GILLES LIPOVETSKY

Gilles Lipovetsky is a french philospher and sociologist, born in Millau in 1944. He is

a professor at the University of Grenoble. He is mostly known for being the author of books
such as „The Era of Vacuum” or „Hypermodern Times”.
Lipovetsky began his philosophical career as a marxist, however he has changed his
philosophy and these days he accepts capitalism as „the only only legitimate economic
model”. When questioned about his change in stance from his marxist beginning he replies
"only idiots never change opinion."

He is trying to analyse today’s postmodernism and hyper-consumer society

(hyperconsumption is a consumption which absorbs and integrates more and more spheres
of social life and which encourages individuals to consume for their own personal pleasure
rather than to enhance their social status). Among other things he claims that people these
days become more and more narcissistic, hedonistic (hedonism is a school of thought that
argues seeking pleasure and avoiding suffering are the only components of well-being.) and
individualistic. As time goes by they become slaves of their own will, which is weak. They
are influenced by the pressure of society (e.g. when it comes to fashion) and they live mostly
by themselves because love for another human-being is too hard for them to carry.

Gilles in his analisys describes a transition from the society of culture to the society of
fashion. He draws his conclusions basing on the western model of society.
He noticed that the majority of the spheres in modern societies (e.g. economy,
advertisment, media, everyday life) function accordingly with the mechanism of fashion,
which in the past regulated the types of behaviour connected with fashion.

Characteristic features of fashion:

a) Variability
b) Short duration of interest of the newest trends
c) Influence by seduction
d) Small differences between newly introduced products

Lipovetsky gives a special name to a type of society that follows these characteristics
– the society of fashion. In his book titled „L'Empire de l'éphémère: La mode et son destin
dans les sociétés modernes” (eng. „The Empire of Fashion”) he analysed the historic process
of formation of the societies of fashion in Western Europe.
 Gilles got inspired by Gabriel Tarde, who claimed that the social cohesion is based on
imitation. There are 2 basic forms of imitation: the custom and fashion.
• The custom consists of imitating the patterns that come from the ancestors and the elders
within small societies.
• Fashion is about imitating designs that either come from other countries or the current
broad social environment.

The custom focuses on reproduction of the past, while fashion is all about the now and
the future. Tarde believed that the dominating form of imitations is the custom. Fashion only
dominates for short periods of time when one custom is changing to another.

That’s where Lipovetsky disagrees with him. He notices that ever since the 18th century, in
Western Europe, fashion overshadows the custom. The reign of fashion releases an individual
from being subordinate to small groups and local communities. It permits choosing a way to
live through selecting different elements from the surroundings in an individual way. It is
because fashion is about imitating many people in small aspects and creating your own,
unique way of living from the patterns available in the society.

Consuptionism
According to Lipovetsky, the consumption culture enforces the freedom of an individual. It
increases the range of his democratic rights and is a foundation of the current social order. In
huge, urbanized societies an individual has to become more independent. In the past, when
societies consisted of smaller groups (such as tribes) they had bigger control and protection
over individuals. Nowadays the control and protection are smaller, therefore an individualis
left on his own and bonds within the small groups are becoming weaker because an individual
belongs to many groups at the same time.

Aleksandra Bereza
Mikołaj Czerski