FASHION, A STRATEGY OF DESIRE 87

8
Henri Lefebvre: Yes, just so long as we do not restrict fashion to
clothing. Fashion is also concerned as much with literature, painting,
music ... It is a general phenomenon. The study of fashion can be
Fashion, a Strategy ofDesire particularized by looking at clothing but it is the whole of society
which is implicated.
Jean Duvignaud: To stick with clothing fashion, I get the impression
Round-table Discussion with that, since the revolution brought about by Paul Poiret - getting
rid of the corset, shortening of skirts etc. - fashion has been a way
Roland Barthes, Jean Duvignaud for women of displaying their existence, in a society dominated
by masculine values. Notice how women's fashion is, by and large,
and Henri Lefebvre 1 defined and thought about by men.
IlL: It plays with the material or visual forms proposed by men;
but, so as these are absorbed by women, there must be something
however which originates 'with women ...
RB: A pseudo-psychoanalyst in America says that men often
create aberrant forms of fashion to avenge themselves on women,
Fashion is changing. Short skirts, loud colours, boys in long shirts and girls to disfigure them. 3
in trousers. Women's liberation? Loss of male virility? It is not so simple. JD: When fashion undresses women in the way that today's
So we asked three sociologists to consider this debate, apparently frivolous does, it is not to disfigure them ... Since the 1920s we have seen an
but which they are studying very seriously. Henri Lefebvre, Professor at the explosion in new forms, in the varieties of forms to be combined,
Sorbonne, is amongst other things the author of A Sociology of Everyday which suggests a much greater freedom.
Life; he is currently working on a study Fashion and Culture .2 Professor Le NO: In your view, does a woman dress for herself rather than, for
at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes, IWland Barthes is, as we know, the author of example, to please men?
Mythologies and has for a long time been teaching a course on 'the Fashion
System' using women's magazines. As forJean Duvignaud, Professor at the IlL: Here we are in a very ambiguous domain, linked to the
University of Orleans, his recent books on theatre (Sociology of Theatre, 'hygiene' of clothes, which is there both to veil and to show what it
and The Actor) incline him to see in fashion an extension of theatrical is hiding, to dissimulate or to suggest something other than what it
performance. is revealing. The trick is the way in which this ambiguity is used.
RB: It is for this reason that, psychoanalytically, clothing has been
Le Nouvel Obseroateur: How is the sociologist interested by fashion? likened to a neurosis, a slight neurosis, to the precise extent that it
RnlandBarthes: Fashion has been a privileged object for sociologists hides and advertises at the same time. In his Psychology of Clothes, the
since Spencer. Fashion is a phenomenon both of innovation and Englishman Flugel provides a psychological interpretation for the
conformity. So there is a paradox here which cannot but hold the increase in the number of clothes. He cites the example of oriental
attention of sociologists. We all follow fashion and, in theory, it is peoples, for whom wearing a dress is a sign of authority. In modern
made up only of what is new. There is then a sort of contradiction Western civilization, the super-Ego is manifested in the tight collar,
in terms. You have to imitate that which is in fashion in order not etc. But here, we are getting away from fashion.
to be imitable ...
88 THE LANGUAGE OF FASHlON
FASHION, A STRATEGY OF DESIRE 89

Le NO: And above all from these new fashio1}S, from short skirts, for . bought clothes only because of wear and tear, there wouldn't be
example, which emba7Tass so many men ... any fashion: the buying rhythm must be faster than that of clothing
wearing out.
HL: When men and women meet there is a perpetual tension. HL: What bothers me in what you are saying is that you allow
The women never stop striking up poses, changing their body line, no space for invention. There are nevertheless technologies, fonns ,
adjusting their skirt to the right length, or, on the contrary, revealing new materials .. .
themselves. The men no longer know what they can and should RB: An invention which is purely that of combining remains an
look at ... This malaise is at the same time useful for communication invention. A limited number of elements to be combined can pro­
- or at least it does not interrupt it. You might say that designers duce the impression, a justified one, of a creation.
maintain this tension on purpose . .. JD: It used to be the case that the manifestations of women's fash­
JD: In the regions of the world where women go around naked, ion were the forms of theatrical representation reserved for an elite.
the arrival of clothing made of printed material made the women Nowadays, the acting takes place in the street Never have aspirations
more desired by the men. It is almost like Baudelaire's idea of the towards performance been as pronounced as today. With its aspects
femme paree: nudity is attractive only when culture recreates it 4 of fantasy, fashion corresponds to a need for a theatricalization in
HL: In the case of fashion, it is merely a question of a superficial our lives as they become less and less authentic. We are going towards
eroticization of human relationships which are not resolved by an affirmation of individual existence but one which is destroyed by
this. industrial society, towards the need to create a false existence which
BE: The great historical prototypes of fashion only change every we then want to become true.
fifty years. The oscillations are very regular and historical events do
not affect them. Of course, within these rhythms, there are micro­ Le NO: Fashion today lays emphasis also on youth.
variations: skirt length, for example, can change several times in RB: More than youth, we should speakofa 'junior style ' , as defined
ten years. But the global rhythm is not affected by these micro­ by the boutiques on Rue de la Pompe,5 with elements borrowed from
variations. After a period of short skirts, we will automatically have the fleamarket: a junior fashion where the two sexes take on values
a period of long skirts. which are hard to distinguish.
HL: Today, class phenomena are becoming blurred or are dis­ JD: Here we are seeing the need to exist through costume ...
appearing. But for a long time it was the women of the bourgeoisie HL: What is rather strange, since fashion is mimetic, is the way
who would wear long skirts, whereas lower-class women wore short people claim a personality via a model.
skirts ... But contrary to what Barthes was saying, I think that tech­ RB: We have not talked enough about the profoundly narcissistic
nical developments do influence fashion. Around 1920 we had the and erotic value of clothes. That includes all fashions. However, para­
petite aviatrix, now we have the petite cosmonaut. doxically, I would say that there is not any 'figure' of fashion which
BE: I always resist linking historical content to clothing forms. is erotic in itself; a body which is completely covered can be deemed
JD: There are perhaps no direct links between fashion and history, as erotic by society. Eroticism is linked to the contrast in norms in
but there are links with certain key changes within societies. anyone society; taking off clothes is not an erotic act in itself.
Le NO: Many women think that today's fashion is not 'comfortable'. HL: Strategy ofDesire is the title of a book on advertising ...
Daily life, the car, would suggest other forms of clothing for them. RB: Yes, by Dichter, an American 'psychoanalyst', consulted all
over the world by advertisers of cigars, beer, fashion etc. He is absol­
BE: In reality fashion is never functional, never utilitarian. If utely right about what is going to be fashionable over the next few
women bought dresses only when they needed them, if a society years.
90 THE LANGUAGE OF FASHION

Le NO: Well, what is it going to be? 9

HE: We will see, in clothes, the further attenuation of the differ­

ence between the sexes. Men will wear perfume. Women will have
tattoos ... 6 Fashion and the Social

HL: Let's not forget that fashion is a game. Getting dressed up is

wanting to play. Sciences 1

Notes

1. Published in Le NouveL-Observateur71 (23 March 1966),28-29,

in the 'Women's condition' column. Fashion consists of imitating that which has first shown itself as
2. [Editors' note: no doubt an early title for Lefebvre's La Vie inimitable. This mechanism, paradoxical at first glance, is all the
quotidienne dans le monde moderne, first published in 1968; Lefebvre more interesting to sociology in that this discipline is principally
had earlier published a Critique de La vie quotidienne in 1947 (re­ concerned with modern, technical, industrial societies and fashion
published in 1958), and then a second volume, Fondements d'une is a phenomenon which historically is particular to these societies.
sociologie de La quotidiennete, in 1962.] It must be pointed out that there are peoples and societies without
3. [Editors' note: Barthes is almost certainly referring to Edmund fashion, for example ancient Chinese society, where clothing was
Bergler M. D., Fashion and the Unconscious, New York, Robert strictly coded in an almost immutable way. The absence of fashion
Brunner, 1953.] corresponded to the totally stagnant nature of society.
4. [Editors' note: Duvignaud is referring to Baudelaire's idea For civilizations without writing, fashion poses a very interesting
that women's bodies and the clothes that cover them are 'an indivis­ problem, though this has hardly been studied. This problem be­
ible totality'. See Le Peintre de La vie moderne, in Charles Baudelaire, longs to the sociology of cultural exchange: in countries like those
Curiosites esthetiques, Paris, Garnier Freres, 1962,486-490 (translated in the new Mrica, traditional, indigenous clothing, clothing that
as The Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays, by Jonathan Mayne, is unchanging and not subject to fashion, comes up against the
New York, Da Capo Press, 1985).] phenomenon of fashion originating in the West. This results in
5. [Editors' note: smart and chic street of clothing boutiques in compromises, especially for women's clothing. The major 'patterns',
the bourgeois sixteenth arrondissement of Paris.] models and forms of indigenous clothing are often maintained
6. [Editors' note: see E. Dichter, Strategy of Desire, London, T. V. either in the shape and the form of the clothing or in the types
Boardman & Co., 1960,244.] of colours and designs employed; but the clothing is subject to
the fashion rhythms of the West, that is to an annual production
of fashion and to a renewal of detail. What is interesting in this
occurrence is the meeting of a vestimentary civilization not based
on fashion with the phenomenon of fashion. It seems that we could
conclude that fashion is not linked to such and such a particular
form of clothing but rather is exclusively a question of rhythm, a
question of rate in time.
 I'r
50t
(;{pL!
c2([)r
A Cultural History of FashionuJfR

the Twentieth Century

From the Catwalk to the Sidewalk

Bonnie English

Filming 'Portraits in Fashion', for Pres1ige Ltd (Textiles), Aus1ralia, early I 950s, wrth models Elly
Lukas and Max Wyman in foreground. Photographer: Gerard H erbst Collection: Powerhouse
Museum, Sydney.The magic of haute couture was captured in this ph otograph, which highlights
the careful cons1ruction of an image that exudes glamour. elegance and wealth.

~BERG
Oxford • New York