Week 3: Semiotics

Qn: Why would we want to study fashion in Visual Communication? Is it even worth studying?

cr: as tagged

Fashion has been the common subject among designers such as Jeremy Scott, Christian Louboutin, Vera Wang and Elie Saab. We as consumers and audience especially fashion enthusiasts are also not new to Balmain, KTZ, London Fashion Week, Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, just to name a few. Needless to say, fashion is everywhere; from the clothes & pants we wear, bags, shoes, hairstyles to body art.  

The definition of fashion varies from one individual to another. Although I am not a decent fashion follower, I see fashion as a form of art. The Project Runaway TV series, for example, allows designers to create their own pieces of clothes with different themes each week. Whilst the models particularly have similar features and can walk on the runaway, it’s their designers’ clothes that give them identities. As Woo (2011) has mentioned, “You don’t wear clothes, clothes wear you.” 

According to Pauline Weston Thomas, “Fashion is a language of signs, symbols and iconography that non-verbally communicate meanings about individuals and groups.” As semiotics refers to the “study of signs”, this implies that studying fashion is in fact essential in Visual Communication. Through semiotics, identity of an individual or group can be revealed; whether their clothing purposes are either personal or cultural. A Bruneian primary student, for instance, would be expected to wear uniform to school, whereas an interviewee is expected to wear smart attire instead of T-shirt. Hence, the act of conformity shows how clothing is used to communicate.

cr: eiffel  in seoul

From the above picture, we can see how these women with similar tops carry different meaning when they were styled with completely different bottoms. Both celebrities were spotting chic and casual look at the same event by wearing short and dress respectively. These looks were expected of them since it coincide with the theme of the event as opposed to the models on the runaway.This shows that the combination of different "code" of fashion i.e materials, colour or styles opted at an occasion, can be used to convey specific social meanings to others (Sproles & Burns, 1994).

At the Paris fashion shows, models appeared with their faces hidden or obscured. 

As far as fashion is concerned, there are somehow limitations regarding how far we can fully understand the meaning behind certain texts as it is a non-verbal communication. During the 2006 Paris fashion shows for example, a designer had designed an unusual line whereby models were dressed up with their faces hidden or obscured. This had received mixed reaction from different parties; some deemed it as an anti-feminism movement while others see it as "a response to anything from Islamic fundamentalism to bird flu" (Rosenbloom,  2006). Whether the masking is intentional or not, the designer in return responded that it is just a mere fashion. That is to say, we can only analyse fashion language only to a certain degree, as these days designers are becoming more innovative in their creation, thus making it hard to interpret them.

Can you define her fashion statement?

All in all, fashion is significant in studying Visual Communications as it helps us determine the identity and representation of an individual or groups. Although i tend to agree with Grant McCracken (1988)  who saw fashion  "as a code is most like language, it is least successful as a means of communication" with regards to the innovative design these days, fashion, in my opinion, is certainly an interesting subject to study.

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References:

Visual Rhetoric/ Semiotics of Fashion. Retrieved from: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Visual_Rhetoric/Semiotics_of_Fashion

Sproles & Burns. (1994) Changing appearances: Understanding dress in contemporary society. pp 218-221. Retrieved from: http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/dce/aihm577/nine/index.htm

Rosenbloom, S. (2006). The Obsecure and Uncertain Semiotics of Fashion. Retrieved from: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/05/weekinreview/05rosenbloom.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1141853366-1/gRm9KRb5ad3SbJtyDTVw

Thomas, P.W. (2005). Theories of Fashion Costume and Fashion History. Retrieved from:  http://www.fashion-era.com/sociology_semiotics.htm