Social Implications
In this paper, fashion in clothes is analyzed as a socio-semiotic
phenomenon that can represent a tool of social transformations, including the
creation and change of systems of gender social roles, as well as the formation
of structures of social power. The historical and semiotic analysis of fashion is
carried out: various historical types of fashion are considered and systematized.
The basic semiotic mechanisms of fashion influence on public opinion and social
groups are found out. The groups of signs generated by each type of fashion
are analyzed. It is argued that before the modernity, fashion in clothes was a
predominantly female project and used by women to create their own social
statuses. Since the modernity, women lost the initiating semiotic force in fashion.
It is shewn that fashion in clothes can be an effective tool for creating and
reproducing gender cultural and behavioural stereotypes, and through them designers
can affect the structure of gender social roles and statuses. The main
dichotomy of fashion types is “natural fashion” and “artificial fashion”. Natural
fashion corresponds to the semiotic structure of fashion created by women and
to the symbolic leadership of the female, which had dominated culture for many
thousands of years since the era of ancient matriarchy. It is demonstrated that
the “natural fashion” for a long historical period was one of the tools for the
creation of feminine and masculine gender social roles and their subsequent
codification as social statuses. The hypothesis is put forward, according to
which in modern times there is no liberation, emancipation and removal by the
woman of any prohibitions in the field of clothing and image. Instead, there is a
control of global codes of consumerism and mass consumption broadcast
through mass media, over the symbolic power of the female in the creation of
fashion as an artificial language with the capability of social transformations.
The role of postmodern fashion as one of the factors of initiation of sexual revolution
of the seventies is emphasized. An idea is advanced that the feature of
modern (post-postmodern) fashion is pseudo-sociality, generation of simulacra
of gender social processes and roles. The semiotic in the modern global fashion
is characterized by the tendency to radicalized repetition. The phenomenon of
global fashion in the modern world is studied. The globalization of fashion has
led to the fact that the matrix code of universal global fashion becomes a generator of simulacra; it forms elusive signified and series of signifiers that do not
lead anywhere.
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Social Implications // Критика и семиотика. 2019. № 1. Pp. 198–219. DOI: 10.25205/2307-1737-2019-1-198-219.