The corset and the veil as disruptive manifestations of clothing: the tightlacer and the Tuareg

Abstract

This work investigates two items of clothing and the relations constructed between their fashionable and disruptive manifestations: the Corset and the Veil. Examining the societies which are emblematic of those practices – the Victorian Era and the Tuareg, from Northern Africa – the works of Greimas and Landowski will provide a framework for a Semiotic and Socio-semiotic analysis of the practices of tightlacing and male veiling as opposing practices to traditional gender roles. Even though the two practices forming the corpus of this work are geographically and chronologically distant, our analysis forms a parallel between them, exposing how the mechanism of Otherness through clothing occurs similarly at different times and locations, as well as the importance of Fashion in creating and sustaining prevalent ideologies.