THEORY READING -INTRODUCTION TO BA1 FASHION THEORY

BA1 CLASS READINGS - INTRODUCTION TO FASHION THEORY 

CONSPICUOUS CONSUMPTION

A phrase coined by Theodore Veblen in 1899 to describe the tendency to mark social status through the competitive display of possessions. (Craik, 2009, p.323).

The expanding universe of fashion coincided with the rise of mercantilism and consumerism as the acquisition and trade of material goods expanded, and thus the possibility of literally fashioning an identity and way of life out of consumer objects. In turn, these material possessions became symbols of well-being and of social status. In an effort to control the multiplication of material culture, political regimes enacted laws known as sumptuary laws across Europe to regulate the ownership and display of material goods, for example, luxury items, certain colours, garments, and accessories ... (Craik, 2009, p.28).

CONSUMER CULTURE

A culture permeated by consumerism in which people take their identity from the value of the goods they purchase as much as from social values. (Craik, 2009, p.323).

... the fashion machine sped up in Europe with the coming of industrialisation and urbanisation ...  Once there were means of producing and distributing goods that could be purchased by other people, the trade in goods created an economy of value alongside consumer markets. People could buy a cultural identity and thus social credentials. Mass production accelerated the process, and with mass-produced goods came mass markets for clothing and fashion. At this point, fashion became as much a consumer culture as it was a culture of identity, status, and role. (Craik, 2009, p.67).

TRICKLE-DOWN/TRICKLE (BUBBLE) UP

Trickle-down 

George Simmel's theory that the elites set the fashions that are copied by the lower classes or masses thereby producing a cycle of creation and innovation followed by imitation and modification. As a fashion ceases to be distinctive because of its dissemination to wider groups, the elite adopt new fashions to remain different. The cycle of fashion speeds up during periods of rapid social change as the elite seek to maintain their aloof status.

Trickle-up

The theory that reverses the trickle-down thesis and argues that more often, especially in recent decades, fashion impulses come from everyday subcultural, or street influences and are adopted by an influential set of fashion aspirants. Once new fads and fashions are popularised, they are appropriated by the mainstream fashion industry. While the street type embodies a badge of identity and difference, the designer version is oriented around stylishness and nowness. (Craik, 2009, p.338).

The trickle-down theory emerged with debates about the nature of class society. Initially associated with the spread of fashion from royalty to the aristocracy and middle classes, trickle-down theory came to epitomise the development of capitalist society. Fashion became a mechanism to display class difference through the adoption of new styles of dress that differentiated the elite from the mass. However, as new styles were  popularised and copied by the masses in a trickle-down process, the elite felt impelled to conjure up a new style that maintained their distinctiveness ...

... trickle-up theory ... In this reversal of the theory, it is argued that some fashions and sales originate among the non-elite or subcultures but are adopted by the elite. (Craik, 2009, pp.106-7).

SEXUALITY

Sexuality

The cultural connotations relating to matters pertaining to sex and gender, involving biological, psychological, and sociological dimensions. Developed in the early nineteenth century to denote the quality of being sexual, sexuality refers both to normative heterosexual behaviour and to other sexual leanings and so-called perversions. The term has attracted controversy concerning whether sexuality is natural or socially constructed in different cultural and historical contexts. (Craik, 2009, p.335).

Feminist approaches privilege the specific gendered implications of the manipulation of fashion systems to construct desired images of femininity ...

Psychoanalytic approaches explain fashion behaviour in terms of unconscious sexual desires and erotic tendencies related to the formation of the ego and the id ...

Masculinity and queer studies explore the particularities of men's relationship with fashion and the construction of masculinity and other sexualised identities ... (Craik, 2009, p.117).

SEMIOTICS

Semiology of fashion

The meaning of the formal properties and signs of garment decorations. (Craik, 2009, p.335).

... fashion is not just a covering for the body but a means of communicating about the body and can thus be considered a symbolic system where clothes and the rules that govern how they can be worn can be seen as a type of language or set of signs.

The theorist most strongly associated with this approach is Roland Barthes, who wrote the now-classic book 'The Fashion System' (1984). Barthes was influenced by the theory of structuralism in postwar French anthropology and linguistics, which examined social phenomena as a set of interrelated components making up a complex whole. In the case of fashion, this meant examining the garments and elements of an outfit or a look that composed a vocabulary and a grammar ...

Fashion, he argues, is the product of the social relations and activities that are involved in putting an outfit together. Fashion is actualised through the way the garments are worn. Barthes makes a distinction between three kinds of garments -  the real garment, the represented garment, and the used garment - corresponding to the processes of production, distribution, and consumption. (Craik, 2009, pp.109-10).

REFERENCE

Craik, J. (2009) Fashion - the key concepts. Oxford: Berg.