Alessandro Alfieri
in NODES 28 →
2026
https://doi.org/10.57633/NODES-28/6-ENG
This essay aims to offer some food for thought, starting from the question of style as it applies to fashion and the contemporary imaginary, as the process by which stylistic forms born in specific ideological contexts are repurposed, inverted, and incorporated into the culture of luxury and consumption. Drawing on renowned theoretical and sociological contributions such as those of John Clarke and Pierre Bourdieu, the article highlights the paradoxes and “dialectical reversals” that have occurred throughout different phases of modern and postmodern culture: from the aristocratic style of a photographer and art director like Alexey Brodovitch in the first half of the twentieth century, to the neo-baroque vision linked to the excess of some particularly successful brands and fashion designers of recent years, whose work has expressed the younger generations’ demand for social redemption through brand ostentation.
To cite this article: Alfieri, A. (2026). From Aristocratic Luxury to Logo Ostentation. How Style and Fashion Shift Between Elegance, Excess and the Desire for Redemption. Nodes (28):14-17, Numero Cromatico Editore, Rome