Re-presentation Policies of the Fashion Industry

Eleni Mouratidou is a Lecturer and Research Director at Paris 13 University and the LabSIC in France. Her research focuses on the processes of rewriting and of societal representation, with an emphasis on the framework of commercial mediations.

• Introduction ixPart 1. Re-presentations and Artifices 1Introduction to Part 1 3Chapter 1. Re-presentation as a Form of Artistic and Cultural Legitimization 51.1. The work of art and its reproducibility at the service of the fashion industry 71.1.1. Culturization of the purse, and portability of the work of art 91.1.2. The purse as an apparatus for commercial and artistic mediation 121.2. Book publishing at the service of the fashion brand’s cultural value 151.2.1. A book as beautiful as a trunk (Louis Vuitton) 161.2.2. Literary praise for luxury goods 191.3. The popularity of fashion accessories 201.3.1. The value of a luxury item through the club model 221.4. The exhibited advertising poster 241.4.1. Self-referential legitimations 251.4.2. Bricolage and illusion: advertising the advertising 271.5. The advertising poster as a testimonial discourse 291.5.1. The caption as a thematic and generic engagement 301.5.2. The presentation of the ready-to-wear collection as an event 32Chapter 2. Investing Symbolically in the Museum, Transforming the Store: Re-presentation as an Iterative Event 352.1. From the boutique to heritage enhancement sites 362.1.1. The place where the brand’s heritage is developed: the advertiser’s dual entity 372.1.2. Patrimonialization and unadvertization: from forms to formats 402.2. The museum exhibition: a communicational pretext 422.2.1. Staging a symbolic distribution: from the discontinuous to the continuous 432.2.2. The image of a work of art: symbolic distribution and artification 462.3. Distribution of marketable goods and contemporary art: the full and the void 472.3.1. Cultural missions and department stores 482.3.2. From cultural mediations to market mediations (and vice versa) 492.3.3. In praise of the void and the worship of merchandise 53Part 2. Re-presentations and Forms of Life: The Religious and the Political 57Introduction to Part 2 59Chapter 3. Re-presentation as a Cult Form 613.1. Biblical stories and media advertising: fashion and (divine) grace 643.1.1. Farmers, a storm and a boat: the biblical story of Noah’s Ark 663.1.2. The Gucci actant: from ready-to-wear to ready-to-save 693.2. Biblical stories and media advertising: fashion and adoration 713.2.1. Advertising idolatry 733.2.2. From product name to brand signature 743.2.3. Actualization and ostentation of Dior’s semiotic and religious capital 763.3. From places dedicated to Christian worship to places dedicated to fashion worship 783.3.1. From the Hospice des Incurables to the Balenciaga showroom 783.3.2. Profanation of the sacred, sacralisation of the lay public 823.3.3. Apparatus – Relic 843.3.4. Materiality, cult value and transparency 86Chapter 4. Re-presentation as a Rewriting of Politics 894.1. The pretension of politics and its market value 934.1.1. Demonstration: presence, representation, event and spectacle 944.1.2. Re-presenting and misappropriating the demonstration 964.1.3. From stereotype to irony: political pretension 994.2. From text to (pre-)text: (political) mediations in the fashion industry 1004.2.1. Rewriting the media image: reintroducing the formula (to better deconstruct it) 1014.2.2. Imitation and counterfeiting of the event formula 1044.3. Removal of the pre-text, and celebration of the pretext 1084.3.1. Esthetization and commodification of the protest 1084.3.2. Discrepancies between the medium and message 110Part 3. The Power of the Fashion Industry’s Re-presentational Apparatus 115Introduction to Part 3 117Chapter 5. The Industrialization of Creativity 1195.1. From the aristocratic model to the market model: the industrialization of luxury fashion 1215.1.1. From the Court model to the designer model 1215.1.2. From the market model to commercial luxury: pragmatic and symbolic democratization 1235.2. Managerial creativity as a panoply 1265.2.1. Forms and powers of managerial creativity in the fashion industry 1275.2.2. Standardization: the industrialization of managerial creativity 1305.2.3. Semiotic management of managerial creativity in the face of the market model 1345.3. Physical space, media space and symbolic space 1365.3.1. Material value and the immaterial value of fashion 1385.3.2. Offshore manufacturing and production: a partial “made in France” approach 1405.3.3. Modes and cycles: an environmental problem 1435.3.4. From the back to the front region: the fashion industry, the stage and backstage 147Chapter 6. Reinvesting, Diverting, Reformulating and Entertaining: The Leisure-form of the Fashion Industry 1536.1. Reinvestments and reintroductions: from appropriation to subversion 1556.1.1 Investing, reinvesting, re-presenting, appropriating: legitimacy and re-qualification 1566.1.2. Reinvesting and subverting: the cultural hegemony of fashion 1596.2. Diversions 1626.2.1. Diverting politics 1636.2.2. Diverting the diversion 1656.3. Political power of the fashion industry’s re-presentation apparatus 1676.3.1. The media industry in question: a phantasmagoria 1686.3.2. The leisure-form 171Conclusion 175References 181Index 193