PROUST: LITERARY COUTURIER (FRANCE)

Proust's Narrator states in A la Recherche du temps perdu: "je batirais mon livre, je n'ose pas dire ambitieusement comme une cathedrale, mais tout simplement comme une robe." This provacative remark, coming at the end of the novel in "Le Temps retrouve," seems in retrospect a key to the work. Even a cursory reading of Proust takes notice of the great variety of clothes and their often elaborate description; however, the significance of clothing for the general understanding of the novel had not yet been recognized. As our title suggests, Proust is the overall couturier of the work, and, we are convinced, has designed the costumes for his characters to give discreet clues to the careful reader.; Through Barthes, Veblen and Laver, we have come to understand the role of clothing in general, while Deleuze, Doubrovsky, Richard and others have revealed fundamental aspects of the Proustian fiction. Combining the research on clothing with the scholarship on Proust in a thematic approach, we examine systematically all references to clothing and we trace the sartorial development of the major characters. After studying the phenomenology of clothing--what types of clothing appear in the novel--we consider the social, sexual and esthetic functions of the clothes.; Descriptions in Jean Santeuil and in A la Recherche du temps perdu bring out details normally inaccessible to view, such as the fine stitching inside Odette's sleeve, as well as the visible outer shell. The nomenclature, color (a theme already explored by Allan Pasco), cut, accessories and purpose of the attire are all part of the Proustian design. Barthes in Systeme de la mode stresses that language communicates information unavailable to a photograph or a drawing. Proust's fiction demonstrates thoroughly the validity of Barthes's observation.