Paradoxes of Modernist Consumption – Reading Fashions

Wilfred Dolfsma ()

ERIM Report Series Research in Management from Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam

Abstract: Fashion is the quintessential post-modernist consumer practice, or so many hold. In this contribution, I argue that, on the contrary, fashion should be understood as a means of communicating one's commitment to modernist values. I introduce the framework of the Social Value Network, to relate such values to institutionalised consumption behaviour, allowing one to signal to others. Modernist values are not homogenous, and are in important ways contradictory, giving rise to the dynamics of fashion that can be observed.

Keywords: consumption; fashion; identity; modernism; symbolic goods (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D12 L2 M M10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004-06-23
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Related works:
Chapter: Paradoxes of Modernist Consumption: Reading Fashions (2009)
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