Simmel on Fashion. A Commented Reading of the 1911 Essay

The purpose of this essay is to engage in a philosophical reading of the final version of Georg Simmel’s celebrated essay on fashion (Simmel 1911). This paper comments Simmel’s text extract by extract and divides it into five parts (1. Theoretical premises; 2. The social principle of fashion; 3. Implications of the antinomical nature of the fashion concept; 4. The style of soul; 5. Historical and aesthetic implications) ending with the conclusion. One of the central theses of the interpretation proposed here is a critique of the exegetical myth that critical reception of Simmel’s work has laboured under, namely that according to which he is essentially to be seen as the exponent of the so-called “trickle-down” theory on the origin and transmission of fashion. This paper will, by contrast, show that for Simmel, fashion’s primary role is to function as a model, or framework, of a form of life representing a paradigm of the setting up of social groups, both in general terms and, above all, in the real context which followed on from the birth of the great metropolises in which social relations are often detached from deep-rooted and profound meanings. This is an aspect of Simmel’s essay which acquired special significance in the 1911 version.