Semiotics of Fashion: Desire and Resistance, All Things Considered

This reflection aims to explore the foundations, limitations, and necessity of fashion semiotics, beyond the inertia that still binds it to a mere reinterpretation of Barthesian legacy. On the contrary, fashion semiotics reveals its compelling and contemporary relevance when it is considered in light of the explanatory power granted to a language too often relegated—for commercial reasons or societal conventions—to a marginal or reductionist role, rather than being acknowledged as an active part of present-day expression in all its forms. These include, notably, gender relations, political implications, the dynamics of possible and impossible relations in the context of digital interfaces, the dialectic between conjunctive tensions and the condemnation to disjunction. Desire and resistance will be the two key terms guiding us through this unaligned reinterpretation.