modes’. Being which the linking of fashion and taste in the title testifies to the “concept of taste”.
Miller questions the philosophical aesthetics and whether it is a matter of individual personal opinion or whether we are influenced by the person experiencing it. Miller uses the common phrase ‘beauty is in the eyes of the beholder’ and questions whether there is a “common denominator” therefore actual valid judgements or “an emotional response to the aesthetic experience”.
Miller talks a lot about David Hume’s essay ‘Of the Standard Taste’ and how he argues very much on the “great variety of taste, as well as of opinion”. This led me on to do more of my own research on the concept of taste on fashion. I came across a paper on the ‘The Dynamics of Style and Taste Adoption and Diffusion: Contributions From Fashion Theory’ by Charles W. King, Purdue University and Lawrence J. Ring, University of Virginia. It explains that [2]‘style in fashion is related to the concept of taste’, that taste becomes a style in fashion when enough individual opinions relate to one another.
I then came across an article from ‘The Protagonist Magazine’ ‘Is fashion really about taste? The Vulgar: Fashion Refined’. [3]“Bad taste doesn’t exist. There is just taste.”; the article states that if something is vulgar it is not always necessarily what we are looking at but its perception. Is it actually them being vulgar or is the people before us criticizing them? Does the criticism that we heard or read from others before us remain with us and change our perspective?
Many people stand with Miller and agree that fashion began in Paris [1]“everything began in Paris.” This was also stated in the book ‘The End of Fashion’ by Teri Agins [4]“Paris still stood on ceremony as the fashion capital of the world”. However, Paris was upstaged by other Italian and American fashion labels. Paris managed to maintain their position in high fashion however by the mid-1990s the fact was that French fashion wasn’t selling the way it used to and the French designers were by then in the history.
In conclusion, the first fashion magazine may have been published in France however I do not share the same opinion that fashion media began in France because it is regarded as universal. Fashion is Art and Art did not suddenly appear but grew and developed over time and travelled through different countries and cultures as did fashion. It cannot simply be pinned to one place as fashion is art and art is in everything.

Bibliography

[1] Fashion and Media, Past and Present, Bartlett, Cole, Rocamora

[2]The Dynamics of Style and Taste Adoption and Diffusion: Contributions From Fashion Theory
Charles W. King, Lawrence J. Ring    http://acrwebsite.org/volumes/9638/volumes/v07/NA-07

[3] The Protagonist Magazine, Is fashion really about taste? The Vulgar: Fashion Redefined http://www.theprotagonistmagazine.com/fashion/the-vulgar

[4] The End of Fashion, Teri Agins