Fashion System

The object of this inquiry is the structural analysis of women's clothing as currently described by Fashion magazines: its method was originally inspired by the general science of signs postulated by Saussure under the name semiology.

About the author

Roland Barthes was born in 1915 and studied French literature and classics at the University of Paris. After teaching French at universities in Romania and Egypt, he joined the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique, where he devoted himself to research in sociology and lexicology. He was a professor of the Collège de France until his death in 1980.

Summary

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."

Product details

• Authors: Roland Barthes
• Assisted by: Richard Howard (Translation), Matthew Ward (Translation)
• Publisher: University Of California Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 25.07.1990
• EAN: 9780520071773
• ISBN: 978-0-520-07177-3
• No. of pages: 351
• Subjects: Guides > Health > Beauty/cosmetics; Humanities, art, music > Art > Interior design, design