The Study On Simmel's Aesthetic Of Fashion

Fashion is a word that many scholars have difficulty in defining it.And it is an aesthetic phenomenon that has profound influence on Western civilization or even on modern society after Renaissance.However,as a synonym for shallowness,few philosophers are willing to mention it.We may overlook that the vast majority of people in modern life can't actually escape the influence of fashion.In fact,fashion affects not only our behaviors and way of thinking,but also our insight in modern pace of life.As a result,the interpretation of fashion can helps us to fully understand behaviors and modernity.Georg Simmel is generally regarded as the first person to systematically study the theory of fashion aesthetics.He takes the fragmented social phenomenon as the research object and forms a complete fashion aesthetic system and outlines the basic picture of fashion based on the observation and research of modern life,such as currency,communication and fashion,which includes the detailed information on formation mechanism,transmission mechanism and so on.According to the classic works of Simmel and the author's understanding,this paper discusses the reflection and transcendence of Simmel's fashion aesthetics under the modernity on the basis of fashion aesthetic theory.This paper consists five parts:Introduction mainly introduces the background of this paper and the research significance of Simmel's fashion aesthetics theory.It also involves the research status of Simmel and his thoughts both at home and abroad as well as the research methods of this paper.Chapter one mainly discusses the ideological context of fashion aesthetic theory.To begin with,it states the aesthetic spirit of Simmel of his era based on philosophical dilemma of German at the end of nineteenth century.Then it discusses the aesthetic fashion with the description of metropolis along the rise of the large-scale industrialization.Finally,it talks about the origin of fashion aesthetics from the perspectives of national psychology,Kant's transcendental philosophy and pessimism of Schopenhauer,Nietzsche.Chapter two includes the formation mechanism of Simmel's fashion aesthetics.Fashion belongs to class in essence,which forms an internal dynamic mechanism through classdivision,identity,innovation and imitation.In this chapter,it concludes the specific connotation of class division through analyzing the background and history of class division.At the same time,as a symbol of identity,fashion forms identity towards class both horizontally and vertically.This part also analyzes Lars Svendsen's critical conservation and development about identification.Chapter three is the communication mechanism of Simmel's fashion aesthetic theory.Fashion always comes from the upper class and flows vertically to the lower class to complete its own spread and development.Both Blumer and Svendsen have a dialectical development on drip theory that conforms to the times.At the same time,fashion is transient because it is constantly in the cycle of destruction and construction.The existence and non-existence of fashion are the eternal development orientation.But specially,the opposite of fashion is classic.Meanwhile,there is also a cyclical cycle of fashion as people's aesthetics constantly change and develop.Chapter four consists of the modern value of Simmel's fashion aesthetics.With the rapid development of modern society and the continuous advancement of currency culture,the problem of modern society is no longer about food and clothing but the pressure of the spiritual world and the suppression of the heart.As a part of the modern life,fashion helps us to interpret modernity from an aesthetic perspective and complete the aesthetic redemption in the modern dilemma.It is also conducive to adjusting the identity of the centralization in the past and gradually forming the identity of decentralization in order to bridge the gap between different social classes,and complete the psychological compensation of modern people.