[Various authors]
Introduction
Explaining Fashion Through Semiotics
Semiotics assumes that visual images and their respective signs can be read similar to a
text. Fashion and body adornment not only have a language of their own, but can be
read as an explanation and text of one’s personality and character. Cultural semiotics is
an important part of visual rhetoric because it allows us to take simple signs and codes
and turn them into an actual conversation. Often studying visual rhetoric includes
studying compositions, art, advertisement, film, and many other objects created. Not
only can the things created around us be analyzed in regards to their visual rhetoric, but
the things in themselves, and the way they are presented can also present a coded and
signified message. Each person has a unique personality, set of beliefs, opinions, and in
order to convey that identity we use our body as a canvas to project that identity.
Elizabeth Wilson States: "In all societies the body is 'dressed' and everywhere dress and
adornment play symbolic, communicative and aesthetic roles. Dress is always
'unspeakably meaningful.' The earliest forms of 'clothing' seem to have been adornments
such as body painting, ornaments, scarifications (scarring), tattooing, masks and often
constricting neck and waist bands. Many of these deformed, reformed or otherwise
modified the body" (Rampley 68).
The rhetoric of a person, and their appearance, can include many factors. One can
represent themselves with their clothes in many ways, with jewelry, adorning
themselves with symbols, hairstyles as well as many other rhetorical items. Although
many individuals may debate as to whether these past cultural trends can be included as
clothing/dress, for the sake of our argument all of these things call into the visual
rhetoric of the body and the way a culture or individuals choose to represent themselves.
This act of representing, and presenting ones rhetoric through clothes, or other body
adornment, Rampley calls self-fashioning; which he believes can articulate subtle and
important characteristics of individuals including personality, mood, and even emotions
(71).
Codes
Not only can particular styles of clothes define a person as an individual, but also as a
part of a group. According to Pauline Thomas, “Fashion is a language of signs, symbols
and iconography that non-verbally communicate meanings about individuals and
groups.” Depending on the context clothes and other defining objects can mean very
different things, but we plan on showing examples within our culture that effectively
communicate a specific notion of identity through specific rhetorical cues. Fred Davis
discusses the way that clothes and fashion can represent identity through the semiotic
notion of code.
"The chief difficulty of understanding fashion in its apparent vagaries is the lack of
exact knowledge of the unconscious symbolisms attaching to forms, colors, textures,
postures, and other expressive elements of a given cultures. The difficulty is appreciably
increased by the fact that some of the expressive elements tend to have quite different
symbolic references in different areas. Gothic type, for instance, is a nationalistic token
in Germany while in Anglo-Saxon culture, the practically identical type known as Old
English...signifies a wistful look backward at madrigals and pewter" (Davis 50).
Although you can give meaning to semiotics signs can change and this applies to trends
as well. Fashion design and symbolic adornments can have very definitive symbols, but
depending on the time and place those symbols can be constantly shifting and changing.
Even though they may change they are still held to their symbolic meaning by the
collective culture.
In our chapter we include many different genres in which this rhetoric can be displayed,
but we also put a large emphasis on the particular clothes people wear and what they
can mean. We do put a large focus on the rhetoric of clothing intentionally because as a
largely consumer-based culture, we as a society in general put a lot of value on our
appearance and represent our identities largely in our consumption of goods, especially
clothing.
Why We Wear Clothes
What is the function of dress in society? Overall, human beings in most cultures wear
clothes for one or more of the following reasons, comfort and protection, modesty and
cultural and personal display.
Clothing for Protection
Considering early human beings, we know that clothing was used as a way to keep
warm, to protect the skin and as a mean to comfort the body. As people roamed from
region to region, the body continued to prove inadequate for certain environments, thus
the need for protective clothing. Even today, we understand that when the weather turns
cooler adding layers will keep the body warm. Removing layers keep the body cooler in
the summer time, and wearing various other garments protect our body from almost all
the natural elements. However, clothing has become much more than a way to protect
the body, the fact that we do indulge in clothing beyond mere comfort suggests yet
function-- modesty.
Modesty
According to the American Heritage Dictionary, modesty is a “Reserve or propriety in
speech, dress, or behavior.” Many cultures have deemed it necessary to practice a
certain amount of modesty in dress by covering up certain body parts. A familiar story
in the Christian bible talks about the characters of Adam and Eve wandering through the
Garden of Eden completely naked and oblivious prior to gaining knowledge and
knowing shame. In most cultures, individuals are expected to keep certain aspects of
their body covered up. In certain Eastern cultures, women are supposed to remain in
purdha (seclusion) to avoid being seen by men and or even other women outside of the
family. To be exposed would constitute a lack of propriety and cause a certain degree of
dishonor to the family. While western practices vary in their interpretation of modesty,
the same idea goes as why mothers and fathers may feel uncomfortable with their
thirteen-year-old daughter leaving the house in a tube top and a mini skirt.
Personal and Cultural Display
Lastly, and arguably, most importantly, clothing is a way of presenting one’s personal
and cultural values; alternatively demonstrating one’s style, or lack thereof. Clothing
has become a symbol of an individual’s identity. Society acknowledges and accepts
certain forms of dress and attributes them to the characteristics of the individual. For
instance, a doctor may wear a clean white lab coat in order to appear sterile and present
a professional image to his or her patients. While wearing a white coat makes signs of
insanitation obvious, the white coat has come to be more of a cultural badge than
anything else is. However, these markers, or familiar icons in dress are not limited to
this single white coat. In western society, police officers wear variations of blue
uniforms, Basketball players wear sleeveless jerseys and nuns wear black and white
dresses that cover their heads. These stereotypes have become useful in our everyday
lives as they help simplify things and people into categories. These distinctions are what
enable the individuals in the cases listed above to choose their own way of
communicating nonverbally to the world.
Clothing as a Form of Non-Verbal Communication
Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months. Oscar Wilde
Making a Statement...(whether you realize it or not)
At this point one should understand that non-verbal communication is unavoidable.
Regardless of whether or not the message is intentional, we continue to communicate
with each other long after our mouths close. “It is impossible to wear clothes without
transmitting social signals,” claims human behaviorist Desmond Morris (213). Even
choosing not to wear clothes sends a message. The decision each individual makes
about his or her appearance sends the viewer a message. This includes people who
claim they pay no attention to their clothing with regard to its communicative value.
A guy with long hair and a full beard who insists that he will not shave for anyone may
be quick to change his decision if her were to be brought to trial for possession of
marijuana. When going into a job interview a candidate may opt for a suit and tie
instead of sweatpants and flip-flops. As the weather warms shops fill with pastels and
brightly colored clothes. In order to avoid trends, a young woman chooses not to
conform by donning jeans and a t-shirt. These situations are examples of how we use
clothing to communicate. On a cultural level, the man with the beard understands that
maintaining certain hairstyles sends out a certain message through non-verbal
communication. Not wanting to be misunderstood or perhaps to send out a different
nonverbal message, the importance of nonverbal communication is something
acknowledged by all. Not only are these examples of trends, or avoiding trends, they
convey a message depending on the culturally accepted codes that they apply to among
within our culture.
The Language of Jeans
In the past decade, the price of jeans has skyrocketed, especially among the designer
labels such as Seven for All Mankind, Citizens for Humanity, and Diesel, among others.
These designer brands have become a mark of status that indicates a sort of identity of
the person wearing them. Designer jeans carry an insignia on the back pockets that
identify the designer brand and how much money the wearer spent, which communicate
information about the person wearing the jeans through understood symbols of our
culture. Throughout their history, jeans have represented a casual lifestyle. They have
humble origins from the beginning when Levi Strauss designed denim pants that were
immediately associated with manual labor. Jeans were and are often still worn by
manual laborers, which give them a sense of informality and a laid back attitude. But in
fact, recent years have proven that celebrities and even college students are willing to
pay lots of money for these “casual” jeans that are a sign of high-fashion and class.
Wearers of designer jeans are, in fact, paying for the laid-back vibe that jeans give off.
While the wearer attempts to appear laid-back and casual, the stitching on the back
pocket communicates symbolic information about the person, and the message is clear:
"The wearer is someone with disposable capital, who cares about her image, and who
knows that other women will be surreptitiously checking out her butt" (Thomas).
Elaborating on the Fashion 'Conversation'
Symbolic Grammar of Fashion
There exists a “grammar of fashion.” The larger the “vocabulary,” or someone’s closet,
the more creative and expressive those wearers can be, which enables them to create
more “sentences." As a result, wearers are able to portray information about themselves
effectively, more effectively, perhaps, than someone who doesn’t have those same
means.
The traditional definition of rhetoric holds that it operates to influence behavior and
change attitudes. Fashion, as a form of rhetoric, has the same capacity. Style is included
as one of Cicero’s five canons of rhetoric. While the traditional meaning of “style” as a
canon of rhetoric includes the way a person speaks or presents their language, the
meaning of style in the rhetoric of fashion includes the way a person presents him or her
self to the world through the clothing they wears (designer brands or not.) Cicero had
the idea that “the word choice of the speaker has a direct correlation between the
audience’s perception of the speaker and his character.” In the rhetoric of fashion,
however, “word choice” is shifted to mean clothing choice, designer choice, style
choice, etc. While it is an undeniable fact that a person’s style and fashion choices
portray a world of meaning about their personality and character, it is an unfortunate
fact that many individuals in our society do not have the fiscal means necessary to
“argue for themselves” in the same way that the elite do.
Not only do clothes represent, and express the style of a person, but so does body art in
many different modes. Tattooing and body piercing has been practiced in almost every
culture for thousands of years (Greif, Hewitt, Armstrong). The body modification
movement did not begin in the Western culture. In fact, it can be argued that the kinds
of changes one makes to her or his physical body plays a large part in the rhetoric an
individual is trying to portray.
Body Piercing
Culturally, there are different reasons why a person would choose to pierce his body.
Consistently throughout history, ear lobe piercing has been seen as a mark of feminine
beauty(10). It was not until the 1970s, however, that men began to pierce their bodies as
well, as a mark of their occupation or their sexual orientation. Today, Western cultures
have seen the art of body piercing explode into the mainstream.
According to Joan Jacobs Brumberg in her book The Body Project: An Intimate History
of American Girls, “body piercing, once regarded as characteristic of “primitive”
people, has emerged in the 1990’s as the latest form of self-expression among American
adolescents” (Brumberg 130). Instead of having only the option of piercing one’s ears,
women (and men) today now can spend hours deciding which body part they would like
pierced (eyebrow, lip, nipple, navel, etc) and which piece of jewelry they would like to
wear (hoop or post). Brumberg argues that both the homosexual subculture as well as
cultural icons like Madonna introduced piercing into the mainstream culture.
An Example of the Navel Piercing
In her book Sex, written in the 1980s, Madonna features photographs of both men and
women pierced in multiple places on their bodies. She also showed off her navel ring in
public, and stated that she adopted the look after she saw some members of her
homosexual entourage wearing the same piercing. MTV showed teens wide varieties of
piercing: they made popular bands like the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Nirvana, as well
as their piercings. The 1994 Paris runways showed supermodels like Naomi Campbell
and Christy Turlington with pierced navels. Because of the overwhelming popularity of
such stars in the 1980's and early 1990's, body piercing became the newest fad. But is it
rhetorical?
Brumberg argues that “piercing proves, in a public way, that your body is your own”
(134). She argues that piercing in the 1990s represented “provocative symbols of a
powerful revolution in sexual mores and behavior” (132). Piercing one’s body signals
one’s “personal politics” and it becomes a symbol of both “sexual liberation (because
piercing symbolizes opposition to conventional sexual norms) and cultural relativism
(because it evokes the primitive and the exotic)” (134). Piercing provides easy ways for
young people to differentiate themselves from the mainstream adolescent culture, while
still being a part of a mainstream subculture.
Tattoos
A Tattoo, like ear piercing, was only acceptable in the Western Culture among
subculture groups like sailors, prisoners, bikers, and mobsters. Again, like piercing, the
homosexual subculture began the tattoo movement to the mainstream.
According to "The Progression of the Tattoo," tattoos are now considered a "unique
decoration" in the world of body art because they stay with the person forever. Many
people find this idea appealing, and seek to tattoo on themselves an idea or message that
will never leave them.
Some young adults view tattoos as a form of self expression
This idea also follows the idea that because body art is more popular in the mainstream
culture of Generation X, it can be seen as a divergence from the culture of the previous
generation. In this sense, tattooing, like body piercing, can be seen as liberation from
the mainstream culture.
Tattoos can also be considered a sign of conformity. At the beginning of the recent
tattooing revolution (about twenty years ago) getting a tattoo was a clear sign of
deviation. Today, however, tattoos have made their way into the popular culture of the
nation: advertisements even have begun to use tattoos in their marketing to appeal to a
younger buying demographic. So while before, tattooing was really a sign of the
"other," today, it can be argued that wearing a tattoo is only a more permanent way to
conform (Kennedy).
Today, between 7 and 20 million American adults are reported to be tattooed (G,H,L).
Out of 766 tattooed college students who participated in the survey conducted by Grief,
Hewitt, and Armstrong, 53% of the students said that they got a tattoo for selfexpression. 35% "just wanted one," 21% got tattooed to remember an event, 17%
wanted to feel independent, and 11% wanted independence. The results of the study
suggest that "as with all art forms, the purpose of tattoos seems to be to be means of
communicating thoughts, ideas, and feelings" (G,H,L).
Associate Professor of Psychology Christina Frederick-Recascino whose research
specializes in why college-aged people get tattoos argues that while the body art
movement may seem like a fad or a craze, "the majority said they were not getting
tattoos and pierces from peer pressure." She states that "they were choosing it as a way
to reflect their identity." For many young adults who decide to permanently change their
bodies, tattoos "reflects an aspect of who [they are], represents [their] inner personality,
[their] interests, life goals, life philosophy" ("Tattoo. Pierce. How Come?"). In that
sense, tattoos should be considered vastly rhetorical, because the person is making the
decision to permanently inscribe their body with a personal message.
Tattoos and body piercing works alongside the brands and styles of clothes one chooses
to wear to create a rhetorical statement about the kind of person one is. In that sense, if
clothing makes up the "sentences" in the grammar of fashion, than surely it can be
argued that tattoos and body piercing are the "punctuation" in those sentences.
Cultural Applications of Fashion Semiotics
“The whole world loves American movies, blue jeans, jazz and rock and roll. It is
probably a better way to get to know our country than by what politicians or airline
commercials represent.” —Billy Joel
“Busted flat in Baton Rouge, Waitin' for a train, When I was feelin' near as faded as my
jeans” —Janis Joplin
One common definition of culture is described as the “values, norms, institutions and
artifacts” that are “passed on from one generation to another by learning alone” (Hoult
93). Often the interrogation of cultural meaning leads to categorizing and dividing into
subsystems such as “sociological” and “technological”. These subsystems address
“people and their interactions with each other”, and “material objects and their uses”,
respectively (Forsberg). But are there some cases where the social interactions are
defined by the objects we use? What about the clothing we wear? When speaking of
culture and our clothes—blue jeans in particular—no amount of dividing and
categorizing can mitigate the deep and rich cultural milieu surrounding the ‘all
American blue jean’. The sentiment often seen or heard in movies and books is the
‘favorite pair’ or ‘perfect pair’ of blue jeans. The symbolic significance of jeans is seen
in the intense marketing efforts to. There are plenty of images associating a certain
brand with the 'ideal'. But this is true for almost any consumer product in our society. So
what makes blue jeans so different? Is it their long history? Or is it the constant
accessibility to diverse tools of expression that jeans offer? Jeans can be powerful
symbols bearing significant meaning; the cut, the brand and also the 'way' jeans are
worn. Are they unkempt and worn out? Are they stained and soiled, bearing the oily
signs of a gear-head or motorcycle fanatic? Or perhaps you own a bedazzler... enough
said. The meaning-rich subtexts from advertising and pop culture offer a variety of
identity 'markers' and identity 'tellers'. It's because the identity markers and tellers are
widely accepted and understood that makes the symbolic meaning so effective.
How far can we go in discussing the symbolic power of blue jeans in our society? Can a
pair of pants really define our values, or norms, play a role in our institutions or be
labeled as artifacts? It is very clear that in America (and nearly everywhere else), denim
jeans represent behemoths of symbolic culture. From the earliest account of canvas
overalls in the mid-nineteenth century California Gold Rush to James Dean and Marlon
Brando to the legendary '501 Blues' campaign in the '80's, jeans have been omnipresent
in American cultural landscapes. The “501 Blues” campaign was arguably the one move
that launched Levi’s to cultural icon status. Those images today are touted as
blackmailing material for such 501-era actors as Bruce Willis who may guest-star on
late night television; but in their day, those images really made an impression. There
were few things I wanted more than button-fly 501 Levi's (zippers weren’t cool). My
Mom tried to pass off ‘Lee’ jeans or ‘Wranglers’ as suitable substitutes but I wouldn’t
have it. I had seen the commercials, I knew what was cool and what wasn’t. Plus, I had
already endured years of persecution as a kid from having to wear a bullet-proof variety
of pants known (appropriately) as ‘Tough Skins’. And to make matters worse, they were
hand-me-downs (and olive-green).
Jackie Kennedy - A Symbol of Fashion
Jackie Kennedy is an important figure in discussing the rhetoric of fashion. As first
lady, she was part of the elite, ruling class. As is normally the case with fashion trends,
the ruling class establishes the fashion trends, and lower classes then attempt to emulate
those styles. Those who imitated Jackie Kennedy's style did so not only because they
liked her sense of style, but they also wanted to identify with those aspects of her life
that her style brought with it: wealth, power, and social status. Celebrity figures such as
Jackie Kennedy provide us with the most accessible vision of what it means to be
wealthy. Their style and their fashion choices become culturally understood symbols
that represent wealth and power.
Once the “refined taste” of the elite is adopted by lower classes, (for example: imitation
Louis Vuitton handbags, fake Chanel sunglasses) the elite then shift gears and establish
a new high-fashion trend that places them back at the top of the fashion pyramid. Many
times, the trend among the elite is to wear clothing that appears “casual” and “lowmaintenance,” (all while costing hundreds or even thousands of dollars) – but as soon as
the actual casual and low maintenance wearers adopt those trends, the style changes
(Remirez).
This cycle happens for two reasons. First, there is the need for union. Consumers, high
and low classes alike, feel the need to belong to a larger society; they want to be seen as
fashionable in the eyes of their audience who may be their peers, their coworkers, or
family members. In order to appear fashionable, consumers wear those pieces of
clothing that are socially constructed symbols of fashion. Second, there is the need for
isolation. While style-setters and style-emulators both wish to belong to the larger
society, there is also the need to be considered apart from the larger whole, to establish
themselves as unique individuals with a distinctive taste (Remirez).
Not only do fashion choices and brand names act as symbols that communicate
information about the social or economic status of a person, but they also have the
capability to communicate an ideology about our society and the power that fashion has
within it. An ideology is an accepted pattern or set of ideas, such as what is or is not
considered fashionable in a particular culture. For our culture, the acceptable fashion
trends are typically adopted from celebrities and the elite. An ideology is constructed
and consumed through fashion, and this ideology about what is fashionable becomes
hegemonic or dominant when it is viewed as the norm.
Although norms are established, there still exists the need for isolation and distinction.
This need for individuality from the larger whole of society represents a certain
characteristic within our society: we praise uniqueness and individuality; we look highly
upon those individuals who have the independence to dress uniquely and who also have
the fiscal means to do so.
The traditional definition of rhetoric holds that it operates to influence behavior and
change attitudes. Fashion, as a form of rhetoric, has the same capacity.
Conclusion
The fashion of individuals, of a group, of a nation, reads much like a conversation;
highlighting certain codes and symbols to represent sentences that are able to explain
identity. A person can use their clothes and their overall fashion to represent power,
status, differentiation, character, mood, apathy, or rebellion all in many different
manifestations. Although a person can change the conversation of their clothes on a
daily basis, the origin of what is said comes from the semiotics of the culture that person
comes from. Just as semiotics can change with time, fashion and its meaning changes, at
times it seems daily.
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