I. Sociological vs. Semiotic Approaches to Fashion

A. Veblen: Consumption of fashion as means to express social distinctions, status
B. Sociological approach: relate dress, consumption to economy, class, cultural norms, social relationships
C. Semiotic approach

1. How do objects convey meaning?
2. How do objects relate to each other as part of a set of collective representations?
3. Meaning of clothes can be studied apart from how they are used

 

II. Saussure and Modern Semiotics

A. Semiotics: study of forms and systems of communication
B. Ancient Greeks: interpretation of signs (symptoms) to diagnose disease
C. Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913)

1. Sign consists of signifier (conveyor of meaning) and signified (meaning)
2. Saussure noted that signifier/signified relationship is arbitrary

a. Woman (English) = femme (French) = phu nu (Vietnamese); different signifiers, same signified
b. Flashing high beams when driving: different meanings in the US and Greece
c. Need to know language, cultural context to interpret meaning

3. Gaps can exist between event and meaning: example of our own clothing choices
4. Langue and parole

a. Langue = language, rules, grammar, vocabulary
b. Parole = actual act of speaking

 

III. Roland Barthes (1915-1980) and the Study of the Fashion System

A. The Fashion System (1967)
B. Structural analysis of Fashion as system of meanings, discourse of knowledge
C. Discourse in fashion magazines constitutes reality

1. How object is described determines how we perceive it
2. Language as system of classification: example of "rock"
3. Fashion provides language of categorization and classification: skirt, evening wear, menswear, casual wear, classic, couture

D. Barthes studied Elle and Le Jardin de Modes for one year
E. Three types of clothing

1. Image clothing
2. Written clothing
3. Real clothing

F. Barthes focuses on written clothing

1. Image clothing permits limitless interpretation
2. Written clothing freezes meaning, focuses attention "to direct the immediate and diffuse knowledge of image-clothing through a mediate and specific knowledge of Fashion" (17)
3. Example of how interplay between image and written clothing creates desire: elle.com

G. Langue and Parole in Barthes

1. Written clothing is to image clothing and real clothing as langue is to parole
2. Written clothing is to Fashion as parole is to langue

H. Fashion as persuasive discourse, creates desire

 

IV. Assessing Semiotic Approaches to Fashion as Language

A. Semiotics takes material culture seriously: every object is part of system of meaning
B. Systematic framework and method: concrete, mundane as point of entry into deepest cultural meanings
C. Solves Veblen's problem of explaining how value is recognized
D. Agency = personal choice of what to wear
E. Structure = system that creates our personal desires
F. Semiotics views structure as decisive in Fashion because it creates a symbolic universe in which one is forced to operate
G. Potential for opposition? Not really: still working within terrain of Fashion
H. Hebdige: punk of late 70s and early 80s as instructive example of futility of style as semiotic form of resistance