What would Labubu say about Luhmann? Fashion, systems, and struggles
Year: 2025
Type: editorial
Abstract: This commentary critically engages Van de Peer and Laermans's article on fashion and systems theory. Drawing on Niklas Luhmann and Pierre Bourdieu, they propose a transversal sociology of fashion grounded in the in/out distinction. While their approach commendably elevates fashion beyond materialist and stratification frameworks, it risks reduction by collapsing diverse modalities into binary semantics. I argue instead for plural and trans-scalar logics of fashion – spanning science, art, industry, and everyday practice – and highlight dimensions neglected by systemic abstraction: affect, memory, sustainability, disciplinary politics, and decolonial critique. Fashion must be read not only as a system of distinctions but as a lived site of aspiration, exclusion, and struggle. Through three media/cultural cases – The Devil Wears Prada , Pose , and the global phenomenon of Labubu – I demonstrate both the explanatory power and the limits of systems theory, urging a general sociology of fashion that is plural, embodied, and porous to interdisciplinary insight.
Source: Dialogues in sociology.
Author: Tommy Tse
Institutions: University of Pretoria, University of Amsterdam
Language: English
Subfield: Museology
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,400
OpenAlex ID: W4415381104