~ An article of clothing may seem to be ‘meaningless’ in itself; so we must then, more than ever, get at its social and global function, and above all at its history; because the manner in which vestimentary values are presented (forms, colours, tailoring, etc.) can very well depend on an internal history of the system. ~ Roland Barthes58
Examination of a knitted swatch using ‘The Fashion System’:
Object study: In terms of micro research, I present my own swatch as an example. I shall apply description and speculation to study the material object (knitted swatch).
Given below is an excerpt from a book that explains visual culture:
First, understanding a painting, picture or diagram requires that the interpreter understand the convention that marks, lines and shapes on a two-dimensional ground represent something in the world. An interpreter has to know that an image has been made with the purpose of representing something.59
I take on the task of presenting blunder as an exterior on fabric (three-dimensional). As a spokesperson for failure, displaying this means treading the fine line between right and wrong. In the words of Roland Barthes, a prominent French literary theorist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician:
“Fashion60 and literature61 in fact utilise a common technique whose end is seemingly to transform an object into language: it is description.”62
The broken, ripped and disfigured shift the entire meaning of the fabric from commonplace to the bona fide, they raise it to the distinctiveness of the never-before-seen. I leave my fabric open to interpretation with the hope that it conveys the right message. Which elicits the question, what do my defects actually denote and connote? And what does the overall swatch denote and connote? Denotation (perceptual message) is the kind of meaning understood when shapes, lines, colours and textures are understood as representing things in the world. It is the kind of meaning that is understood when the answers to the questions,’What is that?’, or ‘What is that a picture of?’ are understood. Denotation is often explained as the ‘literal’ meaning of an image.63
Connotation (cultural message) is slightly more complex. It is often explained as the thoughts, feelings and associations that accompany one’s perception of an example of visual culture. It is the feelings that a photograph makes one feel, the associations that a piece of design has, or the thoughts that come into one’s head whenever one sees a particular typeface.64
Roland Barthes and Andy Stafford, The Language of Fashion, English ed (Oxford ; New York: Berg, 2006), p.12. 58
Barnard, Malcolm, Approaches to Understanding Visual Culture (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire ; New York: Palgrave, 2001), p.43. 59
60
Fashion = (here) knitted swatches
61
Literature = (here) this dissertation
Roland Barthes, Matthew Ward, and Richard Howard, The Fashion System, Vintage Classics Philosophy (London: Vintage, 2010), p. 12. 62
63
Barnard, Approaches to Understanding Visual Culture, p.149.
64
Ibid
