Invisible Dress: Weaving a Theology of Fashion

Alberto Fabio Ambrosio

doi:10.3390/rel10070419

Abstract

This article establishes the framework for a (Christian) theology of fashion, the development of which comes under a research project set up between Luxembourg (Luxembourg School of Religion & Society) and Paris (Collège des Bernardins). The text is structured around three areas: the first reveals how theology can accommodate in its field of thought both the idea of dress (also viewed in terms of its materiality) and the way in which modern society experiments with it: fashion. For as much as theological discourse, particularly Christian, might have shown itself to be critical regarding modern day fashion, it has nevertheless failed to come up with any real theological reflection on the subject. The second area aims to explore responsible ethics for fashion. Often moralising, the attitude of Christian theology needs to give way to an ethical and—vitally—ecological analysis of the effects of fashion in today’s world. Clothing might still cover people’s bodies, but the issue is not restricted to an individual moral point of view, and extends to the social rules of an ethic that is also one of environmental responsibility. Finally, the totally new perspective that I adopt for outlining these areas requires the aesthetics of dress and fashion to be addressed from a theological point of view. For all its rich history, theological aesthetics has hardly ever concerned itself with developing an aesthetic discourse for dress and fashion, other than for liturgical and religious attire. Once these three new research perspectives have been discussed, I want to outline another field of study, in itself extremely fertile: a treasure trove of metaphors and analogies that would be very useful in theological thinking, adding to its inventory terms originating in the uncovering and stripping away of old ways of thinking that no longer convey in contemporary language the mystery that it is meant to clothe.

Highlights

This article establishes the framework for a (Christian) theology of fashion, the development of which comes under a research project set up between Luxembourg
These three landmarks are an introduction to a theology of dress and fashion, as they address three fundamental aspects of epistemology: vision, will and taste
The relation between theology and dress or fashion leads us to consider theologically the main issue of vision behind dress. Speculative theology approaches this relation by developing a reflection on the visible image and Invisibility by the vision of fashion

Summary

Theology and Fashion

This article offers some conditions or landmarks for a theology of dress and fashion, articulating the dialogue between the field of dress and fashion and religious sciences and Christian theology. Based on an analysis of Herman Dooyeweerd, Covolo’s conclusion is quite representative of the approach presented here: “Dooyeweerd’s multi-perspectival view of fashion invites Christians to participate in the rich discourse fashion has taken in our post-Mad Men world His desire to study the complexity and problematic nature of fashion as part of an irreducible conversation resonates with the dialectic’s current location. The Scriptures certainly do not fail to mention the importance of dress They even see as fundamental, in the sense that it plays a key role at certain important points in the biblical narrative, according to which, dress, or the lack of it, was linked to Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:3). Speculative theology must consider dress and fashion as an opportunity for examining the visible image of the Invisible God (Colossian 1:15)

Between Label and Morality

The Theological Aesthetics of Fashion

Conclusion