Roland Barthes
The Fashion System
$21.95, £12.95 paperback
978-0-520-07177-3
Available Now
351 pages,
July 1990, Only available in Not available in the British Commonwealth, except Canada
Categories: Sociology; Language & Linguistics; Popular Culture; French Studies
July 1990, Only available in Not available in the British Commonwealth, except Canada
Categories: Sociology; Language & Linguistics; Popular Culture; French Studies
"Barthes's treatment of fashion in The Fashion System is his most elaborate attempt to reveal the little worlds of meaning enclosed in each nuance of social life. . . . In a magisterial effort that has been superbly translated by Matthew Ward and Richard Howard, Barthes certainly draws our attention to some fascinating aspects of fashion. . . . One is able to hear the voice of a sensitive and sensible critic who was alive to the symbolic vitality of the world."—Flint Schier, New York Times Book Review
In 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."
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