Gwenda-lin Grewal is the Onassis Lecturer in Ancient Greek Thought and Language at the New School for Social Research. Her recent work includes two forthcoming books--Fashion Sense: On Philosophy & Fashion (Bloomsbury) and Thinking of Death in Plato's Euthydemus (Oxford University Press)--as well as new translations of Plato's Cratylus and Phaedo. Before joining the New School, she previously held fellowships and teaching positions at Yale, Sarah Lawrence, the University of Dallas, and Vassar. In addition to her work in ancient Greek philosophy, she also designs clothing.

While our modern concept of "fashion" is said to have developed in the late Middle Ages or early Renaissance, the origin of fashion, especially understood more broadly, seems to have deeper roots. One can trace it back at least as far as Greek antiquity, where the distinction between philosophy and sophistry in Plato already suggests the possibility of understanding wisdom as a fashionable "look." Contemporary trends such as leisurewear and "comfort" seem to point to our longing to transcend time and body with "timeless" and "fashion-less" garments. This is ostensibly metaphysics, and it seems not only to invert the stereotype that fashion is superficial and philosophy deep, but also to suggest that the two may be more closely interwoven than it appears at first glance. One wonders: Is to ascribe a beginning to fashion to wish to exempt ourselves from participating in it? Is it possible to imagine ourselves in clothes without imagining ourselves in time, and so, in fashion?