“Fashion as Communication Revisited”

Abstract

Fashion journalists appear to love nothing more than to identify and explain the messages sent by either people or the things they wear. They love it even more if they can describe the messages as “secret” or “hidden”. Ann Romney’s blouse, a $990 Reed Krakoff design featuring a seagull and which she wore during her husband’s presidential campaign in 2012, was the subject of much journalistic speculation. The philosophical and literary literature, from Socrates questioning the poets in the “Apology” to Matthew Arnold changing his mind about what we are obliged to understand here as the message of “Empedocles on Etna”, is full of senders either not knowing what the message is or changing their mind about what the message is. It is not only fashion journalism that is obsessed with sending messages; many theorists working in communication studies are also preoccupied with this model.

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