This book is situated within the history of ideas, so it is the idea of fashion that becomes central. But that does not mean that the text has to move exclusively within a discursive realm or within a context of representation. On the contrary, the idea of fashion is an idea of production: the cultural context of making seen through economic, political and social prisms of making. In materialism, especially in its historical formation, concepts and ideas are not passive and subjective reflections of the material world but products of labour, and the contradictory nature of these concepts therefore has its origin in the contradictions within society and its social conditions of production. For Marx and Engels, the latter of whom had developed his understanding of materialism from the concrete experience of his family's textile mills in Manchester, dialectics were not something imposed from an abstract vantage point of pure reason but were a product of human labour changing society. Their form was determined and developed by people and could only be understood by the practical struggle to overcome contradictions and negations – not just in thought, but in practice. This also implies that women and men are thrown back on to themselves and are made responsible for their own actions, which must be seen as part of collective patterns. Lefebvre, in the quote with which I opened this book, spoke of contemporary technicities changing humanity's relation with the world but not with him- or herself. A lack of critical action prevents an understanding of fashion as a practice that is not simply transformative of corporeal appearances but that can transform socio-economic structures. The more technicity allows for productive structures and logistics that aid the imprinting of fashion not just on clothing or consumer goods but on the arts, the culture industry at large and even the representation of politics, the greater is the necessity to analyse fashion for its proper meaning, a meaning that emerges from its materiality but which goes far beyond materialising desires, objectifying sexuality or commodifying the body.

We are all complicit in the production of fashion, in designed commodities in general and in the rapid turnover of garments and accessories in particular.