History and Sociology of Clothing 13masculine sports-outfit (of English origin) was at first simply the index
of the need for the liberation of the body; then, once detached from
its function and becoming an outfit (a two-piece with tweed jacket),
it signified, or notified, a need which, from then on, was less felt
than accepted. Generally, the study of phenomena in vestimentary
signification relies heavily on the care with which dress has been
analysed as a synchronic system. This is because notifying phenomena
can, and in fact must, always be defined in axiological terms: the
system in itself is nothing but a form; it cannot signify anything except
by recourse to extra-sociological considerations (philosophy of history
or psychoanalysis). It is the degree of participation in the system (be
it total submission, deviations, or aberrations) that is meaningful; the
value of a system (that is, its value-for-ness) can be understood only via
acceptances of, or challenges to, it.
Dress is in fact nothing more than the signifier of a single main
signified, which is the manner or the degree of the wearer’s participation
(whether a group or individual). It goes without saying that this general
signified capitalizes on a certain number of secondary concepts or
signifieds, that vary according to how broad the groups are, and how
formalized they are, and which are signalled through these signifieds:
such and such an outfit can notify concepts of psychological or socio-
psychological appearance: respectability, youthfulness, intellectuality,
mourning, etc. But what is notified here, through these intermediaries,
is essentially the degree of integration of the wearer in relation to
the society in which they live. violent historical facts may disrupt the
rhythms of fashion, bring in new systems and modify the regime of
participation, but in no way do they explain the new forms. mourning
clothes may have been white once, nowadays they are black; the
symbolism of colours may have a historical interest; but the social
dimension refers not to the colour of mourning but to the manner of
participation implied by it. here we can see the structuralist distinction
between phonetics and phonology. history may be interested by the
evolution in funereal colours; but sociology, like phonology, is interested
essentially in values of opposition, of the socially meaningful.^30 Dress
is, in the fullest sense, a ‘social model’, a more or less standardized
picture of expected collective behaviour; and it is essentially at this level
that it has meaning.