Contents
Preface
Part I. Clothing History
1. History and Sociology of Clothing. Some Methodological
Observations
2. Language and Clothing
3. Towards A Sociology of Dress
Part II. Systems and Structures
4. Blue is in Fashion This Year
5. From Gemstones to Jewellery
6. Dandyism and Fashion
7. [An Early Preface to] The Fashion System
8. Fashion, A Strategy of Desire (round-table discussion with Jean
Duvignaud and Henri Lefebvre)
9. Fashion and the Social Sciences (interview)
10. On The Fashion System (interview)
Part III. Fashion Debates and Interpretations
11. The Contest between Chanel and Courrges. Refereed by a
Philosopher
12. A Case of Cultural Criticism
13. Showing How Rhetoric Works
Clothes, Fashion and System in the writings of Roland Barthes:
Something out of Nothing by Andy Stafford
Editors Note and Acknowledgements
Bibliography
Glossary of Names
Index
Also available in hardback, 9781845203795 GBP45.00 (February, 2006)
Roland Barthes changed the way a generation read. A cultural
commentator before his time, his careful if playful analysis of
texts revolutionised the way we comprehend cultural products. Both
critic and literary essayist, his writings continue to provoke. His
best known work includes Mythologies, Camera Lucida,
Image-Music-Text, The Empire of Signs, A Lover's Discourse, Writing
Degree Zero, S/Z and The Fashion System.
Translated by Andy Stafford, Senior Lecturer in French Studies,
University of Leeds and edited by Andy Stafford and Michael Carter,
Department of Art History and Theory, University of Sydney.
'It is the making of symbols that both enlightens and disturbs and in many ways this collection opens our eyes to the fashion myth - without destroying one of the most compelling of social fantasies.' Financial Times 'For Barthes, words and objects have in common the organized capacity to say something; at the same time, since they are signs, words and objects have the bad faith always to appear natural to their consumer, as if what they say is eternal, true, necessary, instead of arbitrary, made, contingent.' Edward Said 'Barthes's treatment of fashion in The Fashion System is his most elaborate attempt to reveal the little worlds of meaning enclosed in each nuance of social life. One is able to hear the voice of a sensitive and sensible critic who was alive to the symbolic vitality of the world.' New York Times '..the great student of signs' Edmund White '..a wily observer of "naturalness" and the "falsely obvious." A vivid polemicist, Barthes has something too of the classic artistry of Montaigne. Indeed, unlike most structuralists he is a pleasure to read. Of course, in methodology he owes an immense debt to Ferdinand de Saussure, but Saussure's could never have imagined the sinuousness of Barthes's style or the zest of his insights.' New York Review of Books '..one of the great public teachers of our time, someone who thought out, argued for, and made available several steps in a penetrating reflection on language sign systems, texts and what they have to tell us about the concept of being human. His work is always partial, passionate underneath its cool, and preliminary, ready to be superseded or contradicted, yet its pedagogical power is durable.' Peter Brooks, Yale University 'Barthes clearly has a relish anf a sensitivity for clothes that would shame the most ardent fashionista.' Royce Mahawatte, Financial Times
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