The Language of Fashion

ISBN-13: 9781472505422 / Angielski / Miękka / 2013 / 192 str.

Roland Barthes

Opis

Roland Barthes was one of the most widely influential thinkers of the 20th Century and his immensely popular and readable writings have covered topics ranging from wrestling to photography. The semiotic power of fashion and clothing were of perennial interest to Barthes and The Language of Fashion - now available in the Bloomsbury Revelations series - collects some of his most important writings on these topics. Barthes' essays here range from the history of clothing to the cultural importance of Coco Chanel, from Hippy style in Morocco to the figure of the dandy, from colour in fashion to the power of jewellery. Barthes' acute analysis and constant questioning make this book an essential read for anyone seeking to understand the cultural power of fashion.

Recenzje

No one can claim that translating Barthes is easy. Nor is it easy to assemble, as Stafford and Carter have done, such a chronologically revealing series of essays, to footnote their French sources and explain the citations in them so fully, to provide a glossary of writers to help explain the evolution of Barthes's thought, and to frame the whole with a theoretically acute history of twentieth-century social theory, dress history, and his assessment by friends and foes. The Language of Fashion is paradoxically (as Barthes would say) reader-friendly but also respectful of the difficulties of his thought, an excellent advanced introduction to his writing on la mode. Ann Rosalind Jones H-France Review

Spis treści

Preface I. Clothing History 1. History and Sociology of Clothing: Some Methodological Observations 2. Language andClothing 3. Towards a Sociology of Dress II. Systems and Structures 4. 'Blue is In Fashion This Year': A Note on Research into Signifying Units in Fashion Clothing 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 Roland Barthes, Jean Duvignaud and Henri Lefebvre 9. Fashion and the Social Sciences(interview) 10. On The Fashion System III.Fashion Debates and Interpretations 11. The Contest Between Chanel andCourreges, Refereed by a Philosopher 12. A Case of Cultural Criticism 13.Showing How Rhetoric Works Afterword: Clothes, Fashion and System in the Writings of Roland Barthes: 'Something Out of Nothing', Andy Stafford Editor's Note and Acknowledgements Bibliography Glossary of Names Index.

O autorze

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.Roland Barthes (1915-1980) was a major French writer, literary theorist and critic of French culture and society.