Fashion as communication revisited

ABSTRACT The essay introduces the sender/receiver model of communication and fashion communication by reviewing cultural studies and recent fashion journalism references to it. The essay argues that there are three major problems with this model. It then introduces and critiques various arguments around the cyborg, a human/machine “hybrid” as some theorists present it and argues that there are limitations and weaknesses in the conception of the prosthesis as found in the notion of the cyborg. The essay then analyses semiological models of communication and uses Derrida’s conception of the constitutive prosthesis to critique both traditional conceptions of the prosthesis and the model of communication as it is found in semiological models. Finally, the essay identifies some significant consequences of the constitutive prosthesis for fashion and the explanation of fashion as communication.