semiotics of fashion

01/14/22

What leads us to dress a certain way? Why do we choose the clothes we choose? How do we use clothing to communicate? The clothing that a person chooses affects not only the way that person is perceived, but the way they move through the world. The art of fashion becomes a linguistic performance accomplished through the act of dressing. An accessory or garment is transformed out of the real (existence as an object with a function) and into the hyperreal (existence as a symbol of a symbol; semantic function distinct from material purpose). 

The young-girl is the subject most often attuned to this, cognizantly or not. This is the cliched teenage experience: a closet full of clothes and nothing to wear. She is trying to wear the right clothes, she is trying to look the right way—not for the situation, but for what it is she wants to say. This predicament extends to womanhood. Teenagedom develops a girl’s awareness of her clothing, womanhood puts it into practice as consequences, negative and positive, arise as a result of attire worn. Clothing has become inextricably linked to identity through the rise of the muse in the 20th century and the supermodel in the 90s. As fashion continues to evolve, so it does linguistically. The young-girl lies at the crux of this linguistic development, which is observable through advertisement and film. 

The muse is not a new concept, but it was not until the 20th century that the muse became as much of a commodity as the art she inspired. The artist, whether a visual artist, designer, filmmaker, or something else, was able to find inspiration in his muse. Meanwhile, the muse was able to profit outside of the artist. The artwork was no longer the only thing for sale, the girl was, too. Consider, for example, Audrey Hepburn who became business partners with Givenchy. (SEE fig 1) Givenchy designed for her, and dressed her in eight different films. She made a name for Givenchy, and people came to associate the brand with a Hepburn-sort of elegance. Her thinness and boyishness became fashionable and coveted. Hepburn assumed the role of an “it” girl with ease, as her personhood and her work became conflated. It is common, now, for a fashion house to have an actress or other celebrity serving as the “face of the brand.” 

Nearly thirty years later, Kate Moss became the face of Calvin Klein. Her work with the brand gained a lot of attention due to Klein’s philosophy of “sex sells.” Moss was known, in particular, for her ads for CK jeans, and CK underwear. She was primarily photographed either in underwear or topless. (SEE fig 2) The underwear was what was literally for sale, but what Calvin Klein was really selling was an image. Kate Moss wears Calvin Klein underwear; girls like Kate Moss wear Calvin Klein underwear; if you want to embody this, you, too, should wear Calvin Klein underwear. Clothing became detached from the designer, represented, instead, by the image of a girl you just might want to be. The model represents the brand, and the brand represents the model. Their images have become inextricably linked. By the turn of the century, clothes were not the only thing being sold, but an idea, an image, and a personality. 

Fashion can be categorized (therefore analyzed) like a language because it is a language. An article of clothing functions as a morpheme, the entire outfit as a sentence. Likewise, if a garment functions as a word, then that word has its literal meaning and its mythological meaning. For example, a skirt exists. (SEE fig 3) The existence of a skirt is due to its function as protection, modesty, or adornment. The skirt and its meaning, then, are transformed into a singular sign. A person sees a skirt and knows it is meant to be worn for one or more of these reasons. However, a skirt is not just a skirt, because not only is there a design process, but also a thought process behind wearing it, both of which transform the skirt into fashion. Fashion, as cultural knowledge, combines with the skirt to the next level of meaning, the myth, where the skirt becomes not only an object with a function, but an object with a cultural meaning. In the western world, a skirt has come to represent femininity. However, a skirt will always represent more than pure femininity because there is no such thing as a pure skirt. Barthes asks: “Why does Fashion utter clothing so abundantly? Why does it interpose, between the object and its user, such a luxury of words, such a network of meaning?” (Barthes xi). The reason, he states, is economic. Factors that must also be taken into account when “reading” a skirt include fabric, length, color, print, as well as the individual wearing it. Is she thin or fat; tall or short; what race is she; what is her socioeconomic class; how does she style her hair; etc.? 

Because clothing has come to represent more than its mere function, we are able to read it synchronically. However, in the way that communication developed beyond Saussure’s signifier/signified/sign relationship, it has continued to develop beyond Barthes’ signifier/signified/sign/myth relationship. Using the semiotic square, we can explore how fashion exists in three layers: the real, the imaginary, and the symbolic. (SEE fig 4) This square begins with the “internal,” represented by the verbs of “wanting” and “envisioning.” We can want something, and we can envision something. The inverse of the “internal,” the internal’, is the “external.” Externally, we can “wear” something, and we can “have,” or “own” something. Wanting and having are contradictory, as are envisioning and wearing. Wearing and having are symbolic, because they have an arbitrary relationship with the real. The symbolic elements are the signifiers. They are, by themselves, without meaning, and only acquire it through their relations. The imaginary is the space in between. Wanting and wearing come together in the concept of consumerism, an abstract idea that exists through this relationship. The same goes for self expression, a manifestation between envisioning and having, wherein picturing an outfit in your head, and then owning that outfit allows you a form of self expression. 

The concept of the “young-girl” was first introduced in an anonymous manifesto titled Theory of the Young-Girl (SEE fig 5). This manifesto was published in 1999 by Tiqqun, a french collective of authors and activists. The young-girl is not always a girl, but a figure representing the epitome of capitalism. She is too young to join the workforce, but old enough to be marketed to; old enough to want; old enough to spend money. The Young-Girl desires to convert herself into a sign. She understands that her body, whether she wants it or not, will be “read.” She wants to belong to society by way of non-belonging (Tiqqun 72). Her being is both enviable and accepted; she is different, yet relatable. Consider some of the most famous muses: Brigitte Bardot, Audrey Hepburn, Edie Sedgwick, Jane Birkin, Kate Moss. They are lithe, small, effervescent, wide-eyed, and glamorous in a somewhat unglamorous way. Described by others as being wholly themselves, skirting social norms, and living life with radical honesty, these muses are admired for their authenticity. However, there is no figure more inauthentic than the young girl. “Even when she isn’t trying to seduce,” states Tiqqun, “the young-girl acts like a seductress” (Tiqqun 42). The young-girl embodies contradiction. She can be true to herself while also holding an awareness of how the way she acts, dresses, and performs garners attention (which is a currency) from others. Bardot (SEE fig 6), for example, was said by Vadim to be “a phenomenon of nature.” “She doesn’t act. She exists” (Beauvoir 18). But in a 2012 interview, Bardot stated, “All my life, during [And God Created Women], and before and after, I was never what I wanted to be […] I wasn’t scandalous—I didn’t want to be. I wanted to be myself. Only myself” (Vanity Fair). Here lies the talent of the young-girl: she is an illusion. Her existence is that of aporia. The young-girl does not belong to herself, she belongs to the world that values her. Authenticity becomes a role she plays, a role she is locked into the moment she chooses it as the people around her—particularly the men—believe this performance to be true. 

The young-girl has learned how to speak the language of appearances, and how to use fashion as a tool. This occurs in real life, but is commonly seen in movies, as value is placed on a fictional girl’s appearance. Fashion in film functions as a narrative device. The clothes of a character and the way that he or she wears those clothes communicate with the audience something that cannot be captured in speech. A close-reading of a film’s costumes will elucidate a secondary narrative layer. Filmmakers signal character development through the use of color, fabric, and style. Likewise, girls in real life learn how to use their clothing to signify class, beauty, and personality. The process of a child’s acculturation into girlhood, and subsequently womanhood, is initiated by mentors such as family or teachers, and further propelled by media, such as television, film, books, magazines, and the internet. These forms of entertainment present us with a hyperreality. They may aim to depict a real life, but the depiction will always be a facsimile. The lines between reality and fantasy subsequently have become blurred. Consumers of media—arguably the entire world—are constantly engaging with a form of reality that presents itself as more real than their own. 

A fashion exhibit, whether a runway show, advertising campaign, photograph, or other medium, is a hyperreality. Baudrillard defines hyperreality as “the generation by models of a real without origin or reality” (Baudrillard, Simulacra & Simulation 3). Hyperreality presents an aggregate of simulations through which the real becomes indistinguishable from the non-real. There is an infamous Kendall Jenner campaign for Vogue Spain in which she is photographed wearing various leotards, leg warmers, and ballet shoes, and even poses en pointe (SEE fig 7). As a model, she is simulating the concept of a ballerina. She has the “right” clothes, she moves in the “right” way. However, this simulation of a ballerina is not inspired by real ballet, but by the creative team’s pre-existing notion of ballet. Jenner is not acting in the role of ballerina, but acting in the idea of the role of ballerina. This campaign was criticized by the ballet world, who commented on Jenner’s “improper” form and the “unrealistic” nature of the clothing. Styles of clothes which may have once signified the wearer’s job, role in society, or interests, now can be worn by anyone who takes a liking to them. Speaking the language of fashion has become speaking a language with so much meaning, there is no meaning. For Jenner’s Vogue campaign, dance wear and ballet poses are not used to represent the ballerina or ballet, but the magazine. In this sense, Jenner’s form and clothing are not improper or unrealistic because the creative team is not seeking to simulate ballet itself but rather what ballet represents: youth, grace, beauty. 

In the film Funny Face, Audrey Hepburn plays Jo Stockton, a bookstore employee who is begrudgingly thrust into the world of editorial fashion. When Jo is introduced, she is wearing a black turtleneck, black loafers, a brown midi skirt, and a shapeless tweed overdress (SEE fig 8). In this scene, she stands out by wearing clothes that do not stand out. The girls from the magazine wear form-fitting pink suits and pink lipstick, the model wears a tight black dress and heavy makeup. Jo insists that she finds fashion to be frivolous; she would rather be valued for her mind than her appearance. Her choice to not engage in fashion is still an engagement, albeit one of abstention. By wearing clothes she thinks do not represent fashion, she is signaling these values to onlookers. Photographer Dick Avery, played by Fred Astaire, asks her why she cannot be valued for both beauty and intellect. Jo’s stylistic choices transform over the course of the film, and by its end, she does discover the joy of dressing (SEE fig 9 and 10). The character of Jo, at the beginning, embodies a sort of anti- young-girl, as Jo has little interest in material goods outside of books, and judges the staff of the magazine. Funny Face follows, then, Jo’s induction into the world of the young-girl. 

The reality in a film is always a hyperreality, as a film is a distorted depiction of reality. Reality is distorted in film due to the very nature of it; scenes are captured through cameras, people are playing a role, there are cuts, edits, musical overlays, and so on. The reality of Funny Face is further distorted due to it being a musical. Like Kendall Jenner and the ballet, Funny Face does not simulate the lived reality of a bookstore employee-wannabe philosopher, but the idea those traits represent for its protagonist. Costume designer Edith Head dressed Hepburn not to reflect a true image of a person or profession, but the image of one that both resonates with the audience and lends itself to the film’s plot. Art, on principle, substitutes the signs of the real for the real. Thus, Baudrillard states, “And so art is dead because reality itself has been confused with its own image. Reality no longer has the time to take on the appearance of reality” (Baudrillard, Simulations 116). Characterization aside, the clothing Jo wears in the film prior to her time at Quality magazine invokes, then reinforces, the audience’s preexisting image of a Greenwich Village bookstore philosopher. All the viewers of this film have not necessarily met someone exactly like this, nor have they necessarily seen this character depicted in film before, but each one of these qualifiers—Greenwich Village | bookstore | philosopher—brings to mind its own image that viewers are readily able to combine. Head, as costume designer, is able to work off of these preexisting images to create a character wardrobe that satisfies the audience’s understanding of Jo. When we think of a real event, do we think of the real event, or do we think of the images depicting the real event as made by the media? The hyperreality of advertising and film allows viewers to engage in a fantasy without seeing it for what it truly is. 

It is due to this hyperreality that fashion as language is able to be weaponized. “Dress is [about cultural capital]; it consorts with hegemonic norms and domination; its regulating force incites mainly conformity but sometimes resistance. To adopt a style (or uniform) is to choose a socioeconomic milieu and a future,” writes Leitch, naming the spectre that looms over fashion (Leitch 112). Late-stage capitalism is the driving force behind fashion’s rapid linguistic evolution. Fast fashion brands produce fifty-two microseasons per year, each accompanied by their own narrative the brand is trying to push. These narratives are simulations of reality. A microseason focused on office wear is selling the idea of the working woman; a microseason focused on stirrup pants and tweed is selling the idea of leisure equestrianism. The girls purchasing these clothes are more than likely not engaging in these activities, or perhaps not even considering the social implications of them wearing the clothes, but the implicit story behind the clothes still exists. Conversely, luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton were once a wealth signifier; now, many of the ultra-rich view the brand as “tacky,” largely due to the influx of knockoffs, secondhand shopping, and the non-white nouveau riche (Halzak, The Washington Post) (SEE fig 11). Returning to the concept of the young-girl, although she may try to cultivate a certain image, she may fail. Her observers will read her in their own interpretation. The young-girl may be wearing the right clothes, but another attribute—her body, her hair, her posture—is signifying a different meaning. After being exposed as a fraud, Anna Delvey, fake heiress and scam artist, was said to be exceptionally skilled at integrating herself into a social class to which she didn’t and never did belong (SEE fig 12). However, Delvey’s former friends would later cite one tell: her hair (Mull, The Outline). Delvey’s hair was tangled, dry, and full of split-ends. She did not have the hair of a young heiress supposedly sitting on millions, she had the hair of the proletariat. Hair is such a small attribute of a person, especially when considering Delvey had everything else right, but this one trait altered the reading of her clothes in the eyes of the observers she needed to convince the most. This is a way in which the skirt, from earlier, can be made “impure,” not through the clothing, but through the wearer. 

At her most “successful,” the young-girl must fully embody the idea of herself. Each garment and accessory as signs must work together in an outfit, the greater sign, which must then work together with the girl herself, the ultimate sign. In our postmodern world, the sign value of an object dominates over the use value and the exchange value. The medium has become the message as signifiers have gradually become detached from the signified. The theory of the young-girl is the capstone of fashion’s synchronic reading, seen through not only fashion exhibits, advertisements, and films, but also in day-to-day life. Clothing will continue to develop semantically for as long as consumer culture continues to exist in hyperreality. As with text, as with speech, fashion is a fantasy into which we buy, simultaneously creating ourselves and destroying ourselves in the process.