Sociology of fashion: What would Luhmann say?

Abstract

Fashion is often linked to fleeting trends and seasonal clothing changes, leading to its dismissal as socially insignificant. However, we argue that sociology must recognize the ‘in/out' difference as a key temporal dynamic shaping the functioning of various societal subsystems. We illustrate fashion's influence in three areas: the social sciences and humanities, the visual arts, and the clothing economy, emphasizing its varying degrees of impact. To clarify these differences and the broader logic of fashion, we draw on Niklas Luhmann's social systems theory, where fashion operates as performative semantics in science, a secondary code in the arts, and a conditioning second code in the clothing industry. We also incorporate Pierre Bourdieu's field theory to analyze further fashion's role across domains and to offer small-scale empirical case studies of the functioning of the temporal logic of fashion in every subsystem. Our approach proposes a transversal yet open theory of fashion – anchored in social systems theory while fostering interdisciplinary connections. Additionally, we argue that fashion has gained increasing influence in several societal subsystems in recent decades. In hypermodernity, this intensification of ‘fashionability' – a heightened focus on the present through the in/out distinction – coexists with a countertrend of canonization, in which theories and artistic movements are ‘detemporalized' to attain lasting significance.

Introduction

Like cultural studies and gender studies, fashion studies has established itself as an autonomous discipline, supported by educational programs, research centers, and a growing number of dedicated scientific journals. Culture and gender have been widely recognized as pervasive forces shaping all aspects of contemporary society; yet, fashion has not. Fashion scholarship has a long tradition in critiquing the dismissal of fashion as a socially and culturally superficial subject, treated merely as a byproduct of (late) modern society rather than as an active force shaping the interactions and organization of its institutions and spheres. This delegitimization is rooted in fashion's entanglement with culturally modernist hierarchies that associate it pejoratively with, among other topics, the (female) body, the transitory, and the mundane. Nevertheless, both conceptually (e.g., Lehmann, 2000) and empirically (e.g., Fillipello and Parkins, 2023), fashion offers a critical lens through which to interrogate the structures and practices of modernity itself.

Fashion studies operate at the intersection of the humanities and social sciences. The field tends to focus primarily on fashion as it relates to clothing, dress, and appearance – both in the earlier object-centered and material approaches (Breward, 1995; Miller and Woodward, 2012) and in the renewed materialist study of clothing and the dressed body (Smelik, 2018). Influential interpretations also examine fashion as a system of signification expressed through clothing, whether in the stable binary frameworks associated with modernist theorists such as Simmel, or in the more fluid constructions characteristic of postmodernist views on identity (Baudrillard, 1993; Lipovetsky, 1994). Additionally, the considerable focus on fashion as a cultural industry that produces and markets material goods reinforces this emphasis on what Kawamura (2005: 2) refers to as ‘clothing-fashion'.

The garment industry perspective include competing theories as to the dissemination of clothing-fashion trends (Blumer, 1969; Bourdieu, 1983; Kuipers et al., 2023; Simmel, 1957); the conceptualization of clothing-fashion as an aesthetic economy, wherein aesthetic meaning systems coexist – and often conflict – with commercial imperatives (Entwistle, 2002) while still reinforcing the longstanding yet crumbling symbolic boundary between the luxury, high-end segment and the mass market (Bourdieu and Delsaut, 1975; Rocamora, 2002); the role of gatekeepers or ‘cultural intermediaries' (Bourdieu, 1984: 359) in constructing the cultural narratives that legitimize, uphold, or challenge the symbolic boundaries of this industry (Brans, 2024; Van de Peer, 2014a, 2014b); and, importantly, the transnational inequalities embedded in the industry's persistent violations of planetary and human boundaries (Almila and Delice, 2023).

The sociologist Yuniya Kawamura (2005: 2) distinguishes fashion ‘as a concept in a broader sense' from clothing-fashion. The sociology of fashion broadly recognizes that fashion extends far beyond garments, material consumer goods, and aesthetically charged practices. Fashion influences various social domains. From the names we give our children (Lieberson, 2000) to the research methods employed in social science (Kuipers, 2022), fashion shapes diverse aspects of life – albeit in distinct ways and to varying degrees.

For example, Patrik Aspers and Frédéric Godart (2013: 172), in a review article, emphasize fashion's broad societal impact, arguing:

[H]ardly any area of contemporary social life is not subject to fashion […]. We argue that the increased interest in fashion […] should be acknowledged as a sign of both its importance and its generality. And sociologists are well equipped with theory and research tools to understand and explain this phenomenon.

We support the argument that fashion operates across diverse spheres of social life by asking what insights the systems-theoretical approach of German sociologist Niklas Luhmann might offer. We explore fashion's influence in three domains: the social sciences and humanities, the visual arts, and the clothing economy, emphasizing its varying degrees of impact across these societal subsystems. To illustrate this influence, we present small-scale empirical case studies for each subsystem.

Fashion as temporal logic and horizontal differentiation

Social theorists have conceptualized fashion as a temporal phenomenon governed by the logics of in/out (Vinken, 2005), independent of materialization or aesthetics. Herbert Blumer (1969: 286) observed that fashion ‘implies a readiness to denigrate given older forms of life as being outmoded', highlighting relationality as a cornerstone of its temporal logic. Van de Peer (2014a, 2014b) expanded on this mutually constitutive dynamic by connecting fashion to cultural modernity, drawing on philosopher Peter Osborne's definition of a politics of time shared by la mode and modernity ‘which takes the temporal structures of social practices as the specific objects of its transformative (or preservative) intent' (Osborne, 1995: xi).

The relational temporal logic of the fashion concept shows itself in how people relate to the clothes they wear and has been institutionalized in the field of fashion production (Van de Peer, 2014a, 2014b). Bourdieu's (1996: 154–161) field dynamic of ‘faire date' or making a cultural object or practice seem dated or belonging to the past, sociologized fashion's modern logic of advancedness and backwardness because ‘faire date’ propels change within fields of production and consumption. Fashion scholarship has established that industry professionals – from early 20th-century couturiers (Parkins, 2012) and esteemed newspaper fashion journalists (Van de Peer, 2015) to a diverse array of luxury fashion professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic (Van de Peer, in press) – actively engage in ‘faire date'. Through this process, they assert both the authority of the restricted field of luxury fashion production and their own roles as creators and legitimators who determine which garments are ‘in' and which styles are ‘out'.

Sociology has primarily engaged with the vertical differentiation of ‘clothes fashion', examining its intersections with various axes such as age (Twigg, 2013), gender (Crane, 2000), and, most notably, social class (Bourdieu, 1984; Simmel, 1957; Veblen, 1899). The primacy of the vertical differentiation of clothes-fashion reveals itself in the trickle-down model for cultural diffusion, which remains a foundational assumption within the fashion industry and serves as a core paradigm in fashion scholarship. However, Kuipers et al. (2023) demonstrated that changes in the aesthetic elements of fashion styles portrayed in fashion magazines between 1982 and 2011 were also driven by horizontal differentiation mechanisms, such as ‘immediate attunement', which facilitates trend diffusion through the sharing of information and material resources, and ‘identity' (Kuipers et al., 2023: 137–138).

A comprehensive sociological analysis of modernity must exceed attention given to the horizontal differentiation within the domain of clothing-fashion. For besides horizontal differentiation within the realm of culture, modern society too, is characterized by this form of social diversity. Indeed, society at large combines vertical differentiation, or class stratification, with a horizontal differentiation between autonomous subsystems on the basis of their fulfilling of a primary function (Luhmann, 2012). These functional subsystems all perform a specific societal ‘task', such as the economy (function: production and distribution of goods and services given scarcity), education (transmission of specialized knowledge), politics (taking of collectively binding decisions), the juridical subsystem (securing compliance with norms), and science and the arts to which we return later. Notwithstanding the centrality of some subsystems for the global organization of society, there exists no principal hierarchy among them. They are all necessary, witness for instance the fact that the economy, which is often considered to be the prime basis of societal life, requires contracts, hence law, for its functioning.

We align with Aspers and Godart (2013) in defining fashion, as a temporal phenomenon governed by the logic of in/out (Vinken, 2005), as a process of change that occurs ‘against a backdrop of order in the public realm' (Aspers and Godart, 2013: 171). Empirical sociological studies have analyzed the construction of such a backdrop of order for the economic subsystem of fashion (Brans, 2024; Van de Peer, 2014a, 2014b) and for immaterial phenomena. Most notably, in a study of fashion in children's first names, Lieberson (2000) argues that several internal mechanisms govern shifting taste patterns in names, one of them being internal rhythm. These shifts are neither volatile nor fast paced but unfold in a particular direction over a longer period, generating a shared public understanding of which names are considered ‘in' and which are ‘out', thus producing a sense of order within the fashion of names (see Aspers and Godart, 2013). Yet, this temporal mechanism operates on a different, slower timescale than that of clothing-fashion.

Our unorthodox Luhmannian perspective on the transversality of fashion expands upon Aspers and Godart's definition by enabling an interrogation of the backdrop of order against which fashion manifests not only within the clothing economy but also in the sciences and arts. We propose that this backdrop of order is located in the dominant and stable codes of these specific domains. Our approach to fashion remains largely at the conceptual level, aiming to advance a broader societal-theoretical perspective that enhances the recognition of fashion's wide-ranging societal significance (Aspers and Godart, 2013). However, as Lieberson did for children's names, we also describe through the case studies the varying rhythms that provide a temporal order to fashion change within these subsystems.

Luhmann in fashion

Systems theory offers interesting conceptual tools for developing a transversal theory of fashion that enables sociologists to describe how the fashion logic of in/out works in divergent functional subsystems to varying degrees and intensities. Luhmann himself wrote sparingly on fashion, contributing a review of a book on clothing-fashion to the topic (Luhmann, 1984) and a discussion on shifts in the semantics of fashion during modernity (Luhmann, 2000a).

Fashion scholarship drawing on Luhmann's social systems theory has primarily emphasized two themes. The first is the conceptualization of the paradoxes upon which fashion thrives (Esposito, 2011). The second is the ongoing debate about whether fashion, like education, law, or science, constitutes a self-producing social subsystem, with its own unique societal function. This question remains unresolved. Scholars supporting the idea of fashion as an autonomous subsystem argue that the fashion system is regulated by the temporal logic of in/out (Loschek, 2009; Schmidt, 2007). Others, however – more convincingly, in our view – contend that fashion is not a fully autonomous subsystem, as it absorbs and reflects developments in other systems, such as the arts, indicating that it is not entirely self-producing (Esposito, 2004; Schiermer, 2010).

We draw on Luhmannian systems theory as a foundational source of conceptual inspiration, yet we do so selectively. We first introduce some key notions of Luhmann's systems theory and how the implied abstract view on society may be combined with core insights from Pierre Bourdieu's more dynamic approach of fields. For readers seeking a more detailed introduction to systems theory, including its applications to fashion, we refer to comprehensive guides such as those by Moeller (2006), Laermans (2016), and Van de Peer (2016).

We use a systems theoretical lens to explore the temporal logic of fashion's influence in three domains: the social sciences and humanities, the visual arts, and the clothing economy, emphasizing its varying degrees of impact across these societal subsystems. To illustrate this influence, we present in a loose way for each subsystem empirical examples that serve as an invitation for future empirical work to engage with our primarily conceptual contribution. To do so, we point toward possible avenues and inspiration for such operationalizations for the subsystems under consideration.

We end our plea for a transversal sociology of fashion through an exploration of some of the crucial questions raised by our argument. Is it reasonable to argue that fashion plays its part in all functional subsystems? Or are some societal domains perhaps immune to the logic of in/out? How can we understand that especially in the postmodern era – which, according to Harvey (1989: 44), ‘swims, even wallows, in the fragmentary and the chaotic currents of change as if that is all there is' – the temporal logic of fashion began to seep through the cracks of various societal subsystems? Or did fashion perhaps enter the stage in postmodernity as a characteristic of the diminishing belief in grand narratives? Yet, is the seemingly expanding logic of in/out not also countered by a growing focus on heritage and, concomitantly, processes of canonization?

Conceptual building blocks for a transversal approach to fashion in contemporary society

Semantics and codes

The final version of Luhmann's systems theory rests on the axiom that all meaningful observation – or interpretation – is based on the use of distinctions, or the so-called ‘forms'. When we designate something as ‘this', we implicitly or explicitly distinguish it from ‘that'. Identification, in short, is synonymous with differentiation. An observation such as ‘this is typical middle-class behavior' involves several distinctions: this/that, typical/atypical, behavior/thought, and middle-class/upper (or lower) class.

A form is a two-sided distinction used one-sidedly. In modern culture, the temporal difference between in and out serves as an exemplary case: something is either in or out of fashion. This makes it a semantic – a socially institutionalized difference to observe or to make sense of phenomena (Morgner, 2022). From this perspective, a garment is not inherently fashionable or outdated in any strong ontological sense. The in/out distinction operates as a ready-made schema, a seemingly self-evident lens through which meaning is assigned. More broadly, dual observational schemas constitute the core of culture, echoing the binary distinctions emphasized in the structuralist tradition (Laermans, 2016).

Differentiation is also central to Luhmann's understanding of society. As noted, modern society is primarily structured through functional – or horizontal – differentiation. While recent developments may justify diagnostic labels such as late modernity or postmodernity, functional differentiation remains a defining feature of contemporary society (Luhmann, 2012). We continue to inhabit a society marked by distinct differences in function and operativity among now-globalized subsystems, such as law, education, media, the economy, politics, and science. Each functional subsystem operates according to a binary code which, in combination with its primary societal ‘task', establishes its autonomy in relation to other domains.

A code is also a distinction or form, originating from a semantic but, through societal evolution and historical conditions, coming to determine the functioning of a specific societal sphere. For example, transactions have long been observed according to whether something is paid for or not. Over time, however, the distinction between payment and non-payment evolved into a regulatory code. This shift occurred alongside the autonomization of economic action, as it became differentiated from direct political decision making or partial steering by religious norms, such as those concerning interest rates. In line with the observational nature of forms and semantics, codes function as filters. To stay with the example of the economy, actions are observed through the code of payment versus non-payment: money is either involved or it is not (Luhmann, 1994). When this distinction is situationally irrelevant, it is also irrelevant to the functioning of the economic subsystem. For instance, inspecting clothes in a store is not considered an economic action.

Code, medium, and program

The distinction between money and no money is not only binary – one either pays or does not – but also carries an inherent preference. The economy privileges payments over non-payments, as the positive value enables further operations: an actual payment makes a new payment possible. This reflects the self-referentiality characteristic of all autopoietic systems: new payments – or more generally, new communications, as Luhmann (1995) frames it since he considers communication the basic operation of social systems – refer to previous ones and/or anticipate future ones.

The positive value functions – at least in principle – as situationally binding. In a store, a client can reasonably expect that, under certain conditions, money will be accepted by the seller in exchange for the desired commodity. By contrast, money has no intrinsic binding force in the domain of law. When legal judgments are paid for, this indicates bribery. The concept of a system specific, symbolically generalized communication medium – originally introduced by Talcott Parsons – captures the observation that, in the economy, money functions as the principal medium of communication and significantly increases, to the point of being imperative, the likelihood that an expressed intention to purchase a good or service will be accepted. In short, money can be described as a system-specific communicative success medium. However, handing over money does not automatically constitute a successful payment. Whether a payment is effectuated depends on the listed – or negotiated – price.

Prices steer – or, in Luhmann's terms, program – the handing over of money in one direction or another, within the binary code that regulates the economy. The theoretical distinction between the economy's general code (payment/non-payment) and the subsystem's program (prices) highlights the conditioning role of prices within the subsystem where money serves as the general medium of communication. It also clarifies how variation – manifested as competition – emerges within a market economy. While the economic code remains invariant, diversity arises at the programmatic level through differences in pricing strategies: different stores may set different prices for the same product.

Taking into account Bourdieu's field approach

There is a clear affinity between Luhmann's conception of modern society as functionally differentiated and Bourdieu's notion of society as divided into distinct fields. Despite their markedly different overarching frameworks – and Bourdieu's emphasis on cultural production – two critical differences can be identified between these approaches. These divergences appear substantial enough to preclude further theoretical integration (see also Nassehi and Nollmann, 2004).

First, Bourdieu begins from the primacy of class-based differentiation. Class differences influence students’ academic success and individuals’ or households’ purchasing power. This, however, does not necessarily contradict the autonomous operation of subsystems outlined above. The education system functions according to the code of pass/fail (usually modulated through grades), while the economy is structured around payment and non-payment – where curricula and prices govern these codes, respectively. The ability to afford a high-priced item due to class-based income disparities does not undermine system-specific functioning. Prices are generated internally within the economy through competition, monopolies, and supply and demand rather than direct class influence. In functionalist terms, while the economy's primary role is producing and distributing goods within scarcity, it also reproduces class inequality unintentionally as a secondary effect. This logic applies equally to the field of fashion, where trickle-down effects based on status differentials exemplify the same process.

Second, building on the primacy of class distinctions at the societal level, Bourdieu foregrounds power differentials as a driving force in the struggle over scarce resources, such as economic capital and, within restricted fields of cultural production, symbolic capital. This explicitly conflict-oriented perspective is largely absent from Luhmann's systems theory, which is often critiqued as complicit in reinforcing the societal status quo. Nevertheless, Bourdieu's analytical focus on power and struggle can be productively integrated into Luhmann's analysis of contemporary society.

Modern society is differentiated into two principal ways. At the macrolevel, functional differentiation takes precedence over class-based stratification and other vertical forms, such as those based on gender or ethnicity. Simultaneously, society is differentiated across various levels: the macrolevel (societal level in the strict sense), the mesolevel (where Luhmann situates organizations and social movements), and the microlevel of face-to-face interaction. A classroom, for instance, is a distinct microlevel social world involving student–teacher interaction, nested within the school as a mesolevel organization. Both interaction and organization are conditioned by their position within the education system, which functions autonomously according to its own code and associated programs. While classes and schools are typical components, the mesolevel's social autonomy implies that schools – though pedagogical in primary function – must also, for example, pay utility bills (economic subsystem) and comply with legal standards (juridical subsystem). In this respect, they are unifunctional in primary systemic orientation and yet situated at the intersection of multiple subsystems.

Following Schinkel's (2010) perspective on art, which synthesizes insights from Becker, Bourdieu, and Luhmann, conflict occurs at micro and mesolevels within each subsystem. Schools, for instance, compete – for partly economic reasons – for students, and within them, teachers vie for recognition or local symbolic capital, not only through pedagogical performance but also defending disciplinary domains when threatened. Acknowledging these dynamics allows a more nuanced analysis of subsystems without compromising Luhmann's abstract conceptualization of their macro level operation via codes, media, and programs. More generally, one might say: the same is different. What appears at the macro level as an autonomous subsystem defined by its function and code manifests at meso and micro levels as a dynamic, conflictual arena.

Fashion as performative semantic in science

Science as an autonomous social system

According to the dominant view, science is primarily oriented toward the pursuit of truth, considered as its principal societal function. However, approached symmetrically, the pursuit of truth presupposes the possibility of untruth. It is conceptually coherent to associate scientific communication with the binary code, or directing distinction, between truth and untruth (Luhmann, 1992). This reflects a strict, positivist characterization, which must be tempered by recognizing the probabilistic nature of scientific claims. Moreover, in the social sciences and humanities, scientific practice frequently centers around what is plausible or implausible, given available (sub)disciplinary knowledge – hence the emphasis on concepts such as ‘a convincing interpretation'. Unlike the natural sciences, where truth is often established through experimental data and formalized theory, in the social sciences – and more so in the humanities – truth as plausibility emerges through a more open-ended, discourse-driven process.

Science privileges truth over falsehood, as true statements form the foundation for further inquiry and knowledge production. This self-referential nature is evident in science through citations and bibliographical references, explicitly linking new communications to prior ones. Furthermore, truth serves as the communicative success medium: researchers must build upon – or at least engage with – relevant, uncontested true statements within their field. Regarding the programming mode linked to the truth/untruth code, we referred to the entire available knowledge – the scientific archive. However, when assessing a specific hypothesis or article, primary attention is given to the theories and methods employed. Theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches program a statement toward one side within the epistemic code governing science: given framework x and method y, statement z is deemed true or false – or, in a ‘soft' formulation, more or less plausible.

The conceptual distinction between science's general code (truth/untruth) and the subsystem's program (theories and methods) allows a plausible, non-polemical interpretation of the plurality of scientific programs, exemplified in Lakatos's account of research programs (Lakatos, 1980). While the code of modern science remains invariant, the programs used to assess truth or untruth vary. In this sense, programs introduce flexibility in science's operation. This variation also extends to research topics, though here our discussion of programs is limited to methods and theoretical frameworks.

Case study: The fashion of ‘French theory'

In the social sciences and humanities, the programming building blocks of research – namely, theories and methods – not only vary but are also regularly renewed. This dynamic is not simply a matter of research programs being empirically refuted or exhausted. We contend that the uptake and circulation of theoretical and methodological frameworks in these fields are also shaped by the hierarchical, temporally structured logic of academic fashion, where certain programs are periodically declared ‘in' or ‘out'.

A well-known example is the introduction and transformation of so-called ‘French Theory' in the United States (Cusset, 2008; Lotringer and Cohen, 2001). Beginning in the 1970s, ideas migrated from France to the United States, particularly those of influential Parisian thinkers such as Michel Foucault (social and political theory), Roland Barthes (literary theory), Jacques Derrida (deconstruction), Jean-François Lyotard (‘the postmodern condition'), Jacques Lacan (psychoanalysis), Jean Baudrillard (social theory), and Gilles Deleuze (philosophy). In France, figures like Derrida were more significantly mediated by broader cultural media, whereas in the United States, deconstruction was primarily an academic affair (Lamont, 1987). ‘French theory' found its most enthusiastic reception in the humanities, particularly in Ivy League literary theory departments. Authors such as Foucault and Baudrillard also gained some traction in the social sciences, where Lyotard's ideas on the ‘postmodern condition' were embraced across a relatively wide spectrum (Gane, 2003).

‘French theory' was clearly in fashion in the 1980s and 1990s. During these two decades, this trendy school of thought became commonly associated with broader intellectual movements such as postmodernism and poststructuralism, even though Foucault and Derrida explicitly distanced themselves from these labels. This labeling – and the resulting intellectual homogenization – occurred primarily in the Anglo-American world. As their ideas migrated from Paris to the United States, the ‘French theorists' underwent further transformations (Cusset, 2008). Key notions from French Theory – especially the concept of difference – became tied to identity politics, placing the authors and their ideas in a markedly different context than the original French one, rooted in debates over the legacies of Marx and Freud after May 1968.

In the United States, ‘French theory' played a key role in the emergence of new academic fields such as cultural, gender, queer, and postcolonial studies. Within these domains, the ideas of thinkers like Foucault or Derrida were not only thematically applied but also revised through empirical research and the insights of other scholars. As a result, the original ‘French theorists' gradually receded, while other authors became central in the new disciplines. For instance, Edward Said and Achille Mbembe, both building on Foucault, became leading figures in postcolonial studies. Similarly, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, a foundational queer theorist, draws on Derrida and deconstruction in her critique of gendered binary oppositions; yet, she long ago established herself as an influential figure in her own right.

Within the humanities, it is no longer ‘French theory' that is in vogue but Postcolonial Theory or Queer Theory, and it is not Foucault or Derrida you are expected to have read if you want to be considered cutting edge but rather Mbembe or Sedgwick. Sociology, too, has its ‘fads'. It is easy to find examples showing how the logic of advancedness and backwardness operates performatively in European sociology. For instance, Niklas Luhmann's systems theory, which informs our analysis, was ‘hot' in the 1990s but has since cooled. Jürgen Habermas's insights are now largely out, while Hartmut Rosa's resonance theory is currently very fashionable. In empirical sociology, the once-dominant theory of social capital has declined, while mixed-methods and experimental designs are now in vogue. These examples show that, as in literary studies, no single dominant trend prevails in sociology.

Newcomers advocating novel ideas or methods face a dual struggle. They challenge theories and methods which they see as outdated, in favor of what is current or trendy. Yet, this often coincides with internal disagreement, as multiple new concepts or research practices compete for legitimacy. For instance, queer theorists and postcolonial scholars share a disdain for positivist methods and critique modernization theories from canonical sociologists like Max Weber and Émile Durkheim. Both also highlight limitations in Bourdieu's treatment of power beyond class. However, this shared critique coexists with internal dissensus: which approach should take precedence in, say, research funding or permanent academic positions – queer theory or postcolonial studies?

Fashion as performative semantic

The previously introduced concept of semantics helps clarify the logic of fashion within the scientific system. We noted that the temporal difference defining fashion is firmly institutionalized within culture. However, within the humanities and social sciences, the distinction in/out operates neither as a code nor a general observational schema but as a socially performative semantics differentiating the programs governing how statements or arguments are handled regarding their truth or falsehood. This implies, first, the emergence of a group deploying the in/out distinction in relation to a novel theory or method, and second, the formation of a critical mass of early adaptors giving a tentative trend enough momentum to solidify into fashion. This performativity is equally at work when, for example, a theory is labeled outdated: no trendiness exists without active processes of ‘detrending'.

The notion of socially performative semantics implies a dynamic perspective for studying fashions within the scientific system. Bourdieu's field approach offers much here. The struggle for legitimacy or symbolic capital pits prevailing orthodoxy against challenging heterodoxy (Bourdieu, 1975). This cultural power dynamic reflects vertical differentiation between the established and newcomers in a (sub)discipline. In the social sciences and humanities, the temporality of fashion aligns with these dynamics, especially for young researchers. For them, a well-established research program may seem outdated, while the scientific elite adhering to the dominant view dismisses heterodoxy as ‘just a fleeting fad', tapping into the widespread connotation of fashion as an ephemeral trend logic devoid of seriousness. This highlights fashion logic's importance as a performative mode of meaning making.

These observations open a broad field of research opportunities, both quantitative (e.g., quantitative citation analysis) and qualitative (e.g., interviews with hiring committees: how do they engage with new developments?). An interesting question concerns the relationship within and between critical and conventional research programs in the humanities and social sciences. Our example of the becoming ‘in' and fading ‘out' of ‘French theory' is situated within the critical camp, which appears to have undergone more trends in recent decades (Malpas and Wake, 2006). Yet, this impression requires further empirical research. The same applies to the relationship between critical and conventional programs. Has the former become more ‘in-dated' while the latter outdated? This hypothesis must be examined with the distinction between theories and methods as building blocks within programs. While theorizing may have become more prone to fashion within social sciences and humanities, conventional insights and methods may still dominate empirical social scientific research.

Another important question concerns the specific temporality of restricted production fields like science. Production in these domains involves not only ‘faire date' but also ‘longue durée'. Particularly in social sciences and humanities, fashion's in/out logic is countered by canonization of methods and theories. Theories that are fashionable today may not vanish quickly but instead enter the canon after provisional consolidation, becoming part of a discipline's regular curriculum. Actor-Network Theory, for example, appears to be undergoing this process in the social sciences. While Bourdieu's work was trendy in the 1970s and 1980s, it is now integral to the sociological canon. Diachronic study of sociological textbooks can clarify this further.

Fashion as a secondary code in the visual arts

Primary code and programs in the arts

We now turn to another field of restricted cultural production, the arts, limited here to visual arts. Traditionally, they involved the distinction between beauty and ugliness, reflected in the term fine arts (beaux arts). Since the mid-19th century, this semantic framework ceased guiding the art system. Beginning with realism, ugliness was aestheticized; from impressionism onward, painting and sculpture moved toward abstraction and formal experimentation (Eisenman et al., 1994). This shift, linked to modernism, focused on colors, lines, and spatial arrangements in painting and volumes and proportions in sculpture. Dadaism introduced an avant-garde tradition that blurred art and non-art boundaries, exemplified by Duchamp's urinal entitled Fountain. From the late 1950s, everyday objects and mass-produced images became common in museums, especially via Pop Art. Conceptual art further amplified this. Like modernism's medium-specific aesthetic focus, these developments required a more abstract definition of the code regulating the art system (Foster et al., 2004; for dance: Laermans, 2015).

In the contemporary art system, works are coded by the distinction between fitting and non-fitting forms (Luhmann, 2000a, 2000b). Both modernism and avant-gardism – or Conceptualism – function as programs operationalizing this distinction. In modernism, fittingness pertains to the internal coherence (or absence) of aesthetic forms in a strict sense. In avant-gardism or conceptualism, however, the fundamental artistic building blocks are not lines or colors but ideas. Thus, fittingness is based on the interrelation of ideas within a work or oeuvre, or on the alignment between concepts and their material realization. Fittingness does not necessarily imply harmony, as discordant forms can also cohere meaningfully. What matters is that forms interrelate to elicit a sense of necessity, creating the impression that ‘everything falls into place'. A successful or interesting artwork renders its contingency invisible – that is, it obscures the fact that shapes, proportions, or the relation between concepts and materialization are not inherently necessary but result from decisions that could have been made differently. The art system favors successful works partly because they provide a foundation for further development. When this happens, a work – or its artist or their oeuvre – may be regarded as influential.

Although modernism and conceptualism remain dominant in contemporary visual arts, at least two additional programs regulate the fitting/non-fitting code (Laermans, 2012). The first is the older program of art as self-expression, originating in romanticism, holding that successful art expresses emotions or moods through its forms. The second, Critical Social Art, ties the code to creating effective representations of social struggles, minority groups, and political themes. Comparable to science, these overarching programs encompass diverse subprograms, often called styles, based on shared premises and affinities. Early modernism includes styles like futurism, cubism, and constructivism. Subprograms also exist within conceptualism – land art differs from happenings or performance art – and within critical social art. Although overlapping, identity art and documentary art interpret political relevance differently.

Fashion as secondary code

Luhmann (1990) suggests fashion has become a functional equivalent to styles – a shift affecting the pace and nature of change in the art system. Developing a new style usually takes time and involves either explicit negation of, or selective links to, previous styles. In contrast, fashions emerge and fade rapidly, often marked by arbitrary innovations. Many agree that fleeting trends play a significant role in ‘the paradigm of contemporary art' (Heinich, 2014; Shnayerson, 2020). While trends tied to collective movements like identity art resemble scientific theories with uncertain futures, the emphasis on individual originality (Heinich, 1998) lets emerging artists, oeuvres, or works quickly become fashionable within the visual arts. As one of us found visiting small galleries, gallery owners often claim artists who are sparking interest are becoming trendy.

Fashion effectively co-structures the art world, a well-known observation. In 2005, Frieze asked 33 established artists, collectors, gallerists, critics, and curators about major shifts over four decades. Most cited growing globalization and commercialization. Several linked this commodification to the normalization of the in/out logic, especially in the upscale art segment. ‘Contemporary art, allied with institutionalization, marketing, and media, gained unprecedented popularity. However, its “avant-gardeness” and experimentality have been replaced by art's new status as commodity and fashion', observes critic and curator Hou Hanrou (Frieze, 2005).

Since today's art system is closely intertwined with the logic of fashion, the distinction in/out holds a different status than in fields such as sociology or literary studies. Fashion here operates as a secondary code. The distinction between fitting and non-fitting forms remains the primary code, with old and new (sub)programs guiding the evaluation of artworks as successful or not. At the same time, the increased commercialization of art and the sheer volume of works circulating in contemporary art at any given moment reinforce the impact of the in/out distinction. This distinction helps reduce informational complexity while stimulating, particularly in certain segments, the commercial circulation of artworks. Given the influence of the logic of fashion, we regard the concomitant distinction of in/out as the secondary code regulating the contemporary functioning of the visual arts. Speaking of a primary and secondary code implies a hierarchy and thus a loose coupling between them. More specifically, a work's fashion value does not determine its artistic value, and the reverse is also true, with the proviso that only internally coherent and formally fitting works can become fashionable.

Researching fashion in the visual arts

The performativity of the fashion code is evident in the behavior of gallerists, collectors, and contemporary art enthusiasts, who are eager to acquire or experience the newest of the new (Thornton, 2008). Circuits for selecting artists and artworks with high fashion potential include trendsetting events like the Venice Biennale and the four-yearly Documenta in Kassel, alongside commercially oriented art fairs such as Art Basel, and galleries or nonprofit artist-run platforms focused on emerging talent (Israel, 2023).

Research into the in/out logic in the arts may focus on the rise and decline of movements, oeuvres, or artists as they become trendy or fall out of fashion. We advocate particular attention to two phenomena. First, it is striking how recent fashions in the visual arts have, to a significant extent, paralleled developments in the humanities. Beginning in the 1980s, ‘French theory' found artistic expression in works, mostly originating in the United States, that deconstructed dominant visual culture and engaged with identity politics in a critical manner. Today, a postcolonial turn can be observed. Over the past few years, curators, gallerists, critics, and scholars have shown increasing engagement with non-Western artists and artistic practices traditionally marginalized in the West, such as textile art. This is often combined with an interest in how Western modernism or conceptualism has been appropriated and transformed in the Global South.

The most recent Venice Biennale, in 2024, brought these concerns together under the resonant theme ‘Stranieri Ovunque' (‘Strangers Everywhere'). At the same time, during this event – as in other high-profile art events – significant weight was given to queer art, eco-art, and work aligned with the principles of what is often referred to as new materialism in theoretical discourse. This entanglement of critical-theoretical and artistic trends calls for further research, particularly into the institutional channels that facilitate this convergence. To map these, closer attention must be paid to, for instance, the possibly changing role of theory education in art schools. There, however, an even broader question arises – one that exceeds the boundaries of a purely sociological framework – namely, whether we are witnessing a shift from conceptual art to ‘theoretical art'.

Like science, sociology of fashion in arts must consider two temporal dimensions regulating the system: short-term in/out logic and long-term canonization tied to memorability. These regimes correspond to different institutions and are more visible in arts than science. Artistic trends often emerge in biennials, galleries, or artist-run initiatives; canonization occurs through musealization (Moulin, 1992). While trendy works may enter the canon, many do not endure. For example, kinetic art, popular from the 1950s to 1970s, has largely vanished from museums, except for historical references. This trend is even clearer with individual artists; many celebrated works are now irrelevant, filling depots and private collections. Such neglect enables rediscoveries greeted enthusiastically but which often fade again. We hypothesize that this cycle is the rule, implying reentry of the in/out logic in the realm of what was once ‘out', through temporary rediscoveries.

The double coding of clothing in the fashion industry

Throughout our brief introduction to Luhmann's systems theory, we made several references to the economy. As a temporal logic of in/out, fashion plays a crucial role within the economic subsystem spanning consumer industries from interior design to car manufacturing. Intuitively, however, in/out is most associated with the clothing industry. We conceive the fashion industry as one segment in the larger economy, with clothing-fashion being its presumed essence. We limit our argument to the latter when speaking of the fashion industry, yet contend that our argument also goes for other sectors.

The fashion industry cyclically tries to influence that what was once in so that it will now become passé, as seen in its seasonal cycles which do not adhere to natural seasons. These cycles anchor the coupling of the economic and fashion codes by directly devaluing garments according to the fashion season, with summer or winter collections losing value in July and January, respectively. Van de Peer's (2014a, 2014b) research established that, beginning in the late 17th century at the court of the Sun King, the nascent fashion industry began organizing its changes around the fashion season. The primary motivation was to gain control over clothing trends and better to predict demand, which had previously been erratic and driven by the preferences of individual wealthy consumers and their dressmakers (Steele, 1998). Although the concept of the fashion season gained traction during the 19th century, it only became fully institutionalized at the turn of the 20th century, when the Paris fashion show calendar followed this orchestration of change. The fashion press fulfilled the important function of announcing this backdrop of order for the upcoming stylistic changes to the wider consumer base.

The fashion industry has undergone significant changes with the extreme acceleration of the fashion cycle in the 21st century. The luxury segment increased its number of collections with cruise and pre-collections. In the mass-market segment, this acceleration is exemplified by fast fashion, which delivers every 6 weeks new styles to brick and mortar stores, such as those of the Spanish brand Zara, and on a daily basis to digital platforms, like the Chinese hyperfast fashion brand Shein. Despite this acceleration, the phenomenon of the sales period remains entrenched in all segments of the industry. The self-evident assumption that clothing loses monetary value every 6 months as, allegedly, its fashionable status wanes, hints at the continuing relevance of the idea of the fashion season. However, as we develop in the case study, with the rise of the digitalization of fashion and social media platforms (Rocamora, 2012), this seasonal structuring of the logic of in/out is being seriously challenged by the logic of in(stant) attention/out of attention characteristic of the attention economy (Franck, 1998).

Double coding or the intrinsic link between in/out and money/no money

We propose that the temporal logic of in/out manifests itself in the clothing industry, that is, as a double coding process in which the second code of in/out is no longer secondary but conditions the subsystem's first code of payment/non-payment. Whereas Luhmann (2012: 220–221) speaks of Zweitcodierung or secondary coding when discussing the structural coupling between the political code power/non-power and the juridical code law/non-law, implying that political decisions must have a legal basis, we introduce the notion of double coding in order to highlight that the effective realization of economic value in the fashion industry relies on goods or services being deemed ‘in'. However, according to the logic of double coding, prices do also matter in the fashion industry. For instance, the price setting of sustainable clothes fashion makes it inaccessible to many.

The attention devoted to social and ecological sustainability, although far from sufficient to address the industry's plentiful ethical and environmental trespasses (Fletcher and Tham, 2019), is a key transformation in the cultural narratives influencing industry practices (Brans, 2024). From a Luhmannian perspective, we understand the breakthrough of the sustainability discourse as a program of a subsystem, which provides openings for discontinuities, while the codes ensure the subsystem's continuity.

Whereas the first code of the fashion industry (payment/non-payment) has prices or the differing amounts of money required to purchase a garment as its program, the second code (in/out) is accompanied by a diverse set of historically changing programs. Van de Peer (2014b) identified a major shift in the late 20th century, when the previously material conception of designer fashion (Kawamura, 2005) – focused on the tangible qualities of garments and the craftsmanship of the production process – was supplanted by a predominantly intellectual conception that, not unlike Conceptualism in the arts, emphasized the thought process behind the designs. Currently, a programmatic shift toward an emphasis on ecological and social sustainability is developing. Yet, this shift is not undisputed. High-end fashion journalists often avoid substantive engagement with sustainability, opting instead to focus on the aesthetics of clothes fashion, as Brans (2024: 89–107) notes. In a word, sustainability as a new program of the temporal logic of in/out conditioning the industry's first code is not yet broadly established but remains interwoven with a ‘struggle for legitimacy' on the one hand, and the tension between symbolic and commercial imperatives on the other.

Empirical research demonstrates the persistent coupling of the fashion and economic codes, even within the consumption practices of the industry's more sustainable segments. Alternative practices, such as secondhand shopping, are gaining traction, particularly among younger generations (Xu et al., 2014). Qualitative research into students’ evaluations of their secondhand clothing consumption reveals that the perceived fashionability of these garments is still heavily influenced by trends in the firsthand industry, with respondents finding it self-evident that secondhand garments from fashionable firsthand brands command higher prices in the resale market (Pease et al., 2024). Future research could explore what might happen if more sustainable fashion practices were to sideline the code of payment/non-payment, with money as its medium, for instance through engagement in sharing and swapping clothes.

Case study: #rewiringfashion and second- order attention via social media influencers

In our Luhmann-inspired transversal sociology of fashion, we integrate a Bourdieusian lens to consider, in the context of the economic subsystem, the impact of clothes fashion as an aesthetic economy, marked by a structural tension between artistic and commercial considerations, on how the programs of the in/out code conditioning prices operate with varying intensities, or adopt different focal points, across different segments of the fashion industry.

Without doubt, the rise of digital fashion practices, such as fashion blogging in the 2000s (Rocamora, 2012), which historically evolved into fashion influencing on social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok (Pedroni, 2023), accelerated the logic of in/out in the 21st century fashion industry. Social media platforms revel in the dissemination of microtrends that transcend the orchestration of new styles following the fashion season. This occurred at a time when the fashion industry transitioned from proposing unified to pluriform styles for consumers to select from. In this fashion landscape where seemingly ‘anything goes', influencers participate in and fuel the attention economy (Franck, 1998) through the reduction of complexity in the multitude of fast changing trend proposals. Here, the logic of in/out exhibits great similarity with the logic of in(stant) attention/out of attention, characteristic of social media. Complexity reduction is created through what we term in our Luhmannian framework, ‘second-order attention' (Laermans, 2011), that is, consumers giving attention to what others (influencers) bring to the fore. This is why, metaphorically, the second-order attention on social media platforms offers momentary points of trend condensation which, following the logic of instantaneity, quickly dissolve.

Acceleration of the fashion pace and the social media logic of instantaneity impact on all segments of the fashion industry. Yet, in recent years, luxury industry professionals increasingly critiqued this acceleration, which they view as fueled by the fast fashion segment, ‘mimicking the latter's endless delivery cycle in the hope of selling more, yet forgetting that luxury takes time, to be achieved and to be appreciated. Luxury cannot and must not be fast', as designer Giorgio Armani wrote to Women's Wear Daily during the COVID-19 pandemic (Zargani, 2020).

The COVID-19 pandemic was a catalyst for pleas from the luxury fashion segment to disconnect the logic of in/out from instantaneity. For example, leading luxury professionals launched the #rewiringfashion project, supported by the Business of Fashion, the industry's primary trade journal. The initiative, which garnered over 2000 signatures from renowned designers, CEOs, and retail executives, aimed to redraw the time schedule of luxury fashion. #rewiringfashion proposed a return to a long-standing yet thoroughly challenged institutionalized order for fashion change: the spring/summer, autumn/winter fashion season. One key critique is that ‘[f]ashion shows are staged too far ahead of product deliveries, short-circuiting desire for collections when they finally hit the store' (#RewiringFashion 2020, accessed January 9, 2025).

To address this problem, the project proposed extending the period during which products retain full-price value, thus slowing the temporal logic of in/out but keeping its conditioning second code firmly in place. Reflecting what, in Bourdieusian terms, can be described as a misrecognition of the commercial nature of this restricted segment of clothing-fashion production, the proposed strategies by #rewiringfashion would in reality benefit the commercial enterprise of luxury fashion. Nevertheless, the extension of the full-price period in the fashion calendar was framed in cultural narratives locating the worth of luxury fashion in modern Western notions of creativity (Wilf, 2019), such as the register of expressive individualism (Cortois and Laermans, 2017). They invited consumers into a hermeneutical ‘maximal' reading of luxury fashion collections, ‘to rediscover the storytelling and magic of fashion' (#rewiringfashion, accessed January 9, 2025), using discourses that aligned luxury fashion with more sustainable consumption, such as buying clothes of high-material quality that remain ‘in' longer through a timeless design aesthetic (Van de Peer, in press).

Consequently, these illustrations solicit a Bourdieusian reading of the ways in which the tension between the aesthetic and the commercial impacts the functioning of the in/out code programs in the fashion industry, with #rewiringfashion and other luxury pandemic initiatives (Van de Peer, in press) tapping into orthodox strategies typical of dominant field players.

In addition, the second-order attention with its temporal logic of in(stant) attention/out of attention generated by social media influencers is invested in all segments of the industry, including the luxury segment. This is why further research is necessary to explore crossroads in the structuring temporalities of the logic of in/out in the fashion industry, and especially as they play out on digital platforms. For instance, with discourse analysis, empirical research could probe the question concerning if and how the attention logic of instantaneity, which also manifests in luxury fashion influencing, remains institutionally framed by the structuring logic of the fashion season.

Discussion

Sociologists have long recognized fashion as a phenomenon of broad sociological significance, extending beyond material consumer goods to shape various aspects of contemporary life. However, a comprehensive theory of a transversal sociology of fashion has been lacking. We schematically outlined such a theory by drawing on a concise set of concepts rooted in Niklas Luhmann's systems theory. We argued that fashion, understood as the temporal logic of in/out, manifests uniquely within different subsystems. The same distinction – fashion as in/out – functions differently in science as a performative semantic; in the visual arts, as a secondary code loosely linked to the primary code of fitting versus non-fitting forms; and in the fashion industry, as a secondary code that, through double coding, conditions the primary economic code of payment versus non-payment.

Our research has implications for both sociology and fashion studies. Sociologists should recognize fashion as a legitimate subject of empirical and theoretical inquiry. Traditionally, sociology has focused on clothing-fashion and its consumption and production, emphasizing how social inequalities structure these patterns. This perspective assumes that vertical differentiation – a fundamental societal characteristic – shapes specific social phenomena. While we do not contest this premise, we advocate for a broader view that also considers horizontal differentiation, recognizing the diversity of functional subsystems. From this perspective, fashion operates through the temporal in/out distinction, reinforcing a hierarchy that differentiates leaders from followers, and those who embrace newness from the so-called traditionalists.

Conversely, fashion studies should also adopt a broader perspective. Embracing this expansion would not only enhance the discipline's scope but also strengthen its academic visibility. However, this broader outlook requires a sociological shift beyond Bourdieu's field theory and, crucially, a move away from the discipline's entrenched focus on clothing-fashion. Unlike general sociology, fashion studies lack a tradition of examining both society as a whole and a wide range of societal subsystems. While this specialization lends the field an aura of scientific rigor, it also limits its potential for truly comparative analysis beyond historical perspectives. As we have argued, our call for a conceptually integrated and societally comprehensive theory is not an attempt to homogenize but rather to illuminate how the logic of forward- and backwardness differs according to the societal subsystem in which it is embedded.

Future perspectives

In analyzing our three cases, we consistently demonstrated that our systems-theoretical approach can be integrated with insights from Bourdieusian field theory, the dominant sociological framework for studying fashion's production and consumption. We also invite further theoretical contributions, particularly from Actor-Network Theory (ANT). While Bourdieu's framework is well suited for examining competitive dynamics – such as rival programs striving to outdo each other both temporally and substantively – ANT provides conceptual and methodological tools to explore the agential role of the many material elements that sustain the functioning of various functional subsystems in contemporary society. For example, when describing science as governed by the true/untrue distinction, with true statements preferred over false ones, we simultaneously presupposed and overlooked the material infrastructure that enables this process – books and journals, whether printed or digital. Their existence presumes the networked presence of yet other artifacts, such as computers and power sources. How do these material elements influence the logic of fashion within science?

Admittedly, our pursuit of theoretical unity in the sociology of fashion has its limitations. The three case studies we examined focus entirely (science, the visual arts) or partially (the fashion industry) on the production of cultural goods, which facilitated the integration of Bourdieusian insights. Future research should examine whether and how fashion's temporal logic operates in other functional subsystems. A particularly promising avenue is pedagogy within the education subsystem, which, according to Luhmann, is structured around the code of knowledge conveyance (Luhmann, 2002; see also Baraldi and Corsi, 2017). Fashion plays a role in this context, as seen in the shift from teacher-centered instruction to student-centred, active learning approaches (Weimer, 2002) – a model that is increasingly contested and, in some cases, perceived as outdated (Surma et al., 2025).

The in/out logic is also evident in the trends both in management discourse, researched by Ten Bos (2000), and in the spirituality segment of the religious subsystem, previously associated with the New Age movement. Trends such as paganism, shamanism, and reiki rise and fall in popularity (Urban, 2015). In the case of established world religions, it would be valuable to investigate whether evolving interpretations of their supposedly eternal truths are, at least in part, shaped by the dynamic of backwardness and forwardness. Another clear example is psychological therapy and counseling within the healthcare system. In recent years, client centered and psychodynamic therapies, including those inspired by Freud, have increasingly been considered outdated. Their former prominence has been replaced by approaches such as eco-therapy, narrative therapy, neuro-linguistic programming, and mindfulness. The rise of these and other therapeutic models reflects the broader trendiness of therapy itself, a phenomenon already noted by Furedi (2004). New therapeutic approaches often cite supporting data to position themselves as ‘advancements'; yet, the evidence they invoke is frequently inconclusive.

Recognizing fashion's pervasive role in society should be a symmetrical exercise – meaning that we must also examine its (relative) absence in certain subsystems. At first glance, fashion cycles seem to have little impact on positive law, democratic politics, or intimate relationships. While changes in these domains can be profound, they typically result from environmental shifts and selective perceptions rather than the internal logic of fashion. For example, the process commonly referred to as individualization has increased volatility in both romantic relationships and voting behavior, leading to higher breakup rates and more fluid political programs. However, long-term societal shifts differ from trendiness. More broadly, long-term changes in a functional subsystem induced by irritations in its environment differ from the primarily internal logic of in/out that defines fashion.

Coda: Reaffirming fashion's modernity

Observing variations in the presence and modes of ‘fashionability' across functional subsystems highlights the convergence of a transversal sociology of fashion – with its coherent conceptual framework – and a comparative research perspective that illuminates differences. However, given its dual focus on society as a whole and its constituent subsystems, and on comparative analysis, this approach must account for the uneven rise of fashion's influence in certain subsystems over recent decades. As noted, the in/out logic has partly replaced stylistic evolution in the visual arts. A similar trend toward increasing fashionability is evident in science and the fashion industry itself, where the concept of fast fashion exemplifies its acceleration. By way of outro, we propose that the broader context for this growing ‘fashionability' – understood as susceptibility to the in/out dynamic – is the transition from modernity to hypermodernity.

In The Empire of Fashion, Lipovetsky (1994) argued that contemporary society is increasingly dominated by the arbitrary rise and fall of trends, driven by whim rather than deeper motivations. Though advancing different arguments from a Marxian perspective, Harvey (1989) and Jameson (1991) reached similar conclusions in their seminal analyses of postmodernity. However, rather than examining the uneven societal spread of fashion's logic, they attribute the growing prominence of the in/out distinction to the erosion of faith in the meta-narrative of Progress (Lyotard, 1984). The result would be a post-historical sensibility marked by a presentness erasing references to both past and future (see also Vinken, 2005). Within this current regime of historicity (Hartog, 2015), the experienced ‘now' becomes so intense that it severs all ties to ‘what was' and ‘what will come'.

Pure presentness characterizes the temporality of social media use and, more broadly, the culture of immediacy associated with ‘too late capitalism' (Kornbluh, 2023). When engaging with screen-based communication, users become so absorbed by fleeting interactions that they neither memorize nor anticipate. However, social media do not define society as a whole; their role varies across different functional subsystems. Despite the personal significance of the digitally mediated experience of immediacy, pure presentness does not characterize the social functioning of subsystems such as science, the arts, or the fashion sector within the economy. In these domains, what is currently deemed relevant is primarily understood in terms of newness opposing pastness – a novelty that surpasses the dominant present as it wanes.

We endorse the thesis that belief in progress has eroded, particularly in light of the ecological crisis, within contemporary society. However, this shift has not led to a post-historical condition dominated by the experience of pure presentness. Instead, it has resulted in a redefinition of the general temporal horizon that co-defines the functioning of many – though not all – societal subsystems. As we pointed out at length, the logic of advanced and backwardness has pervaded several subsystems though in different modes and with various effects. Yet, when discussing science and the visual arts, we already stressed the existence of the counter-logic of canonization. Contemporaneity may thus be defined as the paradoxical unity of fashion and its negation, of the logic of in/out and memorable/non-memorable. This union is already suggested, though in a somewhat dramatic mode, by Charles Baudelaire's famous definition of modernity, inspired by fashion, as ‘the transient, the fleeting, the contingent; it is one half of art, the other being the eternal and the immovable' (Baudelaire, 1964: 13). The proposed transversal sociology of fashion underwrites this view. We do not inhabit post- or late modernity but take up different social roles in different societal subsystems that are differently conditioned by the overall temporal logic defining modernity (i.e., fashion/eternity or short/long term). Precisely, the uneven generalization of this mix defines hypermodernity, in which a general sociology of fashion finds its social raison d’être.