Barnard, M. (2007) 'A tale of inscription/fashion statements', London: Routledge, P477

'Women's love of clothes, cosmetics, jewellery, their obsession with style and fashion, reinforces the myth that we are narcissistic and materialistic. In turn this reinforces capitalism, which depends upon this obsession with our bodies for the marketing of new products. Griselda Pollack's work expands on this thesis by showing how the solidification of the identity between a womans body and the notion 'for sale' is an extension of the tradition of european high art within popular culture.

There is an element of truth to these arguments, given the historical development of the advertising and clothing industry. But they tend to fall within the trap of decoding all social relations within patriarchy and capitalism as essentially repressive and homogeneous in its effects. As Teresa de Lauretis explains, the visual world is treated as a series of static representations. It is assumed that images are literally absorbed by the viewer, that each image is immediately readable and meaningful in an of itself, regardless of the context, the circumstances of its production, circulation and reception. The viewer, except of course for the educated critic who has learned to see beyond this level of deception, is assumed to be immediately susceptible to these image. However fashion, like social being is constituted through the effects of language, through circulation and vagaries of discourses which affect the very nature of its images and its objects. '

Barnard, M. (2007) 'A tale of inscription/fashion statements', London: Routledge, P174

'Fashion communication as expression is the idea that something going on inside someones head, individual intention, is somehow externalised and made present in a garment or an ensemble. It may also be the idea that entire cultures can express themselves in or through what members wear. Joanne Entwistle, for example, says that clothes 'can be expressive of identity'. She also says that clothing is 'part of the expressive culture of a community'. Both individuals and cultural communities can use fashion to express of make externally visible what were 'internal' and invisible ideas and beliefs.'

'The notion of meaning followed in this essay suggests that meaning is constucted in the interaction between an individuals values and beliefs (which they hold as a member of a culture) and the item of visual culture. If meaning works in this way, as an interaction, they it cannot simply be transported of conveyed in communication. Consequently as the idea of expression uses a metaphor of transportation, neither cultures nor individuals can be said in any simple way to be 'expressing' themselves through what is worn; it is more accurate to say that identity is being constructed and reproduced.' 

Barnard, M. (2007) 'A tale of inscription/fashion statements', London: Routledge, P161.
"The consumption communication thesis clearly requires that sociologists should demonstrate first that consumer goods possess symbolic as well as instrumental meanings, second that consumers have a common understanding of these meanings, and third that their consumption activities are guided by them. In other words to speak of the symbolic meaning carried by clothes is to presume the existence of a shared system of symbols; one known to the wearer and observer alike, and hence one that allows the acts of selecting and displaying certain itms of clothing to serve as a means of communication, such that a message is passed between the wearer and observer(s). "

Breward, C. Evens, C. (2005) Fashion and Modernity. New York: Bergpublishers.

'Her body was replicated in the commercial and social spaces of the city: she mirrored the inanimate dummies of the shop window, with whom she was often paired, and she herself was often duplicated in the mirrors of the salon where she worked. Once behind the confines of the salon, she would be indentically dressed with other mannequins for outings to the paris races, or promotional tours of foreign countries.' 

Freud

Freud, S. (1899) The Interpretation of dreams


'That source is the unconscious. I believe that the conscious wish becomes effective in exciting a dream only when it succeeds in arousing a similar unconscious wish which reinforces it. From the indications obtained in the psychoanalysis of the neuroses, I believe that these unconscious wishes are always active and ready to express themselves whenever they find an opportunity of allying themselves with an impulse from consciousness, and transferring their own greater intensity to the lesser intensity of the latter.[22] It must, therefore, seem that the conscious wish alone has been realized in the dream; but a slight peculiarity in the form of the dream will put us on the track of the powerful ally from the unconscious.'  



Barnard, M. (2007) 'A tale of inscription/fashion statements', in Sawchuck, K. (ed.) fashion theory a reader. London: Routledge, 476.

Barnard, M. (2007) 'A tale of inscription/fashion statements', in Sawchuck, K. (ed.) fashion theory a reader. London: Routledge, 477.

Barnard, M. (2007) 'A tale of inscription/fashion statements', in Sawchuck, K. (ed.) fashion theory a reader. London: Routledge, 477.

This piece of text again explores the idea that a womans obsession with style allows the idea of materialism so be portrayed. The obsession women have with the way in which they look allows more controversial symbols to filter through and become acceptable, capitilism allows the exploitation of certain symbols, including the christian cross.