Clothing Degree Zero: A Late Reading of Barthes’ Fashion ‘System

Drawing upon Roland Barthes’ posthumously published notebooks from his 1974 trip to China, in which he remarks upon the ‘complete absence of fashion. Clothing degree zero’, this article offers a ‘late’ reading of Barthes’ interest in fashion, suggested here as a form of writing. In reference to the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inTheory, culture & society Vol. 37; no. 4; pp. 97 - 118
Main Author Jie, Feng
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London, England SAGE Publications 01.07.2020
Sage Publications Ltd
Subjects
Barthes, Roland (1915-1980)
Clothing industry
Fashion
Reading
Textile industry
China
Neutral
blandness
Roland Barthes
François Jullien
Chinese philosophy
fashion
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Summary:Drawing upon Roland Barthes’ posthumously published notebooks from his 1974 trip to China, in which he remarks upon the ‘complete absence of fashion. Clothing degree zero’, this article offers a ‘late’ reading of Barthes’ interest in fashion, suggested here as a form of writing. In reference to the late works, specifically Barthes’ penultimate lecture course on the Neutral and Travels in China, supplemented by François Jullien’s comments on Barthes’ trip to China (regarding the use of the term ‘blandness’), as well as mention of Michelangelo Antonioni’s film Chung Kuo-Cina (which Barthes viewed with ‘methodological’ interest), it is possible to draw together a reading of fashion as a neutral form. As a final step, reflection is given to Susan Buck-Morss’ reading of ‘history as passing’, as discontinuous moments (whereby fashion is symptomatic of such transformations). Barthes’ writerly mode – which works upon incidental details (also found in the work of Antonioni) – is revealed to be a pertinent method.
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ISSN:0263-2764
1460-3616
DOI:10.1177/0263276420910484