Fashion and the modern

Abstract

Methodologically, Butor’s article, first published in French in 1969, relates to the first structuralist applications to fashion by Roland Barthes in the 1950s and 1960s, including in his book Système de la Mode. Butor’s essay is divided into a series of thematic sections: clothing as language; ornament and place; launching fashion, following fashion; from the couturier’s workshop to the family workshop; who makes fashion?; the language surrounding fashion; language as clothing; the avant-garde; the purgatory of the classics; and who makes literature?.