Fashioning Theory: A Critical Discussion of the Symbolic Interactionist Theory of Fashion

Abstract

This essay responds to the symbolic interactionist theory of fashion by Kaiser, Nagasawa, and Hutton in terms of fashion history research, theory construction, and interdisciplinary investigation of fashionable behavior. Concerns regarding assumptions about past fashion and theoretical premises are analyzed, even as the provocative questions that the theory poses for studying fashion in its contexts are affirmed.