Abstrakt
The key feature in "fashion" always have been rapid changing of styles. But in recent years fashion in this understanding is becoming no longer "fashionable".
This is due to the fact that fashion's modification of time has become much faster than "real time". People are tired of "fake" fashion and are looking for "real" fashion.
From imaginary representations are shifting to human emotions, from "fashion" (construction defined by newness, trendiness, artifice, transitoriness, idealised images) to "dress" (reach back into "authenticity", sartorial attitude, personal wardrobe, emotions and memories). The paper points out that "authenticity" is becoming the new value in fashion (an ethical ideal, but also a business imperative) and analyses the construction of "new authenticity" of fashion in media.
The object of the research is the increasingly successful biannual ("slow") fashion magazines that represent seasonal ready-to-wear fashion as "long-lasting". In order to articulate experiences of dress, "slow" fashion magazines emphasises materials and textiles, rather than imaginary realms.
The idea is to straighten a link between fashion and "reality" (to emphasise aesthetic utility of garments) and to weaken fashion's dependence on imagery (to diminish perception of fashion as simulacrum). Shifts are not only concerned with the representation of products, but also with the representation of women.
With focus on the tactility and the pleasures that garments can provide, rather than their look, representations are shifting from "stereotyped images" structured around the gaze, toward more "authentic" portraits. By using tools of discourse analysis, the paper investigates the construction of rhetoric of "authenticity" of fashion in "slow" fashion magazines.
As the result, the list of characteristics of representations of "authenticity" of fashion is introduced.