Fashion as Communication by Barnard Malcolm

Author:Barnard, Malcolm
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2013-10-18T00:00:00+00:00

FASHION, CLOTHING AND CLASS I

With these reservations regarding the use of the word ‘reproduction’ in mind, this chapter must explain the relations between fashion, clothing and class. The relations between fashion, clothing and class were introduced in chapter two, where they were related to power and ideology. This section will look again at these issues, in a little more detail and from a slightly different perspective. It was argued in chapter one that the existence of fashion, if not clothing, was conditional upon there being different classes in society and upon upward movement between classes being both possible and desirable. It would not be possible to signal one’s membership of a particular class by means of fashion and clothing if there were not different classes of which to be a member. Just as obviously, it would be completely pointless to indicate one’s desire to be, or to be considered as, a member of a particular class by means of fashion and clothing if such movement were not possible. It is, then, a very simple society that has no fashion.

Indeed, on Marx’s account, it is unlikely that there has ever been a society that has not, at least potentially, been a society that had fashion. This is because, for Marx, ‘the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles’ (Marx and Engels 1992: 3). This is a very complex sentence, referring to many different issues and debates, but one of the things it says is that all societies have always been societies consisting of different classes. All must, therefore, have been potentially fashionable societies, societies which used changes in clothing to construct and communicate class identities. How, then, should we define class? According to Marx, class is largely defined in terms of economics:

Insofar as millions of families live under economic conditions of existence that separate their mode of life, their interests and their culture from those of the other classes, and put them in hostile opposition to the latter, they form a class.

(Marx and Engels 1968: 170–1).

In this quote there is again the reference to struggle and opposition, but it is economic conditions that divide the way of life, interests and culture of different classes. What this means is that class is a product of different economic conditions.

In order to understand what is meant by these economic conditions, it may be helpful to take a few steps back and look generally at the Marxist account of society. (Having said ‘the Marxist account’, it must be said that there are many different Marxisms, all offering different interpretations and accounts, and that the following is partial in all senses.) Marxism says that people need food, shelter and clothing in order to survive. While individuals might, just, be able to provide all these things for themselves on their own, it is much easier for people to enter into social relationships in order to provide food, shelter and clothing. So people form society because they have to; a single individual is

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