A Semiotic Study On Fashion Culture

Nowadays, the fashion culture, for its more and more important function in social life, has been paid much attention to by scholars from different disciplines and theoretical schools increasingly. At the same time, studies on the fashion culture have evolved from the edge of academic research to its center gradually. This paper will take a semiotical perspective to analyze the fashion consumption phenomena through advertising which, to some extent, can reflect the fashion, build the fashion and communicate the fashion. The author will try to understand the semiotical values of the fashion culture and the cultural psychological mechanism of fashion, and to make clear the interaction between advertising and the fashion culture so as to catch correctly the influences and meanings of the fashion culture. This also works as the center of the theoretical framework of this paper.This paper firstly examines related theories of the semiology and the fashion; and then carries out a thorough analysis to some advertisements for feminine cosmetics from such four aspects as the brand magic, the idol effect, the desire demonstration and the image consumption based on the in-depth interview and the case study with its focus on the contemporary consumers' sign consumption of the fashion culture. After that, the author discusses the modern myth made by advertising in the fashion consumption so that the important role of advertising for building and spreading the meanings of signs during the communication of fashion culture can be clearly revealed. The paper finally comments on the fashion culture through theoretical analysis and case study, appeals to rational fashion consumption, and advocates the forward-looking guide and utility of the fashion.