Sartre treats this question from a philosophical point of view when he shows that clothing allows man to ‘assume his freedom,’ to constitute himself as he chooses, even if what he has chosen to be represents what others have chosen for him: society made Genet into a thief, and so Genet chooses to be a thief. Clothing is very close to this phenomenon; it seems that it has interested writers and philosophers because of its links with personality, of its capacity to change one’s being for another; personality makes fashion, it makes clothing; but inversely, clothing makes personality. There is certainly a dialectic between these two elements…
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Barthes, R., & Stafford, A. (2006). The language of fashion. Oxford: Berg.
