Etnoantropološki Problemi (Mar 2016)
Fashion and the semiotics of gender
Abstract
Contemporary studies of fashion interpret articles of clothing as text, through which a specific cultural identity is constructed and expressed. As identities are momentarily realized through the performative act of identifying with a real or ideal subject, fashion has a special significance in every visual creation of a subject as the identity of a given role. In accordance with this, the dressing of the body is viewed as one of the available means of gender identification, as well as a way to confirm the subject through the performing of the assigned role of man and woman. Seeing as the performance of a certain role, in this specific case, entails the existence of the subject as event (of a textual) role, the sphere of clothing fashion is in this paper primarily connected to the sphere of representing the subject as member of a gender category. Clothing is viewed as one in a slew of instruments of gender naturalization, in the sense of the power which clothing has for upholding, performing and displaying the stability of gender norms. Hence, this paper will consider always current issues of the existence of established boundaries of male and female fashion, male and female clothing ornaments and colors, as well as socially acceptable male and female forms of clothing.
