Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Roland Barthes, widely regarded as one of the most subtle and perceptive critics of the 20th Century, was particularly fascinated by fashion and clothing. The Language of Fashion brings together all Barthes' untranslated writings on fashion.The Language of Fashion presents a set of remarkable essays, revealing the breadth and insight of Barthes' long engagement with the history of clothes. The essays range from closely argued essays laying down the foundations for a structural and semiological analysis of clothing to a critical analysis of the significance of gemstones and jewellery, from an exploration of how the contrasting styles of Courrges and Chanel replayed the clash between ancient and modern to a discussion of the meaning of hippy style in Morocco, and from the nature of desire to the role of the dandy and colour in fashion.Constantly questioning, always changing, Barthes' ideas about clothes and fashion remain to provoke another generation of readers seeking to understand not only the culture of fashion but the fashion of culture.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Contents
• Preface
• Part I Clothing History
• 1 History and Sociology of Clothing. Some Methodological Observations
• 2 Language and Clothing
• 3 Towards A Sociology of Dress
• Part II Systems and Structures
• 4 Blue is in Fashion This Year
• 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 Jean Duvignaud and Henri Lefebvre)
• 9 Fashion and the Social Sciences (interview)
• 10 On The Fashion System (interview)
• Part III Fashion Debates and Interpretations
• 11 The Contest between Chanel and Courrges. Refereed by a Philosopher
• 12 A Case of Cultural Criticism
• 13 Showing How Rhetoric WorksClothes, Fashion and System in the writings of Roland Barthes: Something out of Nothing by Andy Stafford
• Editors Note and Acknowledgements
• Bibliography
• Glossary of Names
• Index

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

This volume includes several previously untranslated essays on fashion by legendary philosopher and critic Barthes (The Fashion System) as well as transcriptions of two rare interviews. The scholarly essays are divided into three sections dealing with clothing history, systems and structures, and fashion debates and interpretations. Originally published in French, the essays appeared in such periodicals as Annales, Marie Claire, and Communication. In general, Barthes's writings here fall into structuralist/poststructuralist and semiotic categories and have a strong sociological slant (i.e., you won't find essays about what not to wear next winter). Included is an excellent afterword by Stafford (French studies, Univ. of Leeds) that will prove helpful to any readers unfamiliar with Barthes's previous work on the subject. Naturally, the content is most useful alongside Barthes's other works (particularly The Fashion System) and will be practical to anyone needing further resources on Barthes. Recommended for academic libraries only.-Jason Moore, Madison Cty. Lib. Syst., MS (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

As part of his edgy 1960s cultural criticism, French sociologist Barthes wrote extensively on fashion, culminating in The Fashion System. British academics Stafford and Michael Carter have assembled a smattering of the early interdisciplinary essays that haven't been translated before, originally published in publications as diverse as Revue Fran?aise de Sociologie and Marie Claire. The essays reveal the chronological development of Barthes's thinking, from 1957 to 1969, which essentially aimed to apply Saussure's semiology to clothing forms to show how "the signifying function of dress makes it a total social object." In the early "History and Sociology of Clothing," for example, Barthes equates the Saussurian linguistics distinctions "langue" and "parole" to fashion; that is, "langue" is dress, while "parole" is the act of getting dressed. "Language and Clothing" delves into fashion history, extracting the nugget that men's current anti-dandyist style derives from the austerity of Quaker dress. "From Gemstones to Jewellery" is one of the few essays for lay readers, as is a consideration of classic versus modern style entitled "The Contest Between Chanel and Courr?ges." There's a lot of padding and explication in this slender volume, necessary to navigate Barthes's fairly difficult system. (Apr. 5) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved