Fashion imagery has existed for hundreds of years and yet the methods
used by scholars to understand it have remained mostly historical and
descriptive. The belief informing these approaches may be that fashion
imagery is designed for one purpose: to depict a garment and how to wear
it. In this interdisciplinary book, Sanda Miller suggests a radical
alternative to these well-practiced approaches, proposing that fashion
imagery has stories to tell and meanings to uncover. The methodology she
has developed is an iconography of fashion imagery, based on the same
theory which has been key to the History of Art for centuries.
Applying Panofsky's theory of iconography to illustrations from books,
magazines and fashion plates, as well as fashion photography and even
live fashion events, Miller uncovers three levels of meaning:
descriptive, secondary (or conventional) and tertiary or 'symbolic'. In
doing so, she answers questions such as who is the model; what did
people wear and why; and how did people live? She proves that fashion
imagery, far from being purely descriptive, is ripe with meaning and can
be used to shed light on society, class, culture and the history of
dress.
