Introduction to Eugen Fink, "Fashion: Seductive Play".

In Germany, 1969, Eugen Fink's Fashion: Seductive Play was published. This first English language edition, updated with an introduction by Stefano Marino and Giovanni Matteucci, makes available Fink's philosophical investigation into fashion to an English-speaking audience. One of the greatest figures in the “phenomenological movement,” Fink here investigates fashion at various philosophical levels - aesthetic, ethical, social - and in relationship to other forms of human culture, especially contemporary culture. Although there have been many transformations and changes in the world of fashion since the late 1960s, from prêt-à-porter to fast fashion, fashion's connection to both high culture and popular culture, and the new relationship between fashion and the advent of social media, Fink's insights allow wide-ranging and far-reaching inquiries into fashion's philosophical essence. Fink's extraordinary lucidity and his unique conceptual capacities have made his work crucial to the study of the philosophy of fashion today. His work, like that of Simmel's, Veblen's or Benjamin's, is as essential and important now as when it was first published. Fink's book, now translated into English for the first time, is introduced by a long essay written by the two editors, Stefano Marino and Giovanni Matteucci, and structured in various sections: "On the Very Idea of a Philosophy of Fashion", "Play, World, and Fashion in Fink’s Philosophy", "The Culture Industry and the (Fruitful) Antagonisms and Oscillations of Fashion", "The Significance of Fink’s Philosophical Contribution on Fashion", "The Beauty of Appearance", "The Expressive Force, From Skin to Clothing", "The Anthropological Meaning of Fashion and the Living Body". Part One of this introductory essay includes three sections and was written by Stefano Marino, while Part Two includes four sections and was written by Giovanni Matteucci. The general structure and contents of the Introduction, however, have been planned, discussed, and conceived together by both authors.