The seam: from/of construction to deconstruction

Abstract

The seam is the principal construction technique employed by the contemporary fashion industry. It produces both garments and, in turn, the semiotic or fashioned body. The implications of the semiotic relationship - between clothes and bodies - are however largely obscured by fashion, which secrets the seam away inside the garment. As such, fashion is often considered under-coded compared to other semiotic systems, such as images or text. In contrast, this research seeks to both comprehend and reconsider the semiotics of the seam by drawing upon the notions of blindness and deconstruction in the work of Jacques Derrida. This deconstructive understanding of the seam is used to inform a close reading of Roland Barthes’ The Fashion System that makes visible the implicit signification of the garment within the text. Furthermore, these notions are explored through fashion practice in the form of clothing which itself makes visible the obscured signification of the seam and reconsiders the garment’s relationship to the body.