Temporal paradoxes in fashion theory: A response to Van de Peer and Laermans

In response to Van de Peer and Laermans’ essay, ‘Sociology of fashion: What would Luhmann say?’, I express appreciation for their goal of transversal theories of fashion (beyond the realm of clothing-fashion), but also concern about the use of a binary temporal logic of ‘in/out’ differentiation to do so. Drawing on Luhmann's and Van de Peer's and others’ attention to paradox as an alternative framing concept, I suggest that such a transversal theory would be better served by attention to fashion's temporal paradoxes, given the ‘knotty’ or entangled nature of fashion and its relation to change, power, complexity, and relations toward the past and future.