fashion: The particularities of the "fashion code"

Former student of H. Blumer and Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of San Diego, Fred Davis published Fashion, Culture, and Identity in 1992. This book allows him to compare two models of fashion diffusion, namely what he calls the “populist model” based on the consumer and the “fashion system model” oscillating between Simmelian and Blumerian approaches. In addition, he focuses in Chapter 1 “Do clothes speak? What makes them fashion? ”on the recurrent parallel between fashion and language.

Sharing E. Sapir’s analyses of the difficult appreciation of fashion signs, and those of G. McCracken which we have just studied before, F. Davis proposes to study the “code” of dress, based on Umberto Eco’s reading. Thus, the dress code would be different from the code as used in cryptography or in a language, to refer instead to an “incipient” or even a “quasi-code” with certain reading ambiguities.
Fred Davis proposes to define three particularities of the fashion code, namely its strong dependence on context, the plurality of possible interpretations, and the necessary “undercoding” it implies:

1. Depending on the wearer, the moment, the place, the meaning of the garment is intimately dependent on the context in which it works. 

2. The meaning of clothing depends on the receiver of the clothing message. The exaggeration of the shoulder proportions of the 1980s, for example, could be interpreted very differently depending on whether the observer perceives an appropriation of masculinity or, on the contrary, its parody. 

3. The variability of interpretations implies a “undercoding” operation on the part of the receiver, occurring “when in the absence of reliable interpretative rules persons presume or infer, often unwittingly, on the basis of such hard-to-specify cues as gesture, inflection, pace, facial expression, context, and setting, certain molar meanings in a text, score, performance, or other communication”. Thus, although the garment may call for a rather clear “undercoding”, as in the case of the uniform, it is nevertheless more generally an “aesthetic code” than the code applied to the “conventional sign codes” present in speech or writing (ambiguity vs. subtlety).

As part of an “aesthetic code”, the meaning of clothing can also differ according to its “qualities”, in other words according to the fabric, color or cut. In this sense, for Fred Davis, the meaning of clothing depends on its cultural context. However, he notes the propensity of wearers to often invoke the same images or associations. Thus, even if an actor deviates from the dominant meanings, the message will be globally captured. The sociologist takes here the example of hippie hair. Appearing as a sign of sexual liberation for her carrier, other passers-by may consider her a “perverse androgyny”.

But how to define the fashion phenomenon? Starting from the observation of the difficulties of traditional definitions in grasping fashion differently from simple dress practice in a given society, Fred Davis proposes to consider the phenomenon at the level of communication as “some alteration in the code of visual conventions by which we read meanings of whatever sort and variety into the clothes we and our contemporaries wear”, any change being perceived as “the introduction, the retrevial, or the different accenting” of “signifiers”.

Like McCracken, Fred Davis seems to defend the idea that clothing cannot be considered as a language, preferring to use the term of “code”.

What is the expressive nature of clothing?

That fashion or clothes are expressive is another way to say that they are signs. One of the most striking theory on clothes as sign has been formulated by the philosopher, theologian and mathematician Blaise Pascal in the seventeenth century. The context of Pascal ‘s argument is religious: Pascal argues that without God, man is doomed to a miserable existence, which the search for "entertainment" cannot compensate, to wandering and sin. This misery is mainly caused by the human capacity of imagination: "that mistress of error and falsity". Imagination, according to Pascal, is a "power": it refers to the mental faculty of visualizing material things in their absence. This faculty is extremely useful for the individual as it allows him to surpass the immediate empiric experience of the world. Without Imagination, most of knowledge is unattainable.This perspective allows Pascal to form a theory on clothing: the morphological characteristics of the garment are only relevant if they manifest a character trait of the wearer. The garment becomes a "sign". Things that are the object of sensation can, through imagination, become the sign of other things, that are not actually felt by the individual. In other words, imagination stand also as the ability to interpret a tangible reality. Tangible appearances govern our judgement: to demonstrate his theory, Pascal considers the example of a senator whose competence is measured according to his external aspect and his zeal, while his argument and his verdict are the same. Reason is powerless here: it has no arguments to object to the impact of appearances and to the associations led by our imagination. Imagination has its "clevers", whom, with a clear perspective on the power of appearances, act according to the expected effects of their behavior on others’ imagination. Pascal addresses the expressive nature of fashion within this specific framework. We demonstrated that garments are a sign sent by the wearer to the social group, regarding his identity: doctors dress as doctors, and judges as judges. The social function of clothing is neither protection nor the ornament, but rather the expression of a message. This idea of an "expressive garment" is familiar: we usually suppose that clothing choices reflect intentions of meaning (an outfit is chosen in order to communicate a certain representation of the person wearing it). Typically, if we say that Pierre is wearing a pair of "sneakers" with a suit, it means that he has the freedom to ignore constraining formal codes. However, Pascal’s argument is not limited to his observation of garment as a communication tool. The fashion statements he addresses, such as "I am a doctor", are systematically wrong: "if doctors really owned the art of healing, they would never wear squared beanies."

Clothes appear as "vain instruments" through which one can obtain "respect": In the absence of any real justice or medical science, the garment makes the judge or the doctor, and no one cares to object as the merits cannot be appreciated for themselves, in a world where imagination replaced knowledge "and disposes of everything". The Pascalian critic of fashion is essentially made on a moralistic level, with a tragic and metaphysic dimension: criticizing society for dwelling into a futile obsession for "disguise" is to believe that we can still reach something beyond the mere image. The main issue is, for Pascal, that this "second nature" induced by appearances cannot be overlooked: in a world without God, only the signs remains, as what they refer to is lost for the sinner. Let’s try to push this further and ignore the moral or religious sentence that dress is a cosmetic lie. Back in the twentieth century, we find Roland Barthes, literary critic and semiologist, with the project to demonstrate "the structrural analysis of the female garment". Barthes does not ask anymore about the truth of fashion statements. He rather asks about their meaningfulness. Barthes’s hypothesis is to translate fashion as a language, following Troubetskoi, Flugel and Kiener prior body of work.Barthes assumes that the garment cannot be reduced to its protective or ornamental functions, but is part of a system of signs. Unlike Pascal, Barthes does not refer to the actual garment, but to the "written garment", which is described in "fashion literature". Barthes’s subject is not textile, it is textual. This choice, explained by the author in the preface of "The Fashion System", is dictated by the author personal preference towards the written material. Fashion magazines work as axiomatics, establishing each season a clothing "lexicon", namely a code linking between the various items of a wardrobe ("this suit") and their properties ("blue") and concepts ("youth"). Barthes itemizes the characteristics of the "communication system" at the heart of fashion.This system is defined by three particularities: The first particularity is the indeterminacy of the link between the  linguistic signifier and its signified, in contrast with the common language. This first particularity is explainedby the second: the relationship between the signifier and the signified is quotationnal. The fashion discourse grants an expressive nature to the fabrics and embroideries, which we are free to ignore if we remain strangers to the prescriptions of fashion literature. This type of rhetoric involve two levels of language, and finds itself, according to Barthes, "straddling on language (clothing shapes) and meta-language (fashion literature)". Barthes refers to a linguistic distinction or a more general logic according to which there is a plurality of languages, organized by their expressive capacity. A meta-language is defined by its relationship with a language-object, explaining its structure and functioning.

This meta language has to be at least as expressive as the language-object (French, for instance, is it’s own meta-language) and contains a quotation function (for example, quotation marks) that allows to mention the expressions of the aforementioned language-object ("snow" is a name within the English metalanguage for the word "snow" in the English language-object). What Barthes means to explain is the fact that fashion literature is a meta-language that defines the meaning conditions of the actual worn garments, adressed as the expressions of a language-object. Finally, the third and last particularity is the "signifying relationship" given under "an analytic form". It is the consequence of the second particularity of the fashion speech, to fuse together the two levels of the language-objet and the meta-language: as the fashion speech integrates "the text and its lexicon", the signifying elements are immediately recognizable, as they are determined according to the meta-language’s axioms or definitions. Barthes’s interest for the fashion language can be explained by the semiologist’s fascination for fashions’ arbitrary nature: each year, the same signifiers are allocated different signifieds. Barthes focuses on fashion literature’s tendency to conceal the conventional nature of the signs it projects on garments : either it "presents its signified (fashion, softness, spring etc) as inner qualities of the forms it quotes", or "it reduced the signified to a simple utilitarian function (a coat for travelling)". This transformation of the "linguistic status of the garment" into a "natural or utilitarian status" recycles a marxist approach of fashion : it diverts functional objects from their real use value, to turn them into the sign ("fetishes") of an exchange value artificially established by the capitalist system. In other words, if fashion can only be comprehended through writing, and does not exist without the support of fashion magazines, it is because of the capitalist economy need for "mythologies", "in order to blunt the buyer’s calculating consciousness", and make him buy an image instead of an actual product. From different perspectives, Pascal and Barthes agree on the imaginary power of fashion and clothing, and both of them formulate a moral critic about them.

https://artteca.com/blogs/artteca/why-you-should-express-yourself-through-fashion

That our outfits can express our moods, our social positions or our beliefs seems quite obvious. The study of how one can use clothes to achieve meaning is more difficult and is the object of a separate video this week. But right now, our topic is slightly different. We will not focus on individuals using fashion as a language. We will examine to what extent fashion as a whole can be considered a creative language. Fashion is generally categorized as a creative industry. At a very basic level, it means that fashion design is not only concerned with technical parameters like the clothes’ comfort or their wearable character, but also, and primarily with how they look, with their aesthetic properties. But fashion cannot be reduced to the crafting of garments that are pleasant to our senses. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, fashion designers like Paul Poiret have considered that not only clothes but also furniture or fragrances were part of their work. Poiret was also involved in the staging of his products in his own couture house, in window displays, and in parties he was famous for. He also was eager to have his many artist friends help him to communicate about his dresses through albums, pictures, and illustrations. Poiret was obsessed not only by the material things he was designing but also with the image through which people would discover them. This attitude has become quite common among fashion designers, who are generally credited with a complete creative universe where dressmaking is only a part. The evolution of fashion shows over the twentieth Century, from catalogues in motion taking place in the couture house premises, to spectacular events in most prestigious venues, is also an example of the ambition of fashion to articulate a message beyond the clothes. Fashion blends craftsmanship and entertainment, and it is difficult to assess, between actual products and images, which are the most important. If fashion is now established as an art in itself, it is also because it has succeeded in articulating strong statements about the world. After all, a creative language uses aesthetic means not only to please its audience, but also to deliver some kind of truths. This is exactly what the fashion historian Caroline Evans shows in Fashion at the Edge, a book published in 2003. Evans focuses on a small set of fashion designers she calls "experimental" and that includes Rei Kawakubo, Martin Margiela, Alexander McQueen, Yohji Yamamoto or Hussein Chalayan. According to her, this group has significantly changed the social and cultural relevance of fashion.

Their works differ in many respects, but share a critical inspiration: they are dark, sometimes even sinister, ironic, they contest the genders’ usual attributes, and they create sometimes unfinished or deconstructed pieces of clothing. Their play on proportions, their use of weird fabrics, their taste for gothic or nightmarish references suggest that these designers ignore the conventions of good taste and somehow prefer ugliness to canonical beauty. Evans writes that "on the edge of discourse, of 'civilization', of speech itself, experimental fashion can act out what is culturally hidden". In other words, these designers’ work say something disturbing about the world they live in. They show traumatized bodies, in complete contrast to the celebration of modernity, progress and self-accomplishment that more mainstream fashion tends to represent. According to Caroline Evans, these desires and fears are not necessarily those of the designers themselves. As she writes, "if fashion speaks, it speaks independently of its creators". Fashion, with its constant transformation, is a mirror of society’s deep concerns. In the years these experimental designers have emerged, a lot of anxiety was confusingly experienced in western societies where several economic and moral crises burst at the same time. Fashion’s creativity lies in its capacity to make buried feelings and thoughts come into light. In this way it is very similar to other artistic forms of expression. But the particularity of fashion is that its language is determined by its temporal indexicality: by definition, fashion points at the present time and its features. Fashion speaks of the ‘now’: whatever it says, it is always about the temporal context of its enunciation. This is why fashion designers are sometimes perceived as oracles or prophets: they have to feel and interpret the deepest moves of our culture, and translate them into collections and images that will set the tone and give a clear shape to the present.

Brands as creative languages

How to define creation? How does a big fashion house work?

if we talk about creation in the fashion industry, you have a creative person. Why is this person creative, a real creative person? I'm not talking about creative managers. All of us, we are creative during the day, we can have good ideas. But let's talk about real creativity. Those designers that are considered as real creatives, bringing something new, a breakthrough in the fashion. And you have to see their history, their origin. Sometimes, the less bourgeois you are, and the better you can be creative. Because you observe, when you are a young person, you observe the world outside, and this develops your creativity, because your imagination goes beyond day to day reality. 

This is why some think in fashion it's, even more, it's different from music or, more similar to music maybe but, it's how to have the intuition of what will be tomorrow, or just tomorrow. By that, I mean that Mr. Dior used to say "you have to hear the wind in the trees", and the moment, and what we have today, the same story. You know, the young, they follow very quickly the change. Over 30, or over sometimes even 25, you have your daily life, and then, you resist to the change. So whoever is a creative person has to feel the trend that they will invent. They don't follow some institutes giving you the trend of colors, this is not the case. For Dior, Chanel, Givenchy it goes beyond their creativity, they have created a house and then, became a brand, thanks to the designers coming after, and maintaining the heritage with a twist, with a very creative to keep it, to attract the new generation. Their role was global, obviously. Mr. Dior was doing everything, from the couture, then the "prêt-à-porter". He was global in terms of products and he was global in terms of geography. He went to the U.S in August after the first show in February 1947, the famous "New Look". He could not go himself to Japan in 1954, but he had the first house in Daimaru.

https://www.vogue.com/article/john-galliano-dior-alexander-mcqueen-givenchy-brit-invasion

Then, the creative of today, he has to deal with the "première", he has to deal with the atelier, about couture, "prêt-à-porter", accessories. He has to think about the communication. The first act being the show. And immediately after the show, the campaign, the advertising. But today, even social media before the show, during the show, after the show. Windows, interior design of the store. If you hire a designer to work for a brand, you have to be sure of the fit between it's a triangle: the designer, the brand and the management philosophy of the company. It's like selecting a partner in life. You know, designing for a big brand, a big house, is not "they are free, you give them a lot of freedom, and so on". But there is "you're building something with some constraints". The key has been also to hire, for those brands with heritage, the right designer able to understand "l'air du temps", the moment to create a fashion momentum, and respecting the heritage. And this is something only few of them can do. Because, if you ignore the heritage, you can be successful at one point. It can last two years, three years, four years. you go into a pure fashion moment,  And you see the collection of the designer has nothing to do with the heritage. Go "disruptive" as they say today, being "disruptive". It's a word that everybody is using. But more disruptive than Mr. Dior himself, or maybe Coco Chanel before, or Mr. Givenchy, when you read the stories of Saint Laurent. There were not storytelling, they were doing the story, different. And, when you bring those new creative people, if you have a big name, the respect of the name, but without being in the past, because if you only spend your time, your day, in the archive, you reproduce it, so you're doing vintage. So the creativity is important and for some, those geniuses like John Galliano or McQueen for instance, who has been at Givenchy, they were taking the archive but played it. John did the first show for Dior,with a "la veste Bar", but with the skirt in crocodile. Black and white, but some details making it so modern. And what Clare (Waight Keller) is doing today is the same. This is the most difficult thing to do. To give new energy, momentum, and respecting the roots. But again the roots, they are the roots, but you need the tree, and you need flowers on the tree, and this is the mission of the designer. This is the case of Dior, the bar, the cannage". But those values, each designer can bring his own vision. After Dior, Saint Laurent, Bohan, Ferré, John Galliano, Raf Simons, Maria Grazia, and they all go with their own interpretation. This is what I call an open system, it's open. Mr. Dior himself was open. They could bring contribution, and this is a different approach.

The perspectives of fashion design

what's central in fashion is the person. That's a huge difference. Because that's also going to work with the more economical part of fashion as well. Because then we're going to speak about the target, who is going to be wearing these things, or using these things. Quite often, when a designer is going to work without a notion of the body in there, we get quite weird results. 

Sometimes, when we get approached by designers to join the program, and we get that feeling that the body is not there, they're just making objects that people can wear, but not really are working together with a person in it, then we would rather guide them towards accessories, or to other fields as well. It's a wide scope of competencies and skills that a designer in fashion needs today, even more than before, They have to be skilled technically, they have to understand volume, color, materials. Then, a designer has a notion of time management. They have to be able to draw. There are a lot of digital tools that can help you work around, a lot of photoshop going around. drawing is an easy and quite direct medium to express what one could do and is want to do. Image is taking over a huge part of the the lecture of fashion. I happen to come across quite some people who actually are running their fittings even through their camera, through their phone, looking say "okay I'm fitting your jumper. How is it looking? How will it look on Instagram? How will it look on social media? I don't see that enough. Can we change that a little bit? This is not working. Can we change it?". 10 years ago, or even 5 years ago, we would actually work right away on the piece, and now there is this screen in the middle. Because we live a lot of things, we experience a lot of things, through the screen. Which gives another thing about screens, as well, is today a lot of things are happening in front. If you look to a collection on a screen, you mainly see the front. So, nothing is happening in the back. That gives a kind of completely different vision of fashion, while actually we spoke about the body before as being important in what we're doing. So, body means three dimensions and going around it. But then, the screen is two dimensions. in a way, like influencing each other. 

The main challenges for a fashion designer, a young fashion designer, today in the fashion world... Fashion business today is crowded. There's a lot of things going around. There's a lot of things existing today. There are huge brands taking a lot of space today, having a lot of power, a lot of possibilities and opportunities. Still, the last couple of years again, there is room for niche brands. There's room for other things. There's room for young designers who are trying, who are wanting to show, who find again this entrepreneurship vibe. we happen to come across, and there is so much competition going on. It's very difficult for a young designer. We're living in a world where it's possible for anyone to communicate, but there's so much communication going around that still the difficulty is to be seen and to be watched, to be understood, and to find your final customers, or target, or goal in the end. To be successful is to be is to be outstanding in its initial meaning of the world: standing out of the crowd. It can be a detail in the end, but what would make that this would stand out. The need for a designer is just to understand what's existing, what is working with other brands, without applying the recipe if there is one, and to try out something else at one way or another. But the biggest part where we would see things changing today, lately, is to become team players. the younger generation, they are ready, they understand, they are willing to become team players and to become... they have to work as a group as well. They don't have, or less, that identity or that identity issue about "I did it, and it's my name, and I want to sign it". They're happy to work together, they're happy to come up with a common project as well.