DRESSCODES 9
“C’est la loi qui a tout réglé”: Clothing utopias and the ideology of the nobility (1780–1850)
In the second half of the 18th century and the first half of the 19th century, both revolutionary and social-utopian discourses on clothing engaged in a radical critique of fashion. According to these views, fashion was harmful because it was fundamentally distinctive, whether politically or economically. For this reason, it was deemed necessary to replace it with a new, more egalitarian yet at the same time more rigid clothing system. This presentation aims to reconstruct the principles of this discourse and to question its lineage. How is it that these conceptions, which advocate for greater equality, paradoxically inherit the noble ideology of luxury?