fashion semiology

THE 8 P AND THE BUSINESS COMMUNICATION OPTIMIZATION (BCO)

2018-04-26T16:05:00.003+02:00

The Semiomarketing essentially deals with BCO.

The term BCO (Business Communication Optimization) refers to the activities designed to increase the target-customer conversion rate or loyalty rate by adopting certain strategies that amplify the effects of corporate communication in B2C or in B2B.

The optimization of business communication, traditional or digital, includes various practical and strategic operations that are performed on any type of corporate communication material (from posters to websites) by acting on perception modes.

An effective business communication plan is typically based on the balanced management of

Product
Place
Price
Promotion

complemented, according to the latest marketing mix theories, by

People
Process
Physical evidence

without neglecting the fact that marketing is nowadays growingly underpinned by an eighth P, which permeates the other 7:

Perception

The first 4 P mean:

the right product
old at the right price
in the right place
using the most suitable promotion.

The 8P in Semiomarketing

People

Recruiting and training the right staff is required to create a competitive advantage.Staff require appropriate interpersonal skills, attitude, and service knowledge in order to deliver a quality service.

Process

This element of the marketing mix looks at the systems used to deliver the service. Imagine you walk into Burger King and order a Whopper Meal and you get it delivered within 2 minutes. What has been the process that allowed you to obtain an efficient service delivery?

Physical evidence

Physical evidence is about where the service is being delivered from. It is particularly relevant to retailers operating out of shops. This element of the marketing mix will distinguish a company from its competitors. Physical evidence can be used to charge a premium price for a service and establish a positive experience.

Perception

Perception is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the environment.

SEMIOMARKETING: THE BOOK

2018-04-20T16:11:00.002+02:00

Communicative structures marketing oriented, aimed at optimizing business communications in order to improve the target-client conversion process, in Luxury.

The SEMIOMARKETING is a strategy, an art, a technique and a game. It ‘still a complex system, formed by innumerable variables that interacting with each other can make obtain an effective result. The effectiveness of communication (and therefore its persuasive power) is not achieved easily and “instinctively” as many are led to believe, but only with the intelligent, cautious and aware use of sound, visual, verbal and non-verbal narrative variables.

SEMIOMARKETING discovers the secrets to create evocative luxury advertising, which stimulates the target to buy and so to become customers and the subliminal messages sent through shapes, colors, symbols and icons to evoke the desire to possess a luxury object, which act on our psyche. Only with careful study and knowledge of the various tricks of communication adapted to the various transmission channels (video, print, Web) you can hope to produce effective communication, so persuasive, so winning.

Cinzia Ligas, semiotician, and Fausto Crepaldi, digital media director, are among the foremost experts in Italy in luxury communication. They are consultants in semiomarketing, fashion semiology, fashion video advertising and virtual fashion, and lecturers at various prestigious university institutes.

SEMIOMARKETING

book – euro 19,90

First edition – September 2015

978–88–96207-01-7

Publishing series “Semiorix”

ARS EUROPA PUBLISHING

You can buy it here:

http://www.arseuropa.org/arseuropaedizioni_semiomarketing.htm

SEMANTIC CATEGORIES: METRIC

2018-04-19T15:07:00.002+02:00

Metric categories refer to the size of the design “objects” and to the perception that these volumes generate.

To see the same object with a different size sends different hidden messages to the receiver and can be perceived in a different way.

The sensation generated by a big gem or a little gem are different such as that generated by a long pearl necklace or a short pearl necklace.

They are based on a series of combinations associated by opposites such as, wide/narrow, big/small, short/long.

It is up to the luxury designer to decide, based on the intentions, what range of perceptions to generate by the combination of these elements: for instance, the big, long range would be a perfect combination for a luxury car, but could be poorly suited for a swiss boxcutter.

THE SEMIOMARKETING STRATEGIES IN FASHION COMMUNICATION

2018-04-18T14:36:00.001+02:00

The semiomarketing is a strategy, an art, a technique and a game.

It 'still a complex system, formed by innumerable variables that interacting with each other can make obtain an effective result.

The effectiveness of communication (and therefore its persuasive power) is not achieved easily and "instinctively" as many are led to believe, but only with the intelligent, cautious and aware use of sound, visual, verbal and non-verbal narrative variables.

Semiomarketing discovers the secrets to create evocative luxury advertising, which stimulates the target to buy and so to become customers and the subliminal messages sent through shapes, colours, symbols and icons to evoke the desire to possess a luxury object, which act on our psyche.

Only with careful study and knowledge of the various tricks of communication adapted to the various transmission channels (video, print, Web) you can hope to produce effective communication, so persuasive, so winning.

Semiotics was, to the majority of marketing managers, something like a mystery, something abstract and basically useless, or at least this happened for those that, as their job, had to find new strategies useful to increase sales.

Marketing, on the other side was always looked with some kind of superiority, a sort of posh attitude, from semiologists, used to in-depth analysis of texts (not only verbal, but also visual, morphological and voiced) that aimed at understanding the functioning of deep and most recurring narrative structures, not so interesting in relation to sales problems.

Such disciplines, always seen in contrast one to the other, were in reality two powerful tools with the same target, even though running on parallel track, never meant to meet.

Something unexpected happened then. In spite of all the expectations, semiotics joined marketing, giving life to semiomarketing, that generated two series of techniques:

warpframe for video advertising
extrabrand, for the extrapolation, the creation ends the re-positioning of brands
sintext for seo oriented writing, with a highly evocative value

and a series of descending lines, that are “Net Semiology” methodologies for a communicative effective and marketing oriented project, “Art Semiology” for a visual marketing oriented visual communication, “Fashion Semiology”, dedicated to marketing oriented communication in the field of fashion and “Luxury Semiology”, for effective communication in luxury market.

Putting the analytical features of semiotics together to the pragmatic features of marketing, the aim of semiomarketing has become the Business Communication Optimization, (also known as BCO) through all those activities aimed at augmenting the target-client conversion rate or the rate of client fidelization through specific strategies that potentiate the effect of corporate communication in B2C or B2B.

To do so they did nothing but making the best of their genetic heritage, aimed at analyzing, deconstructing and constructing communication, deeply influenced by the digital experience, keeping in mind the need to reach, involve, charm and persuade the target audience, and make it a client, levering on deep semiotic and narrative mechanisms, well-known in the field of semiotics.

Practically, through the use of codes, symbols, icons, discourse categories, actant models and semiotic frames, that is tools that are widely known by semiologists, semiomarketing elaborated semiotic-communicative structures that are marketing oriented, aimed at optimizing business communications in order to improve the target-client conversion process, a magic moment in corporate life, without which the company no longer sells and, with time, ceases to exist.

Semiomarketing elaborates various luxury and fashion video and advertising, semiotic-communicative structures that are marketing oriented, aimed at optimizing business communications in order to improve the target-client conversion process, a magic moment in corporate life, without which the company no longer sells and, with time, ceases to exist.

JEANS: THE PURE SIGNIFIERS

2018-04-17T15:32:00.002+02:00

In communication, one should learn to handle signs with care, and learn how to recognize and use them depending on the context, avoiding mistaken assumptions, and taking for granted knowledge that is not necessarily possessed by the receiver, thus creating an ambiguous, if not misleading message.

Here’s an example in fashion: jeans.

Jeans were sturdy trousers used by workers up to the mid-19th century, when they were popularized by the film “The Wild One”, starring the mesmeric Marlon Brando.

Jeans, as depicted by Ugo Volli, are pure signifiers, in other words, signs that can acquire any meaning.

With a few accessories and slight variations, they can turn from work clothes into an evening outfit and from civvies to holiday wear.

Jeans can be anything from rough, seductive, innovative, classic, for men on the go or for sexy women, worn for work or leisure, connoting seduction or comfort, alluding to easy sex or holidays with the family.

Jeans are worn by the young professional with a jacket and tie when he wishes to show he is not completely part of the system (yet).

Jeans are worn as a second skin by the girl with a lamè bodice for an evening full of romance or transgression.

Jeans are worn by the primary school kid, the baby girl in the stroller, the 60-year-old who never surrenders to age and feels like a 20-year-old still at war with the 1968 revolution.

Jeans can be worn with a sweater for a night out at the pizza house, with a T-shirt for a countryside outing or for garden work, with a silk shirt and jewellery for a trendy appetizer, with a jacket for a stroll with friends.

Light-coloured or dark, with pre-made rips and holes, more or less faded, ragged or tight jeans, each of these features changes the way we wish to communicate with others.

SIGNS IN FASHION: ICONS, SYMBOLS, INDICES AND THEIR TRANSIENCE

2018-04-12T16:17:00.000+02:00

We communicate through signs. Words, facial expressions, billboard images, street signs, certain sounds or colours are signs. Clothes, jewels, accessories are signs.

A sign, by definition, is a bifacial entity formed of signified and signifier.

The signified is the represented concept, the signifier is the material medium of representation.

For instance, the road signs “no entry”.

The signified is: “you cannot trespass”; the signifier is a red circle with a horizontal white stripe dividing the red circle in two.

The two combined elements form a sign.

But in this case, according to Pierce’s taxonomy, it is not only a sign, but also a symbol.

Pierce divides signs into icons, symbols and indices.

An icon is a sign that has a resemblance with the represented concept (for instance, the Russian icon of the Virgin Mary with child. This is a stylized image of a woman holding a child in her arms, presumably her son. There is no convention applied. The signifier actually resembles a woman holding an infant in her arms).

A symbol is when the signifier is the result of a convention, but has no resemblance with the concept represented in real life (for instance, the halo placed in paintings over the head of the Virgin Mary or of saints. No saint has actually ever had a golden disc attached to his head during his life on Earth, but as a convention, a golden disc on the back of his neck is depicted to indicate sanctity).

An index is when the sign is natural, when it is not the result of a convention and when it has no resemblance with the concept represented (the most typical example is smoke indicating that there is or could be fire, or bags under the eyes indicating that a person has not had a good night’s rest or is sick.

There is no convention, smoke has no resemblance with fire and bags under the eyes have no resemblance with insomnia).

Clothing can be used as a symbol (for instance, gilt accessories, or a lame bodice, can be symbols of wealth, a black sheath dress of elegance, a pair of extravagant skyscraper sandals of eccentricity and transgression), as an icon (a disguise is an icon of what we would wish to look like... If I dress up as a cat at carnival, my clothes become the icon of a cat) or as an index (I wear stray socks, and unless this is not my style, it indicates that I’m careless).

Things are of course somewhat more complicated than as shown in these groupings.
In a particular context, smoke, usually considered an index, may be considered a symbol (for instance, of destruction, war, or in the case of incense, sanctity).

COMMUNICATION STYLE

2018-04-11T13:58:00.001+02:00

The identity of the sender and his communication style are intimately interwoven and influenced by the relating time period and social and cultural context.

A presentation produced by the “Valentino Fashion Group” to define the fashion house’s style: “Valentino’s fashion is the representation of a dream of beauty and style.

It is the aesthetic transposition of an ideal of perfection, of a fascination which connects with the world and with real people and metamorphoses into life, feelings, emotions.

It is a dream that has spread to touch millions of clients over the past 40 years. Of women who wish to share the feeling of eternal romanticism of Valentino”.

While preserving one’s stylistic and communicational identity, it is not uncommon to see variations in this “tune” over time. Armani, for instance, changed the notes of his artistic production for women’s fashion.

Wikipedia tells us that during the Seventies “the Armani woman used to dress casual, classic and comfortable, with retro (cloche hat) and countryside-folk-inspired designs. Then came the change in the Eighties, “the true Armani business woman, professional with a typical yuppie look and feminist, androgynous mood. The beginnings were clearly inspired by the outfit of the business woman: broad shoulders, baby shirts with soft, falling fabric”. Finally, the Nineties saw a predominance of the “andro-chic look, inspired by Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich”.

Armani has always stayed true to his identity, but has learned to stay alert to the evolutions (or involutions) of society, adapting his designs, which indeed played a role in forging the spirit of those years.

Style Evolution: The Armani Suit.

Every fashion creator’s style (and of every fashion communicator) is formed of countless variables.
Natural talent is obviously the source, but also choice of themes, lexicon, syntax, colours, forms, lights, perspectives, angles (for the communicator, photographer, journalist or fashion director) or stroke, forms, curves, lines, colours, fabric, cut, accessories (for the designer).

All these elements refer to his identity and, ultimately, to the communication relationship he wishes to establish with his model receiver, and to the message he wishes to send him, through time and space, through clothes or through their visual representation.

IDENTITY OF THE RECEIVER IN FASHION COMMUNICATION

2018-04-10T17:19:00.000+02:00

The receiver acquires his identity in relation to the identity of the sender, to his cultural background and protective grid of perception, in other words, a sort of virtual psychic network of defence against the daily barrage of messages that facilitates the assimilation of only those that are consistent with one’s past experiences.

The sender, through a certain theme and using his particular style, aims to send messages to a specific type of receiver, a “model receiver”, with the characteristics he has envisioned.

A fashion house that wishes to propose sophisticated luxury fashion knows the type of people potentially interested in this kind of product: affluent, worshippers of elegance, taste, style and opulence. With such people in mind, it will design its garments by combining luxury, elegance and originality, matching fine fabrics with refined accessories.

The fashion house has only envisioned the existence of these receivers, without even actually knowing them. Yet these people exist, the designer’s vision has done nothing but to evoke them.

Once the receiver has been identified, the next step is offering him what he needs.

A designer, for instance, who caters to middle-aged women who wish to look sober and refined, would never propose eccentric wear with flashy colours, whereas a line created for the younger generations would look cheeky, colourful, with clothes sporting a particular and original image, perhaps not refined and elegant, but appreciated by its target.

This is the protection grid/relationship with the sender identity combination that unveils: a sender with an identity associated with elegance relates with a receiver who adores sober elegance.

A transgressive sender relates with a rebel receiver.

Receiver, model and target often mismatch.

“Target” is, in fact, a term specific to marketing and implies a capacity and a propensity towards purchasing proposed products.

The term “model receiver” refers, instead, to the communicational, aesthetic and stylistic interests of a group of people who lack the spending power to purchase designer clothes and are, therefore, considered nontargets and cannot (for the time being) convert into clients.

However, we must always remember to nurture our model receiver, as he may well lack the spending power today, but he may not tomorrow, and if we have succeeded in winning his loyalty, he may turn into a client and help our business grow.

Our target of tomorrow grows inside the “model receiver”, which is an incubator in a way.

IDENTITY OF THE SENDER IN FASHION COMMUNICATION

2018-03-22T17:17:00.000+01:00

The sender acquires his role in the transmission of a message to a receiver.

In this phase, the sender must build an identity, a mask in a way, to wear in order to communicate with his model receiver.

Such an identity is how the sender intends to appear, how he intends to show himself to the world, how he wishes to be remembered, and under what guise he intends to show himself.

As far as fashion is concerned, the identity of Dolce e Gabbana is, understandably, worlds apart from the identity of Versace, Valentino or Ermenegildo Zegna.

You can build an identity that is rebel, refined, forefront, transgressive or sober.

Once the identity you intend to acquire has been manifested to the public, you must obviously adapt your communication style to it.

Ermenegildo Zegna would hardly succeed in wooing youngsters from 16 to 18 years of age who follow the Dsquared brand, and could never design clothing similar to Balmain’s.

He could choose to change style, but then this would change his image and identity in the eyes of his clientele, who would feel betrayed and disappointed, leaving the more casual style aficionados somewhat perplexed.

Each sender acquires his own identity, through this identity wishes to be recognizable, and to this identity adapts his style, contents, codes and signs, so that, if we were to look back on the themes proposed, on how they are represented through signs and codes, and on the communication style, we would instantly recognize the identity of the creator.

An identity represents an invaluable communication legacy. Once a role is acquired, one should stick stubbornly to it all the way, in order to avoid misunderstandings and false expectations in the model receivers, who look up to their target and ultimately move its business.

SENDER AND RECEIVER IN FASHION COMMUNICATION

2018-03-20T14:04:00.001+01:00

We have so far given a brief description of communication. Let us now go on to understanding who the actors are.

First of all, there are two actants: Sender and Receiver, without whom there would be no communication process.

These two actants exchange ideas, emotions and feelings, expressed in the message.

The sender initiates the communication process, is responsible for the transmitted meaning, decides who the receiver is, the style, channel or means of communication, subject to treat, and signs and codes to use, in order for them to be interpreted and digested by the receiver.

The sender, therefore, chooses the signs, but can only predict the meaning they will be given by the receiver.

It is, in fact, the receiver who ultimately uses and interprets the signs produced by the sender. And only if the sender has chosen his icons, symbols and codes well, will the receiver be able to absorb the knowledge and emotions that the sender meant to convey.

If the receiver fails to interpret the signs sent, the result is entropy, loss of information and misunderstanding of the message.

Here is an example to understand this concept better:

A young designer draws a sketch.
An expert patternmaker uses the sketch to create a pattern, that is, the shape on paper of the garment envisioned by the designer
The designer sees the sample cut and tailored according to his pattern and yells: “but I had designed an evening dress, not a dressing gown”
The patternmaker replies “Ah, then why didn’t you add the horizontal stripes to your sketch?”

This is a clear case of a misunderstanding. The sender/designer used a series of visual signs and codes to his choice, which proved to be a failure.

What were the missing elements that prevented the patternmaker/receiver from understanding the intended meaning of the designer’s sketch?

Perhaps a lack of certain visual signs that the patternmaker was expecting, which the inexperience and the tender age of the designer prevented him from recognizing as essential visual elements in the transmission of the concept, of his idea of “evening dress”.

The patternmaker, in fact, realized his misunderstanding thanks only to the young designer’s complaints.

This is hardly ever the case.

Seldom does the sender have a second chance to realize his misinterpretation and make amends, especially when there is no interpersonal or direct relationship to communicate through and communication is filtered through a medium such as television, the press or the Web.

If the designer had not been able to instantly make amends (and question) his creation transformed into a garment, and if that garment had been put into production and presented through a video or an advertisement in the press or on the Web, it would have been classified and perceived by the public/receiver as a “dressing gown”, despite the sender/designer’s intention of presenting it as an original evening dress.

But if the public had been interested in this type of “evening dress” would it have ever considered the designer’s creation, which appeared to present a different item?

It would have been a wasted business opportunity based on an initial misunderstanding caused by a misuse of visual signs.

This is one of the axioms of communication: the meaning of a “text”, therefore also of dress, is not produced solely by the sender, but is built together with the receiver, whose role is to decode the signs transmitted by the sender.

The meaning, therefore, of a text, message or sign, does not exist objectively in itself, but is always a subjective product of the receiver’s interpretation.

Another important element is that the figure of the sender does not refer to one person only, but to a series of persons. It is a role, a function.

In the foregoing case, the sender was the fashion house, formed of the designer, patternmaker, tailors and the communication department.

The same applies to the receiver, who was initially the patternmaker only, followed by the patternmaker and the tailors, in relation to the sender/designer then, ultimately, the public, in relation to the fashion house.

The basis, therefore, of any communication process is a relationship.

The sender has the challenging task of learning to use the most appropriate signs for every occasion, in relation to its target or to its “model receiver”, depending on the intentions.

Mistakes in choosing and using signs and codes prevent the sender from transmitting his thought, generating misunderstanding, therefore, miscommunication.

All this is obviously amplified when using mass media.

CLOTHES ARE A MEANS OF COMMUNICATION

2018-03-16T16:30:00.000+01:00

The signs used in the communication process become tools for the Sender to transmit his message to the Receiver, involving him and instigating him to act according to the Sender’s intentions.

The communication flow between Sender and Receiver is divided into three coherent, coordinated and sequential steps:

transmission of the message
stimulation of interest in the Receiver
instigation to perform certain actions.

This is where Fashion and its signs - clothes - come into play.

The noun abito (dress in English) comes from the Latin habitus and may mean from mode of life and behaviour to disposition.

The word abito implies the derived-related word habit associated in turn with character.

Dress, therefore, besides its primary role of coverage and protection of the human body, also has the secondary, yet essential function of showing who we are.

Clothes are a way of expressing ourselves, of conveying certain meanings.

As Umberto Eco sustained in his reflections on dress codes at the start of the Seventies: “a girl wearing a miniskirt in Catania is considered provocative, in Milan she’s considered modern, in Paris she’s simply a girl, and in Hamburg she could be a he”.

Dress is an instrument of communication that helps us display our identity in order for it to fit in the context we live in.

It follows that the balanced relationship between the manifestation of our identity and harmony with the context/society we live in, generates the communicational effectiveness of dress.

Clothes, accessories and body ornaments are a means of communication.

They are signs organized in codes that generate their own language and
create a visual text.

A point worth remembering is that Fashion is constant semiosis, that is, signification, production of signs.

FASHION IS A COMMUNICATION SYSTEM

2018-03-15T14:28:00.000+01:00

Fashion is a communication system. But what is communication? It refers to the set of linguistic and paralinguistic signs used to send information to other individuals, making them experience emotions and feelings.

Communicating is a process that allows a number of people to share certain knowledge.

To achieve this goal, communication uses a series of conventionally-accepted signs; it uses codes in order to faithfully transmit messages; broadly speaking, communication is a game with a number of players and rules to follow.

To communicate (from the Latin cum = with, and munire = to bind, build and communico = to pool, to share) however, is not synonymous with to inform, but rather to relate with other subjects.

Information is, in fact, simply an objective and neutral transmission of data, with no subjective or emotional implication or connotation.

In other words, it is non-human.

Pure “information” is viable only between machines, for instance, computers sending themselves data.

Impossible for human beings.

Biologically speaking, objectivity is alien to human beings.

It would be an aberration of our human nature. Even with the best of intentions, or with the most impartial of minds, a human being would inevitably be influenced in the transmission of a message by his own approach to the world, a “modus” not necessarily driven by partisanship, but merely (and subconsciously) by cultural background, personal attitude, upbringing, schooling, religion, environment, companionships, experiences and so forth.

Hence, human beings cannot but communicate in order to relate with others, or transmit information “dressed up” with emotions, feelings, beliefs, and by ingrained and subconscious cultural patterns.

Communication is a bridge connecting human beings to each other.

There are various categories of people who specialize in the use of this particular aspect by learning the techniques for using communication effectively in order to obtain certain results from their kind.

These results must generate particular moods, instigating the receivers to perform certain actions or to take certain decisions.

SEMIOMARKETING: THE FAST TRACK FOR OPTIMIZING THE TARGET-CLIENT CONVERSION

2018-03-01T14:37:00.000+01:00

In order to do so, it utilizes the analysis grid of Fashion Semiology, a modern discipline that falls under Semiomarketing, the branch of marketing originating in the application of semiotic survey to market research, a methodology based on the polysemantic analysis, decomposition and recomposition of verbal, visual and morphological texts (advertising, internal communication, Web) created by marketing and communication departments, analyzing consumer profiles and expectations.

Its aim is to optimize the communication-sales process.

Semiomarketing, the parent of Fashion Semiology, decomposes and recomposes written communication in a modular manner using the most modern and sophisticated analysis techniques, and through scientific and cognitive instruments that are more flexible and far-reaching than conventional communication and marketing theories alone.

Semiomarketing essentially deals with BCO.

The term BCO (Business Communication Optimization) refers to the activities designed to increase the target-customer conversion rate or loyalty rate by adopting certain strategies that amplify the effects of corporate communication in B2C or in B2B.

The optimization of business communication, whether traditional or digital, includes various practical and strategic operations that are performed on any type of corporate communication material (from posters to websites) by acting on perception modes.

An effective business communication plan is typically based on the balanced management of Product, Place, Price and Promotion (complemented, according to the latest marketing mix theories, by People, Process and Physical evidence), without neglecting the fact that marketing is nowadays growingly underpinned by an eighth P, which permeates the other 7: Perception.

Semiomarketing amplifies BCO by acting on the elements (symbols, icons, indices, codes, forms, colours, etc.) that influence human perception towards product, price, distribution, promotion, sales staff, presentation process and physical evidence of the product or service.

BCO acts on the visual, textual and morphological elements, on clothing or staff gestures, on product layout and presentation and on other elements affecting human perception, amplifies and optimizes them, and ensures that whatever emanates from a particular brand (product, press campaign, fair stand design, digital or video advertising communication strategy) is semiomarketing-oriented, in other words, capable of generating in consumers an idea of positivity, convenience, authenticity, professionalism, reliability, or is such as to effectively communicate the corporate values in order to engender business growth and customer loyalty.

Communication is the path taken by marketing to achieve its business results.

Semiomarketing is the fast track for optimizing the target-client conversion rate and customer loyalty.

Fashion Semiology is its stylistic, communicational and marketing-oriented interpretation in the world of High Fashion and, inevitably, of Luxury.

FASHION AND LUXURY ARE FORMS OF COMMUNICATION

2018-02-23T17:12:00.002+01:00

As Barthes sustained in 1967: “Clothing lends meaning to our body and, therefore, makes it exist: it emphasizes and reveals. Clothing neither hides nor shows, but alludes and emphasizes: clothing does not exhibit, but semanticizes”. [Barthes, 1967].

Roland Barthes

In other words, when we choose to wear a jacket or a pair of trousers, we do so not only to protect ourselves from the cold, but mostly as a form of communication.

“I ‘speak’ through my clothes. I speak when I strut into the office in the morning with a regular striped tie. I speak if I suddenly replace it with a jazzy tie. And I speak if I appear at a board meeting without a tie”. [Eco, '70s]

Umberto Eco

“Fashion Semiology: the language of Fashion and Luxury through style, communication and marketing” is an essay intended to help recognize, in an uncomplicated way, the sensory effects generated by the “language of fashion” and, inevitably, by the language of luxury, to act communicatively in order to achieve the desired results and become an expert in understanding and anticipating the communication dynamics of Fashion.

“The chief difficulty of understanding a fashion is the lack of exact knowledge of the symbolisms attached to its forms, colours, textures, postures and other expressive elements of a given culture”. [Sapir, 1931]

Edward Sapir

It intends to cast a light on all the signs used in Fashion and Luxury, when they are used properly and achieve the desired results, and, most of all, when they are misused, creating entropy in communication, a misunderstanding of the message intended to be sent by the creator of Fashion, therefore of Luxury.

When the primary needs have satisfied without problem, secondary needs, as to be elegant, to be trendy, to possess a beautiful house or a huge and It intends to emphasize that, in the words of Noth: “goods (including clothes) are signs whose meaning is always determined by the sender (through advertising) and by how the receiver interprets signs.”

It intends to underscore the indissoluble bond between Fashion, Luxury and the signs they produce, and marketing, whose purpose is to “sell” these signs to the receiver.

SIGNS IN FASHION: ICONS, SYMBOLS, INDICES AND THEIR TRANSIENCE

2018-02-22T16:54:00.004+01:00

We communicate through signs. Words, facial expressions, billboard images, street signs, certain sounds or colours are signs.

Clothes, jewels, accessories are signs.

Clothes, jewels, accessories are signs.

A sign, by definition, is a bifacial entity formed of:

signified
signifier.

The signified is the represented concept, the signifier is the material medium of representation.

The signifier is the material medium of representation.

Clothing can be used:

as a symbol (for instance, gilt accessories, or a lamè bodice, can be symbols of wealth, a black sheath dress of elegance, a pair of extravagant skyscraper sandals of eccentricity and transgression)
as an icon (a disguise is an icon of what we would wish to look like... If I dress up as a cat at carnival, my clothes become the icon of a cat)
as an index (I wear stray socks, and unless this is not my style, it indicates that I’m careless).

Clothing can be used as as symbol (elegance) and as an icon (woman dressed)

A few fundamental elements must be considered:

Signs in fashion are transient and are generated by a group of individuals who voluntarily develop a code.
Signifieds and signifiers in clothing are subject to sudden changes, due to the choice of the few and in a fleeting time span.
Signs in fashion are unstable, strong in the twinkle of an eye, weak moments after.

Signs in fashion are unstable, strong in the twinkle of an eye, weak moments after.

It appears clear by now that communicating through fashion is a complex art, unlike what many people think.

Results depend only on professional skills.

FASHION'S SYNTAGMAS AND PARADIGMS

2018-02-21T17:37:00.002+01:00

There are two particularly interesting kinds of relationships between signs: syntagmas and paradigms.

A syntagma is a syntactic string of words that forms a part of some larger syntactic group.

Syntax is a set of rules on how to combine signs one next to the other.

A subject is connected to a verb, an adverb and an instrumental case to form a sentence: Marco is wearing an elegant suit.

The existing and present continuous signs Marco, is wearing, elegant, suit interrelate.

A paradigm, a set of elements of a sentence connected by a virtual relationship of substitutability in the same context, creates a relationship between a sign that is present and one that could have been in its place.

It therefore involves a choice in a system where an element is chosen rather than another which could have virtually been in its place.

So I can say either “Marco is wearing an elegant suit” or “Marco is wearing Armani”.

The paradigmatic relationship between the elegant and suit signs is the Armani sign.

As far as clothing is concerned, the syntagma is the jacket, whereas the paradigm is the format, the standard to conform to, in other words, a suit with tie, shirt and trousers worn together with a jacket.

In a dress paradigm, one would expect a dark suit with elegant shoes, not clogs. The infringer of the paradigm, the dress rules of the society he lives in, would be defined as somewhat eccentric.

In the fashion world however, these rules are sometimes deliberately bent to stir emotion and interest in the public.

So it may occur that dress elements displaying combinations that would be shocking for normal, everyday wear, turn into a paradigm in the representation of fashion.

McCaul Lombardi and Robert De Niro are elegantly dressed in the Ermenegildo Zegna garments. The visual text of the Zegna campaign is a very good syntagma.

A man dresses elegantly in a refined context: the syntax of Cesare Attolini Autumn - Winter 17-18.

During Fashion Week 2016 in New York, a new trend has emerged: furry nails.

A shoe with a tail? The new fashion paradigm has served. (Laurence e Chico 2018).

HIDDEN MEANINGS AND SUBLIMINAL MESSAGES: PRESUPPOSITIONS

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A presupposition is knowledge taken for granted in the listener which must not be used recklessly. Assuming that the receiver has certain knowledge that we take for granted may, in fact, be hazardous from a communication point of view.

Stepping into a pub in Ireland and ordering two beers by showing the bartender two fingers to compensate for our bad English means being rude.

We usually use presuppositions in our everyday talk, otherwise we’d be too long-winded. Everyone would order “a glass of orange” at the bar without feeling the need to tell the bartender that we’re referring to “a crystal glass full of orange”, knowing that he would never understand “a glass composed of orange”.

Presuppositions are useful when we need to send a series of interwoven messages to multiple receivers with different competences, but all potential targets of the same product, creating a micro-case of polysemantic relational communication (though in an extremely simplified form).

In 2003, Anne Leibovitz photographed Natalia Vodianova for Vogue US in a series based on the nineteenth-century novels. The presupposition? That everyone knows Alice in Wonderland.

Hermès in his advertisement assumes that everyone knows the story of Cinderella and his famous shoe.

The assumption of Nike is that everyone recognizes his famous brand.

This sportswear can only be appreciated by those who know Valentino Rossi.

Only a rock fan will recognize the yellow vest worn by rock star Freddie Mercury.

Only those familiar with Alice in Wonderland can fully appreciate the gist of this Furla bag, which draws its inspiration from the story.

HIDDEN MEANINGS AND SUBLIMINAL MESSAGES: INFERENCES

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Entrenched in subliminal messages are inferences, that is, knowledge generated by prior knowledge gained by pairing two statements that together trigger a semantic process generating a third conclusion.

An example of inference is “I’m going to Stavanger this spring. I’ve never been to Norway”. This generates the inference “Stavanger is a city in Norway”.

Another example could be: “As soon as I graduate, I’ll be leaving town. There are no job opportunities left here in Naples”. This generates the inference that I am attending university in Naples.

Inferences can be generated also by the combination of visual statements.

In the first image. A boy passes by a ladder, a monster hangs from the tree: the inference is that the ladder has been taken from the boy.

Once the viewer notices the shadow of the blocks, the appearance of a dinosaur or a tank generates an inference: children play with imagination.

The ants avoid the lollipop: it creates the inference that the candy is sugar free.

A little bicycle on the ground, a peeled leg and a woman with a flamethrower: the inference that is generated is that the mother has to "cauterize" (sanitize) the wound of his daughter, fall off the bicycle.

CAMERA ANGLES IN FASHION IMAGES TO PRODUCE CERTAIN PERCEPTIONS IN THE RECEIVER

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Camera angles of a subject are just as important as frames. Camera angles are based on the viewpoint meant for the audience.

There are three main viewpoints:

• Eye level
The camera is placed in front of the character or object, more or less at the same level, the shot is fairly neutral, but could be more involving and emotional if the character looks at the camera, meaning straight at the audience.
The following shots are more descriptive, as they intend to emphasize the subject’s psychology or focus on his strength or weakness.

Jennifer Lawrence in Dior Cruise 2018 Campaign

Spring 2018 Campaign of Dolce & Gabbana.

• High angle
This shot makes characters or objects look smaller and less significant, and gives the impression of their being “swallowed up” by the surroundings.

The Gucci model dates back quickly escalators to gain a better shooting angle, in this campaign of 2016.

The life of a man and woman together in a large, impersonal metropolis through their hopes, struggles and downfalls in The Crowd, a 1928 American silent film directed by King Vidor and starring James Murray, Eleanor Boardman and Bert Roach.

• Low angle
This shot magnifies the characters or subjects and gives them superiority and strength. It is meant to give the audience the impression of powerlessness or to offer the perception of depth or dizzying heights.
Obviously, when it comes to advertising clothes or accessories, the camera angles should be “eye level” and “low angle” to generate in the audience the impression of an objective description or enhancement of the item in shot.

This example show two youngsters kissing on a car.

The low angle accentuates the advertised shoe.

FIGURES OF SPEECH IN FASHION: SIMILE

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From the Latin similitudo, “resemblance”, simile is a figure of speech that compares images, things, people and situations using adverbs of comparison or adverbial phrases (as, similar to, resembling).

For instance: he is as sly as a fox. If it had been “he is a fox” to express the same meaning, it would have been a metaphor.

He is just like his car, or rather, his car is just like him. An example of visual simile.

Mother and daughter look like the two snowmen: another simile in Prénatal Adv.

Like a tree: Iris Van Herpen, spring/summer 2012.

Another simile: Candice Swanepoel, a Victoria’s Secret Angel in 2017.

Like a swan: Alexander McQueen

The dress looks like a house in this creation of Guda Koster.

FIGURES OF SPEECH IN FASHION: PROSOPOPEIA

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From the Greek prosopon, “face” and poiein, “to do”, a classical figure of speech, in which the speaker or writer communicates by speaking as a dead person or as someone absent, or even through abstract and inanimate objects, as if they were real people.

In this case, the naked woman in the image, positioned between young men sporting a patriotic 19th century style, personifies Freedom, for which they fight, live and die.

Japanese Artist Fumie Sasabuchi reworks the pages of fashion magazines and deconstructs the perception of a perfect physique and plays a lot with the subject of death and his prosopopeia.

Alberta Ferretti fall/winter 2017 show. A true tribute to mother nature.

FIGURES OF SPEECH IN FASHION: HYPERBOLE

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The hyperbole in Fashion Semiology uses bombastic exaggerations, through under or overstatements, of a concept.

A good example could be “the week flew in a second”, or “you took a century to get here!”.

Two young women sniffing a Sisley vest as if it were a drug is an exaggeration. A hyperbole.

Two young women drinking a Sisley vest as if it were a wine is an exaggeration. Another hyperbole.

Don't Run, but Fly, the hyperbole of asics sneakers.

Tailor-made clothes for everyone, even for the hyperbolic long legs of the "lanieri" model.

Another hyperbole: a fingernail opens a can in this advertising of Nivea.

FIGURES OF SPEECH IN FASHION: SYNECDOCHE

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Part of something is used to refer to the whole thing, such as in “the boy asked for her hand” indicating that he asked her to marry him and wanted her all.

A whole is used to refer to a part of it (a seal bag, indicating a bag made of sealskin); or “the English man is usually self-possessed and sober” indicating the whole population through the habits of a single person.

Part of something referring to the whole thing. Tom Ford’s fragrance is the most intimate part of the woman and represents the woman in her entirety, through a visual synecdoche.

The big number 5 (with Gisele Bundchen), synecdoche of Chanel n°5.

A lapel and a pocket of a jacket sewn by hand: here is the synecdoche of Zegna.

To promote her bags Francesco Biasia does not use the entire female figure, but only a part that represents.

FIGURES OF SPEECH IN FASHION: ANTITHESIS

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A concept formed by adding the negation of its opposite (he used to work at night, not during daytime) or by combining two opposite words or concepts (I fear and I hope).

In the first image the antithesis between the naked men and the women dressed proposed by Dolce & Gabbana.

A coloured woman breast feeds a snow white baby. The visual contrast of Benetton advertising creates an antithesis.

Benetton, created another anthitesis with the release of its 1991 ‘Devil and Angel’ advert. The print ad, created by Italian photographer Oliviero Toscani, portrays two young girls in what can be said to be a friendly embrace. The blonde, curly haired girl has rosy cheeks resembling an angel. The African-American boy has little expression on his face, with his hair shaped into devil horns.

The rule of opposites in fashion. Iris Apfel, interior designer, businesswoman and fashion symbol. And the girl she's linking arms with is Karlie Kloss in the Kate Spade ADV Campaign.

The antithesis of the surgeon with loose hair and assistants with headgear proposed by Pantene.

FIGURES OF SPEECH IN FASHION: OXYMORON

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From the Greek oksimoron, composed of oksis “sharp” and moros, “dull”, a figure of speech combining contradictory concepts, the contradiction of words, usually a noun and adjective, combined to create paradoxes (such as hell-like heaven, hot ice).

"Hot Ice". That's how Alfred Hitchcock defined, with an oxymoron, the algid beauty and sensuality of actress Grace Kelly.

An example of a visual oxymoron could be a campaign where a sophisticated model wears rags to indicate chic shabbiness.

Or also the Vogue 2009 cover page, where the models are drifters with ultra-luxury clothes, elegantly ragged, or chic drifters, in a way.

In this Moschino advertising we find the oxymoron of vamp colf and in the product the oxymoron of the packaging.