II.

THE SYSTEMS OF WRITTEN CLOTHING

3.6. Breakdown of the systems

The general remarks which have been made regarding simultaneous systems now permit a
description of what could be called the "geology” of written clothing and the specification of the
number and the nature of the systems it mobilizes. How can we enumerate these systems? Through
a series of controlled commutation tests: we need only apply this test to different levels of the
utterance and to observe whether it indicates specifically different signs; these signs then
necessarily refer to systems which are themselves different. For example, the commutation test can

(A dog cannot make use of the signals it emits in order to build a second system of reasons and of
masks.)

designate the word as simply a part of the linguistic system (parsorationis); this same word (or
phrase, or even sentence) can be an element of vestimentary signification; again, it can be a signifier
of Fashion; and finally it can be a stylistic signifier: it is the multiplicity of the levels of commutation
which attests to the plurality of simultaneous systems. This point deserves emphasis,

for the entire semiological analysis being proposed here rests

upon a distinction between language and the written vestimentary

code which may scandalize but which owes its validity to the

fact that language and description do not have the same level of

commutation. Since there are two sorts of equivalences or two

pairs of commutative classes in written clothing (set A: clothing=

world; set B: clothing= Fashion) we shall first analyze those

utterances with explicit signifieds (set A), and then utterances

with implicit signifieds (set B), in order to examine subsequently

the relations between these two sets.

3:7. 5ystems of set A

Let there be an utterance with an explicit (wor.dly)

signified:
Prints win at the races. I already know that I have at least two

signifying systems here. The first 1s located, in principle, in

reality: if I were to go (at least that year) to Auteuil, I would

see, without needing to have recourse to language, that there is

equivalence between the number of prints and the festivity of

the races; this equivalence is obviously the basis for every utter-

ance ot Fashion, since it is experience as anterior to language

and its elements are supposedly real, not spoken; it clearly places

a real garment in relation to an empirical circumstance in the

world; its typical sign is: real garment= real world, and it is for

this reason that it will henceforth be called: the real vestimentary

code. Nonetheless, here, i.e., within the limits of written clothing

(which we are committed to respect in deference to the termi

nological rule), the reality (the racetrack at Auteuil, prints as a

see neither

the prints nor the track; one and the other are represented to ne

through a verbal element that is borrowed from the French (o

English) language; thus, in this utterance, language constirte

a second system of information, which I shall call the Writteu

specific fabric) is never anything but a reference:

vestimentary code or the terminological system," for it does

nothing other than denote in a crude manner the reality of the

world and of the garment, in the form of a nomenclature; if I

were to stop the elaboration of the written garment at this level,

I would end up with an utterance of this sort: 1his year, prints

are the sign of the races. In this system, the signifier is no longer

prints (as in system 1), but rather the ensemble of phonic (here:
graphic) substances required for the utterance, which is called

the sentence; the signified is no longer the races, but rather the

set of concepts, actualized by the sentence, which is called the

proposition.o The relation between these two systems obeys the

principle of metalanguages: the sign of the real vestimentary code

becomes the simple signified (proposition) of the written vesti

mentary code; this second signified is in turn provided with an

autonomous signifier: the sentence.

But this is not all. There remain other typical signs (other equiva-

lences) in my utterance, and hence, other systems. First of all,

it is certain that the equivalence between prints and races, be-

tween the garment and the world, is given (written ) only insofar

as it indicates (signifies) Fashion; in other words, wearing prints

at the races becomes in its turn the signifier of a new signified:

Fashion; but since this signified is only actualized insofar as the

equivalence between the world and the garment is written, it is

the notation of this equivalence itself which becomes the signifier

of system 3, whose signified is Fashion: by what is simply noted,

Fashion connotes the signifying relation between prints and the

e cannot call it the linguistic system, for the following systems are asO

ln Saussure's sense, even if this term is questionable.

linguistic (p. 45).

10 ne distinction between sentence and proposition comes trom l0gIC

races, mercly denoted at the level of system 2. This third system

(prints= the races= |Fashion| ) is important since it allows all

the worldly utterances of set A to signify Fashion (it is true in a

less direct manner than the utterances of set B"); bnt since it is,

despite everything, quite a reduced system, its typica sign having

in and for everything only one binary variation (noted/non-noted,

in-Fashion/out-of-Fashion), we will simply call it the connotation

of Fashion. Following the principle of realigned systems, it is the

sign of system 2 that becomes the simple signifier of system 3: by

the act of notation alone, the terminological utterance signities

Fashion in a supplementary way. Finally, the set of all three sys-

tems identified thus far includes one last original signified, and

hence one last typical sign: when the magazine states that prints

win at the races, it is not only saying that prints signity the

races (systems 1 and 2) and that the correlation between the

two signilies Fashion (system 3), but it also masks this correla-

tion in the dramatic form of a competition (win at ); thus we are

faced with a new typical sign, whose signifier is the Fashion

utterance in its complete form, and whose signified is the repre-

sentation which the magazine makes or wants to give of tne

Sgue l tne rashion

utterance in its complete form, and whose signified is the repre

sentation which the magazine makes or wants to give of the

world and Fashion; as in the teaching of road signs, the maga-

zine's phraseology constitutes a connotative message, aimed at

transmitting a certain vision of the world; so we shall call this

fourth and final system the rhetorical system. Such are, in strict

form, the four signifying systems one should find in every utter

ance with an explicit (worldly)12 signified: (1) the real vesti

mentary code; (2) the written vestimentary code or the termi-

nological system; (3) the connotation of Fashion; and (4) the

rhetorical system. The order in which these four systems are

read is, obviously, the opposite of their theoretical elaboration;

the first two are part of the level of denotation, the last two of

the level of connotation: these two levels may constitute, as we

shall see, the levels of analysis for the general system.

11 The difference between the two sets, which is due to the fact that Fashion

is denoted in set B and copnated in set_A, is crucial for the systems general

economy, and notably for ýhat,we could call its ettriesfelbelow, 3.10 and

PERPUS

Arefringto the seco

STRA

chap. 20).

12 In speaking of an explicit pignget year bvos

or terminological system.

nverctas Gadjah Mada

13 C., below, 4.10.

3.8. Systems of set B

What becomes of each of these systems in the utterances of set

B, that is, when written clothing is the direct signifier of the im-

plicit signified Fashion? Take the following utterance: Women

will shorten skirts to the knee, adopt pastel checks, and wear two-

toned pumps. We can conceive of a real situation in which each

of tiiese vestimentary traits (none of which refers to a worldly

signitied) would be immediately understood as a general sign of

Fashion by all women who were to see such clothing; clearly, we

are dealing here with a primary code both real and vestimentary,

analogous to that of set A, the difference being that the signified

is no longer the world, but in an immediate manner (and no

longer indirectly), Fashion. Yet this real code exists in the maga-

zine only as the referant for a written vestimentary code; here

again, the architecture of the utterances of set A is identical to

that of the utterances of set B, except, to note once again (for it is

at this level that the dilference appears), that the signified Fashion

is always implicit. Now, since Fashion is the signified of system 2,

it cannot serve as the connoted signified in system 3, which is

unnecessary and which disappears: it is in fact no longer the

simple notation of the sign clothing=world that refers to Fashion,

it is the detail of vestimentary features, their organization per se

that immediately signifies Fashion, exactly as, in the utterances

of set A, this same detail and this same organization immediatey

signify the worldly cireumstance (the races): in the utterances

of set B, there is no longer any connotation of Fashion. But since

the utterance of the garment (Women will shorten. . .) takes

the form of a legal and almost religious decree (it matters little

for this analysis that it is cum grano salis), we here discover a

system of connotation once again: the rhetorical system; as in the

case of the utterances of set A, it transmits the representation ot

Fashion that the magazine can have or wants to give or more

precisely of Fashior in the world, experienced as a higher and

essentially tyrannical authority. Thus, the utterances of set B are

comprised of three systems: a real vestimentary code, a written

vestimentary code or terminological system, and a rhetorical sys:

tem; the level of connotation includes only one system insteado

two.

3:9. Relations of the two sets

All written clothing is thus divided into two types of sets, the

first having four systems, the second having three. What are the

relations between these two sets? To begin with, we notice that

the two sets have the same typical signifier on the denotative

level: the garment, or more exactly, a succession of vestimentary

features; it follows that when one wants to study the structure of

codes 1 and 2, there is only one signifier to analyze, the garment,

whether it is part of an utterance of a set of type A or B, that is,

no matter which set it belongs to. After this has been said, the

ditference between the two sets must be reemphasized. Such a

difference comes down to this: that Fashion is a connoted value

in set A and a denoted value in set B. At the level of code 2B, the

meaning of Fashion does not come from simple notation (the

act of noting), but from vestimentary features themselves; more

precisely, the notation is immediately absorbed into the detail of

the features, it cannot function as a signifier, and Fashion cannot

escape its situation as an immediate signified; but by interposing

worldly signißeds between the garment and Fashion in set A,

the magazine manages to elude Fashion, makes it regress to an

implicit or latent state." Fashion is an arbitrary value; in the

case of set B, consequently, the general system turns out to be

arbitrary, or, if one prefers, openly cultural; on the contrary, in

the case of set A, the arbitrariness of Fashion becomes surTeptiti-

ous and the general system presents itself as natural, since the

garment no longer appears as a sign, but rather as a function. To

describe a halter top buttoned down the back, etc., is to establish

a sign;" to declare that prints win at the races is to mask the

Sign beneath the appearance of an affinity between the world

and the garment, i.e., of a nature.