Roland Barthes, Système de la mode [The Fashion System]

Graham Allen (University College Cork)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.5.2.07: French Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Kate Averis (University of Western Australia), Hugo Azerad (University of Cambridge), Patrick ffrench (King's College London), Edward Forman (University of Bristol), Akane Kawakami (Birkbeck, University of London), Siobhán McIlvanney (King's College London), Sinan Richards (King's College London), Tim Unwin (University of Bristol), David Williams (University of Sheffield)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1967

Places

France (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Non-Fiction
- Commentary / Criticism (literary)

Resources

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Barthes researched and wrote the bulk of

Système de la mode

between the years 1957 and 1963. The study begins with a foreword, written at the time of publication in 1967, which already shows Barthes moving away from this kind of semiology towards a more post-structuralist understanding of the sign. The study is offered to Barthes's readers, therefore, as a moment in the “history of semiology” (

The Fashion System

, trans. Matthew Ward and Richard Howard, New York: Hill and Wang, 1983: ix). Barthes goes on to explain why his original intention for the study, a semiological analysis of actual clothing, was replaced by a study of written clothing, more precisely the fashion pages of a few women's magazines (mainly

Elle

and

Le Jardin des Modes

) in one specific “fashion year” (1958-9).…

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1101 words

Citation: Allen, Graham. "Système de la mode". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 20 September 2002 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=10342, accessed 19 April 2024.]

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