300 years of bodies and corsets in their rhythmic manifestations

for a fashion semiotics

Abstract

The article reflects on a research project analysing 300 years of the practice ofconstraining the feminine torso, aiming at presenting the theories supporting the investigationto expose how their intersection and articulation could become a method for analysing fashionobjects. Stemming from the semiotics works concerned with the plastic of objects, mainlythe theories proposed by Greimas and further developed by Floch and Oliveira, we present anaddress of Fashion beyond its visual dimension, exploring the manners in which the relationsbetween the body and its dress are problems of discourse and narrative interactions, returningto Greimas’ Standard Semiotics and Landowski’s Socio-semiotics. The combination of theoriespresented in this piece was used to examine a corpus of feminine apparatuses utilised to reshapea woman’s silhouette throughout history, from the 18th century to the present, such ascorsets and crinolines, as well as various other types of shapewear, in combination with theanalysis of supporting texts, such as Artworks, literary works, pieces of popular culture andadvertisement. The work presents the steps of the investigation taking place between 2012and 2014 – the selection of the corpus and its analysis – and the future developments stemmingfrom that first exam, bringing about a reconstruction of the work and its results as a methodologicproposition that can serve the analysis of sartorial objects but is equally pertinent to theanalysis of any other manifestation that is subjected to rhythmic changes.