Dress right, act right

In The Fashion System, Roland Barthes argues that clothing is never just functional or decorative; it’s always a language, a system of signs. The revival of prairie-style high necklines and nunnishly low hems is a semiotic gesture that can’t be divorced from its meaning. Joan Scott’s theory of gender as a historical sign system is also useful when analysing the forms and silhouettes that mark this new (or, rather, old) style era: in resurrecting the prim-and-proper silhouettes of the ’40s and the flouncy A-line dresses of the ’50s, with their exaggerated waists and corsetry-inspired bodices, we act in subtle ways to reinscribe historical gender roles.