Personal Style and Artistic Style

Abstract

What is it for a person to have style? Philosophers working in action theory, ethics, and aesthetics are surprisingly quiet on this question. I begin by considering whether theories of artistic style shed any light on it. Many philosophers, artists, and art historians are attracted to some version of the view that artistic style is the expression of personality. I clarify this view and argue that it is implausible for both artistic style and, suitably modified, personal style. In fact, both theories of style crack along the same line, which suggests that they can indeed be mutually illuminating. I articulate and defend a view of personal style according to which, roughly, having style is a matter of expressing one's ideals. I show how this illuminates the widely neglected value of personal style and propose a new, analogous theory of artistic style: artistic style is the expression of the ideals the artist has for her art.1 Of course, the singleminded pursuit of nearly anything is morally questionable, being, as it is, singleminded. That aside, the worry that the pursuit of style is morally questionable needs to be addressed, and I do so below ( §5).

Personal clothing style and self-concept: Embracing the true, the ideal and the creative self

“…Personal clothing style is generally defined as a particular way of self-expression through clothing and accessories (Armstrong et al 2018). And yet, what such self-expression exactly entails is still unclear (Riggle 2015) and currently lacks empirical evidence. In response to very limited empirical research on both the notion of personal style and its psychological underpinning, using a qualitative approach, this study explored the meaning of personal clothing style from the wearer's perspective and how it is linked to self-concept.…”

“…The concept of personal style may seem self-evident, and this possibly explains limited academic literature on the subject. It is commonly agreed that a style is personal when it expresses personality, character or some other aspect of the inner self (Riggle 2015).…”

Freedom and the value of games

“…Perhaps what is valuable about the openness provided by games is not the psychological experience of feeling that one's decisions are not narrowly constrained when one plays, but the other goods that players can achieve when they are able to make unconstrained decisions. When players are actually free, they are able to play with individual style , where their style is an expression of their ideals for how the game should best be played (Riggle 2015, 728) 14 . For instance, a player might seek to play a game in a way that expresses their ideal of playing elegantly, aggressively, obtusely, or zanily.…”

“…14.Nick Riggle's account of style as an expression of one's ideals is constructed as a theory of ‘personal style’ – a way of living a life that expresses one's ideals about how to live – that Riggle then extends to ‘artistic style’ – a way of creating art that expresses one's ideals for artistic creation (Riggle 2015, 729). I here extend Riggle's notion of personal style to ‘ludic style’ – a way of playing a game that expresses one's ideals for game-play.…”

Personal Ideals as Metaphors

“…The view I develop emphasizes the importance of (and connections between) the aesthetic phenomena of style, beauty, metaphor, and interpersonal appreciation. In my paper ‘Personal Style and Artistic Style’ (Riggle 2015a) I argue that personal style is a matter of embodying one's ideals, and in my paper ‘On the Interest in Beauty and Disinterest’ (Riggle 2016) I suggest that beauty is the expression of personal ideals. Putting these ideas together: having style is a matter of making oneself beautiful, by one's own lights, which is a matter of crafting and embodying a poetic self-conception.…”