Page 240 - Več kot moda: onkraj oblačilnih, telesnih, spolnih, odnosnih in komunikacijskih ortodokcij.
P. 240
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underlying motives for spreading and creating fashion as practice are pre-
sented and analysed, followed by a thorough inquiry into communication
as the field where individuals generate their own images of fashionability.
The instability and variability of meanings of fashionability as practice are
presented and established, and socially-motivated conceptions of fashion
as a trivial, superficial, superfluous, and irrational practice are analysed.
Such demotions of fashion are shown to be external manifestations of
cultural orthodoxies, and thus reflections of the social need to classify,
categorise, and evaluate practices. Praprotnik centres communication as
the fundamental site where meanings and images of fashionability – in
short: cultural expectations for how, when, and by whom fashionability is
communicated – are shaped and negotiated. This is the starting point for
uncovering a variety of norms, expectations, values, and visions already
present in society and reflected in all social practices, including fashion
per se, foregrounding the social constructedness, and hence the variabil-
ity and instability, of the meanings of fashion: what fashion is, what can
be fashionable, who is involved in fashion. Being fashionable, being up
to date, is reflected and grounded in communicational practices, not in
individuals. Fashionability can be communicated via a wide range of com-
modities and situations, not only via clothing practices. Drawing both on
examples from past centuries and, predominantly, from contemporary
ways of communicating fashionability and uses of specific technologies
(mobile phones, cars), and juxtaposing older subcultural fashion practices
and more recent instances of fast fashion, Praprotnik demonstrates the
changing historical conceptions of fashion as a specific practice, while also
showing how the act communicating fashionability in any specific social
situation reflects fundamental antagonisms, established distinctions, and
exclusions of individuals, as well as simultaneous attempts at overcoming
normative images of what is fitting and appropriate. As a social practice
and hence a communicational activity, fashion can be treated similarly to
identity: being fashionable is not a state or attribute that is ‘had’ and then
displayed, but first and foremost a communication whereby a state or at-
tribute is to be constructed. Communication is not simply a space for the
individual to present an attribute (fashionability) but rather a site where
their fashionability is yet to be negotiated. The focus, therefore, is not on
clothing as fact but on clothing as a type of social practice, an embodied
activity whereby fashionability, genderedness, class, etc. are established.
Clothing, then, is not only used to communicate fashionability; rather, in
and via clothing, wider social norms, group memberships, and positions
240
underlying motives for spreading and creating fashion as practice are pre-
sented and analysed, followed by a thorough inquiry into communication
as the field where individuals generate their own images of fashionability.
The instability and variability of meanings of fashionability as practice are
presented and established, and socially-motivated conceptions of fashion
as a trivial, superficial, superfluous, and irrational practice are analysed.
Such demotions of fashion are shown to be external manifestations of
cultural orthodoxies, and thus reflections of the social need to classify,
categorise, and evaluate practices. Praprotnik centres communication as
the fundamental site where meanings and images of fashionability – in
short: cultural expectations for how, when, and by whom fashionability is
communicated – are shaped and negotiated. This is the starting point for
uncovering a variety of norms, expectations, values, and visions already
present in society and reflected in all social practices, including fashion
per se, foregrounding the social constructedness, and hence the variabil-
ity and instability, of the meanings of fashion: what fashion is, what can
be fashionable, who is involved in fashion. Being fashionable, being up
to date, is reflected and grounded in communicational practices, not in
individuals. Fashionability can be communicated via a wide range of com-
modities and situations, not only via clothing practices. Drawing both on
examples from past centuries and, predominantly, from contemporary
ways of communicating fashionability and uses of specific technologies
(mobile phones, cars), and juxtaposing older subcultural fashion practices
and more recent instances of fast fashion, Praprotnik demonstrates the
changing historical conceptions of fashion as a specific practice, while also
showing how the act communicating fashionability in any specific social
situation reflects fundamental antagonisms, established distinctions, and
exclusions of individuals, as well as simultaneous attempts at overcoming
normative images of what is fitting and appropriate. As a social practice
and hence a communicational activity, fashion can be treated similarly to
identity: being fashionable is not a state or attribute that is ‘had’ and then
displayed, but first and foremost a communication whereby a state or at-
tribute is to be constructed. Communication is not simply a space for the
individual to present an attribute (fashionability) but rather a site where
their fashionability is yet to be negotiated. The focus, therefore, is not on
clothing as fact but on clothing as a type of social practice, an embodied
activity whereby fashionability, genderedness, class, etc. are established.
Clothing, then, is not only used to communicate fashionability; rather, in
and via clothing, wider social norms, group memberships, and positions
240
