The tear and the cut. Jeans, from Barthes to Lacan, and beyond

Abstract

Fashion is a language: clothes transmit significances, a taste, a style. On that there is a wide agreement. However, we can’t take for granted what we mean for “language”: this essay goes back, besides to a mere vehicular or communicative concept, to the essential language procedures, namely to the articulation activities. But, perhaps isn’t an articulation a cut? And perhaps cutting fabrics isn’t the act of birth of any piece of clothing? The cut is, therefore, on the side of the form; whilst, the tear recalls the formless. The “ripped jeans” fashion, as brought back in these very years, contrasts the ordinary feature of the most popular clothes, introducing possible aesthetic values, but, at the same time, bringing them back to the pre-linguistic dimension: beyond the cut, the real sphere of the body, the contingency of the being.