ABSTRACT
Photographing the fashion signifier poses problems of method which were set aside at the outset of the analysis. Yet Fashion photographs not only its signifiers, but its signifieds as well, at least insofar as they are drawn from the “world”. Probably, and by a paradox which is merely apparent, to make Fashion’s signifieds unreal. In Fashion photography, the world is usually photographed as a decor, a background or a scene, in short, as a theater. The theater of Fashion is always thematic: an idea is varied through a series of examples or analogies. For example, using Ivanhoe as theme, the decor develops Scottish, romantic, and medieval variations: the branches of naked shrubs, the wall of an ancient, a ruined castle, a postern gate and a moat: this is the tartan skirt.
