Semiotics and Fashion

As a species, humans tend to assign meaning to virtually everything. This is particularly true in fashion, where a difference in fabric choice in a skirt can mean the difference between casual and formal. It is ironic that while we think the clothes we wear are an expression of individualism, they are mostly allowing others to place us in class subcategories and judge us accordingly. To backtrack, most signs work like this: signifier + signified = sign. For example, we can turn to John Fiske's "The Jeaning of America" and explore the radically different meanings pairs of jeans, one of the most basic staples of fashion today, can take on in society. A pair such as these:

What do we see? Because they are tightly fitted, they are not merely jeans to wear while mowing the lawn or doing the dishes; these are sexy, made for going out, for being seen. They mean sex, parties, a night spent on the town. By contrast:

Looking at them, you can see fading and holes, though strategically placed, that make the wearer look a bit more rugged, salt of the earth, and tough. Both pairs are made from the same material, yet the differences in how they are made change the symbols completely. What is even more ironic is that someone might wear the first pair just to make coffee and go to the grocery store, and might wear the second pair to hit the bars at night. We each perceive meaning differently, and that makes assigning a hard and fast rule to the semiotics of fashion is nigh impossible.