Dr Young-Jin Hur: Varieties of Aesthetics: From the Sublime to Fashion

A lecture on aesthetics, asking whether every aesthetic experience is pleasant and how well existing models cover everyday aesthetics such as fashion. It begins with Edmund Burke's distinction between the beautiful, resting on pleasure, and the sublime, resting on vastness, power and fear, and traces empirical studies of that distinction, including visual triggers and physiological responses. The second part examines fashion, considering individual and psychological predictors of clothing choices, whether repeated exposure shifts preferences, and whether a garment's attractiveness is influenced by the model wearing it. The speaker is Dr Young-Jin Hur, Course Leader for the MSc Psychology of Fashion at London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London, whose research examines psychological factors shaping fashion preferences and empirical aesthetics.