Dry and undressed: A response to the interlocutors of ‘Sociology of fashion: What would Luhmann say?’

Abstract

We address the five interlocutors of our article ‘Sociology of fashion: What would Luhmann say?’ in a deliberately dry manner. Their perceptive remarks concern both the limitations of our expanded systems-theoretical approach and the rich potential it offers for future conceptual and empirical exploration. While reiterating the partial incommensurability between a systems-theoretical perspective on fashion and the premises underlying several responses – particularly the systems-theoretical view that interaction, rather than the individual, constitutes the lower threshold of social analysis – we nonetheless attend closely to those remarks that can be productively examined through a Luhmannian lens.