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Fashion is a system through which individual and collective representations of body and identity are made. Covers, garments and decorations on the skin create the body, forge it in its being in the world. The clothed body is a combination of signs which include garments, hair-style, make-up, tattoos, and decorations: in other words, everything that makes the body a cultural element and not simply a natural element. Time and language are the main forms of fashion: through fashion we "see" how time passes, and fashion "speaks" via its multiple signs. As an example, let's think of how the tight connection between music cultures, sub-cultural styles and fashions in the Sixties changed the perception of fashion itself in daily life: miniskirts, jeans and casual clothes became, at the same time, the symbol of an era, as well as of the "timeless" features of culture and imagination. Fashion has a twofold nature: on the one hand, it marks the contact areas between the clothes and the body activating the senses; on the other hand, it places the individual's body within the social one.
About the author
Patrizia Calefato teaches Sociology of Culture and Communication at Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro. Her main fields of research are: fashion theory, socio-semiotics, cultural studies. Among her latest works: 'Paesaggi di moda: corpo rivestito e flussi culturali', Milano 2016; 'Luxury, Lifestyles and Excess', London 2014.
