Philosophical look at clothing reveals deeply human patterns of behaviour

A Philospher Looks at Clothes approaches fashion from a rarely used perspective and turns it into a thought-provoking topic.

- By Sarah Richmond

With a few exceptions, philosophers have had little to say about clothes.

Maybe this is because the topic seems frivolous, or feminine, unworthy of the attention of a predominantly male collection of thinkers.

Perhaps, too, the transience of fashion, and the fact that clothes belong - quite literally - to the domain of mere appearance, also has something to do with it.

In A Philosopher Looks at Clothes, an engaging and informative book, Kate Moran, philosophy professor at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, urges us to think again.

As Moran points out, clothing looms large in life. Every day we dress, deciding how many layers to wear and whether we need a coat - or might a cardigan suffice? We gaze critically at other people's choices ("OMG, those shoes!"). We wonder how to rise to the challenge of an imminent Eurovision-themed party.

The original shame

From a historical point of view, also, our species-specific recourse to clothes stretches back to the earliest human society. In mythical time, it begins with Adam and Eve's discovery, in shame, that they were naked. If fashion is transient, clothes, per se, are not.