The fashion system - Roland Barthes

In his book The Fashion System (1967), the French sociologist Roland Barthes writes: "If the producers and consumers of clothing had an identical awareness, clothing would only be bought (and produced) at the very slow pace of its wearing out."

Logic would lead us to buy new clothes only to replace those worn out through use.

Fashion, however, is a system "invented" to encourage the continuous purchase of new products.

To achieve this, producers have created a system that, according to Barthes, "replaces the brief time of wear with a sovereign time, free to destroy itself in an [...] annual act".

The fashion system creates a cycle lasting about a year (the time needed to renew collections), which destroys itself once it ends.

This process makes existing products obsolete, leaving room for new ones.

You will be offered new styles to customise the appearance.

Will you resist the temptation to use the latest fashionable colours?

DEBRIEFING The fashion system, Barthes

The coloured square represents fashion, which introduces new collections, trends and colours at regular intervals.

By clicking the square with the new colour, you accept and "wear" the new fashion.

Did you choose the new colours, or keep using those that were already out of fashion?