The Fashion SystemIn his consideration of the language of the fashion magazine—the structural analysis of descriptions of women's clothing by writers about fashion—Barthes gives us a brief history of semiology. At the same time, he identifies economics as the underlying reason for the luxuriant prose of the fashion magazine: "Calculating, industrial society is obliged to form consumers who don't calculate; if clothing's producers and consumers had the same consciousness, clothing would be bought (and produced) only at the very slow rate of its dilapidation." |
Contents
The Relation of Meaning | 2 |
3572 | 9 |
Fields with Concomitant Variations | 19 |
Between Things and Words | 27 |
4 | 40 |
THE VESTIMENTARY CODE | 57 |
Substances and Forms | 69 |
Confusions and Extensions I Transformations of the Matrix | 71 |
Variants of Configuration | 119 |
Variants of Substance | 123 |
Variants of Measurement | 129 |
Variants of Continuity | 136 |
Variants of Relation I Variants of Position | 144 |
Variants of Distribution | 147 |
Variants of Connection | 151 |
The Variant of Variants | 158 |
Inversion of Elements 64 67 69 71 | 72 |
Confusion of Elements | 74 |
Multiplication of Elements | 77 |
Architecture of the Matrices | 80 |
Routines | 84 |
The Assertion of Species I The Species | 87 |
The Variation of Species | 89 |
The Genus | 92 |
Relation between Species and Genera | 94 |
Function of the Assertion of Species | 97 |
Inventory of Genera I Mode of Composition of Genera | 100 |
Classification of Genera | 103 |
Inventory of Genera | 105 |
Variants of Existence I The Inventory of Variants II Variants of Identity | 115 |
Toward Real Clothing | 170 |
The System I Meaning Supervised Freedom II The Systematic Yield | 177 |
The Semantic Units | 191 |
Combinations and Neutralizations | 200 |
The Vestimentary Sign | 213 |
THE RHETORICAL SYSTEM | 223 |
The Poetics of Clothing | 235 |
The World of Fashion | 246 |
158 | 258 |
The Reason of Fashion | 263 |
Economy of the System | 277 |
APPENDIXES | 295 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
accessory actual analysis assertion of species association blouse buttons cardigan Claude Lévi-Strauss collar color commutation test commutative classes constitute cool jazz denotative dress elements ensembles entire equivalence example existence fabric fact Fashion magazines Fashion system Fashion utterance function genera genus halter top highway code implicit insofar intended object inventory language Lexicologie linen linguistic material matrix ment mentary metalanguage metaphor nature neutral notation opposition paradigm parataxis phonemes piece poplin possible precisely pseudo-real pure real clothing real garment real vestimentary code reality refers relation rhetorical signified rhetorical system semantic units semiological shifter signified Fashion simple skirt speak speech structure substance sweater synonymy syntagm syntagmatic systematic terminological rule terminological system tion toque transformation twin set usual units utterance of signification variant verbal vesti vestimentary meaning vocable weekend words worldly signified written clothing written garment written vestimentary code