The Fashion System

Fashion never ceases to interest psychologists, aestheticians and sociologists. Roland Barthes, however, examined fashion from a new point of view. Using descriptions from magazines, he uncovered a system of meaning and subjected it for the first time to semantic analysis. The Fashion System , published in France in 1967, is bold and imaginative. In his endeavour to confine his love, outrage and passion for fashion to a system, Barthes created a work of literature that is witty, humane, personal and enormously stimulating