Abstract
The view of fashion as a system of signification, first introduced in the important work of Roland Barthes The Fashion System (1967), has been dominant since the development of Fashion Studies. But today, the concept of fashion as a homogenous system with a particular core has become problematic.
It appears that the rhetoric of contemporary fashion is more "sophisticated" than in Barthes' system. If he described fashion as tyrannical machine, which converts its unmotivated signs into a natural fact, contemporary fashion has "content" besides the rhetorical mode.
Moreover, not only has the system of fashion dramatically changed, but scholarly work on fashion has shifted from the regime of representation to embodiment. Postmodern culture is preoccupied with differences, and a number of theorists even solemnize about the crisis of the concept of sign.
Turning away from semiotics, Fashion Studies has been enriched by notions of materiality, flexible identity and performance. Theorists claim that our relationship with garments has become more personal.
At the same time, the individual aspect is still deeply bound up with collective narratives. Although an exact equivalence of the signifier with the signified is not possible in the system of fashion, it evidently does not exist without codes.
This article addresses the legacy of Barthes' Fashion System, discusses challenges for semiotics of fashion in the 21st century and estimates limits and possibilities of a systemic approach to contemporary fashion.