A 19th century Rhetoric of fashion

Abstract

[Abstract] The present paper highlights a few aspects of the Romanian urban society fashion during thelong19th century. The Revolution of 1848 brought forth a new social paradigm, visible in changes at alllevels. Intricate relations with power and with authority, in the classical sense, accompany fashion as a daily element of social existence. It implies tradition and innovation, attitude, mentalities, psychology, technology and technique, art, taste etc., it acts like a dynamic, interactive, hierarchic and segregation phenomenon. In semiotics it is considered a paradoxical semantic system as its goal is «to deceive itsmeaning elaborated so extravagantly» (cf. R. Barthes, Système de la mode, 1967, p.10).As a symbolic sign, fashion betokens culture. It states a permanent celebration of the Otherness,which means it advocates an endless dialogue between systems and between individuals. Perceptionallows a continuous reinvention of the human body, a matter of concept able to create forms. And suchforms helped the Romanian society to build patterns to integrate itself into the European culture, a priority at the time. The people’s flexible engagement in a European discourse stimulated valuable perspectives of shaping and maintaining a meaningful lifestyle. Fashion was called to bridge these two systems and to configure the context for modernity.