10 The Language of Fashion
producer. For example, the wearing of a coat over the shoulders, arms
dangling, becomes part of dress as soon as: (1) a community makes it
into a distinctive mark imposed on its members (for example, Brothers
of the Ecoles chrétiennes); (2) the manufacturer provides the coats
with internal straps for the arms with which to support the coat without
rolling the sleeves up (English system). It must be noted that a dressing
object that is at first constituted by the degrading of a dress object can
subsequently transform itself once more into a secondary dress object:
this occurs as soon as this degrading actually functions as a collective
sign, as a value. For example, the outfit can gesture towards the using
of all of the buttons on the shirt; and then a dressing object of some
sort leaves the top two buttons undone: this omission becomes dress
again as soon as it is constituted as a norm by a particular group (such
as in dandyism).
Fashion is always part of dress; but its origins can represent either of
our two categories. Fashion can be part of a dress object that has been
artificially elaborated by specialists at any one moment (for example,
haute couture); at another moment, it can be constructed by the
propagation of a simple act of dressing that is then reproduced at the
collective level and for a number of reasons.^23 This ordering of objects
needs to be studied carefully. But what we can perhaps now foresee is
that the link between dressing and dress is a semantic one: the meaning
of a garment increases as we move from dressing to dress. Dressing
is a weak form of meaning, it expresses more than it notifies; dress on
the contrary is a strong form of meaning, it constitutes an intellectual,
notifying relation between a wearer and their group.
Diachrony and synchrony
We have already pointed out that it was necessary to distinguish in
clothes between the synchronic or systematic level and the diachronic
or processive level. once again as with language, the major problem
here is that of putting together, in a truly dialectical snapshot, the link
between system and process. George h. Darwin, nephew of Charles
Darwin, got an inkling of this problem when he established a parallel
between biological and vestimentary development, with the garment