Sarahel's Semiotics 4U

jeez, girl
more like insomniotics

can you quote some relevant guy debord now plz ;)

62 False choice in spectacular abundance, a choice which lies in the juxtaposition of competing and complimentary spectacles and also in the juxtaposition of roles (signified and carried mainly by things) which are at once exclusive and overlapping, develops into a struggle of vaporous qualities meant to stimulate loyalty to quantitative triviality. This resurrects false archaic oppositions, regionalisms and racism which serve to raise the vulgar hierarchic ranks of consumption to a preposterous ontological superiority. In this way, the endless series trivial confrontations is set up again, from competitive sports to elections ...

Women's pants (sexist or not) are horrible anyway. IMO they just don't look good... but that's just me I guess.

O_O this is turning into the thread where people had to translate song titles into academese, while other posters had to guess the title of song in question... but without the "songs" part.

Dear celebrity, spectacular representation of a living human being, can I get your sister's email why because she look intersting

i <3 this shit tbh

I will address the semiotics of soccer moms after I get some sleep.

That Debord quote ties in perfectly with my line about advertising. Not sure I'd call competitive sports or elections 'false choices' mind.

competitive sports are a perfect example of false choices.

lol so are elections! perhaps that's why he mentioned competitive sports and elections in that paragraph..............

i am shaking my head at lj

it certainly has been posited quite a bit about U.S. elections, to be sure.

something can only be false if you believe in the truth

My only contention with sarahel's points, as one who shops with my gf quite often and has noted the bewildering variety that any 'size' may have wrt to women's clothing, is that, otoh, there is a certain standard and normative 'masculinity' which disparages men who are 'overly' fastidious about their clothing or overly daring. If a man is a size 42, he buys a coat size 42 but does that mean that all manufacturers make them equally? If a man wanted no pockets or non-functional pockets, could he get them easily in business attire? The conservativeneness of men's attire - the lounge suit being essentially THE de rigueur attire of men - dates from the 20's and while it has had fuller or narrower trousers and wider or narrower lapels and X number of buttons or been single or double breasted, it has otherwise little changed in 90 years. Standardization of sizes sounds like a good idea but it leads to a conformity and leveller result that denies rather provides variety and individual choice. At least when my gf goes clothes shopping, she knows that she has to try everything on - every brand's sizes being different and often different within the brand on different items of clothing. For men, the variables are generally inseam, sleeve, collar, chest, and waist. Add to this the varities of feminine curves , i.e., large bust/large hips, large bust/small hips, small bust/large hips, small bust/small hips and all the individual modulations specific to a real as opposed to a template woman and the sizing issue, while admittedly annoying, seems less to me like a horrible conspiracy (though there is definitely size deflation for the purpose of flattery) then a natural result of the nature of the business.

DUMPLINGS!

xp - men aren't all shaped the same, either. I see where you're coming from, though. A guy with a significant gut has fewer stylistic options of camouflaging, flattering said protuberance, than a woman does.

in my experience, all men's clothes are designed with disguising gut protuberance as top priority

but it isn't as if men can wear a-line dresses ... well, they could but ...

http://www.comic-mint.com/media/client/homer-mumu-bedroom-E1728_sml.jpg

Men's pants are sized consistently based on measurements,

ALL I HAVE TO SAY AT LOL ALREADY DIDN'T READ REST OF THREAD

GO MEASURE ANY GENDER'S PAIR OF PANTS THAT AREN'T MADE IN FRANCE, ITALY OR JAPAN AND SEE HOW THEY COMPARE TO THE LABELED SIZE, THIS ISSUE IS NOT UNIQUE TO WOMENSWEAR

but...semiotics...

yes, but the sizes refer to actual measurements, one can say, "These are supposed to be 34 inch waist pants, I have measured my waist and it is 34 inches, these pants do not fit, thus these pants are wrong."

shrink-to-fit, ding dongs

No mass-manufactured item will ever fit perfectly on anyone but that lucky person who is 'average' in every variable measurement and even then, if it's poorly done, it will still look shitty. I just mean that in the complicated process of draping two-dimensional plane around a three-dimensional body, there are added challenges, even if you factor out societal and gender expectations, when clothing women.

I generally have to get all my suits tailored to some degree or another and there are certain brands which are simply not cut for me.

my legs are too long for me

before i got a paunch it was very hard for me - a tall and, at the time, slim male - to find trousers that fit. 28" waist 34" inside leg is difficult.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_vBiL4nSwNBU/SEl5Rxceg9I/AAAAAAAAADQ/hkiQIATg27A/s320/hostess_ding_dongs_300w.jpg

or

http://www.candyfavorites.com/pi/hostess-ho-hos.jpg

names are onomatopoeic representations of sound effects

The Man Who Was Shorter Than Himself

There was a man two inches shorter than himself
Who always kept getting stuck in the sidewalk;
And when the curious townsmen came
To yank his arms and crush his hat,
He'd spit in the eye of the lean,
and steal the wallets off the fat.

I guess what I'm saying, is don't trust the size marked, it varies from brand to brand and even sometimes within and you have to see how it fits.

I also wonder at your pocket/purse dynamic. I think it may be the other way around. At present, woomen have purses so why have ungainly bulges and folds in their clothing when they mostly won't put anything in there so as not to ruin the line? You could wonder why there is still a vestigial style for faux pockets, perhaps, or why women want to look sexy, but I can understand why, if they're going to carry a purs, they don't want real pockets. Otoh, I have seen quite a few summer dresses w/functional pockets this year.

this isn't really semiotics 4u anymore btw, this is like every ILS thread ever

yes, but the sizes refer to actual measurements, one can say, "These are supposed to be 34 inch waist pants, I have measured my waist and it is 34 inches, these pants do not fit, thus these pants are wrong."

― free jazz and mumia (sarahel),

AROUND 25 YEARS AGO, CLOTHING MANUFACTURERS BEGAN "VANITY SIZING". THIS IS WHY I SAY GO MEASURE A GARMENT AND COMPARE TO THE LABEL SIZE. I DON'T TYPE IN ALL CAPS JUST FOR FUN. LOL

THIS IS THE FIRST I'VE HEARD ABOUT VANITY SIZING TBH

Here is an interesting series of articles about how fit models work in the womens' clothing industry, which lends some support to sarahel's theories re: women's pants:
http://theprettyyear.com/2009/03/10/size-chart-woes/
http://theprettyyear.com/2009/03/17/size-chart-woes-part-ii/
http://theprettyyear.com/2009/03/18/size-chart-woes-part-iii-revenge-of-the-stitch/

I just have a problem with purses ... I'd end up forgetting them on public transport or in the corner at a club or something ... it's something else to keep tabs on when you're in a public place. I prefer to keep everything in pockets -- fortunately, most of the year I can wear a jacket or sweatshirt and keep things in there, but when it gets hot (like it was the past two days), it's too warm for a jacket or sweatshirt, and the pants pockets problem rears its head.

friend of mine who interned for some semi-up and coming designer last summer claimed that the guy (who only wore cargo shorts) didn't really like the idea of "fat ppl" wearing his clothes and used a fit model who was definitely too small and the clothes were all about six sizes (european) than they claimed they were. Also they just measure one person who is a real person and usually a quite skinny model whose proportions are not v. representative fyi and then add two inches to the measurements to go up each size

i don't like them either, they're a real hindrance and i hate hindrances. but i like carrying everything i own with me like a bag lady so life is hard w/o some type of bag xp

xp ha! Your story reminds me of ikea furniture -- it always seems to me that whoever designs it doesn't want people with large quantities of stuff using it. Maybe it's just the shelves ...

A lot of designers don't like the idea of fat people wearing their clothes, which is a bummer, because as a fat lady with discretionary income, I would really like to spend it on some clothes that don't look like they have been puked on by a bedazzler. Also, yes, just grading a pattern up uniformly around is pretty common, so that a size 18W blouse, for example, is cut for a giant rectangular person (and some women are shaped like giant rectangles, so this is good for them) instead someone with boobs and a waist and hips, etc. This is really a whole separate discussion than sarahel's semiotic pants, though. xp

You can tell when a manufacturer does that uniform grading thing if their larger sized shirts have like giant arm and neck holes.

not just common, i'm pretty sure this is HOW ITS DONE

like this guy was high end

Jenny speaks the truth! A while back, I was talking to a friend of mine, who I consider fairly slim, but like me, we are both pretty ample in the posterior. Both of us are not tall, and we will buy larger women's shorts that on us look like capri pants.

Inadequacy -- compared to men's pants - which are designated by quantitative measurements, women's pants, are sized with an arbitrary number with the smallest, and culturally most desirable, being a "0" -- null

BOTH MEN AND WOMENS CLOTHING MADE FOR AMERICAN CONSUMERS HAS DEVIATED FROM THE STANDARD SIZING (AKA VANITY SIZING) WITH THE EXCEPTION OF DOMESTIC COUTURE DESIGN HOUSES OR FOREIGN IMPORTS SUCH AS ZARA, H&M OR UNIQLO (ALTHOUGH THESE RETAILERS HAVE GOTTEN SMART AND HAVE BEGAN RELABELING GARMENTS FOR USA EG: M -> L, L->XL).

GO FIND YOUR BF'S FAVORITE PAIR OF PANTS AND MEASURE THE WAIST AND COMPARE TO THE LABEL. EVERYONE WANTS TO BE TALLER AND SKINNIER THAN THEY REALLY ARE, IT IS NOT A WOMEN'S CLOTHING ISSUE EXCLUSIVELY, ALTHOUGH I DO FEEL YA W/R/T USA WOMENSWEAR SIZING ALTHOUGH THAT'S BEEN A PROBLEM FOR MANY DECADES.

I also wonder at your pocket/purse dynamic. I think it may be the other way around. At present, woomen have purses so why have ungainly bulges and folds in their clothing when they mostly won't put anything in there so as not to ruin the line? You could wonder why there is still a vestigial style for faux pockets, perhaps, or why women want to look sexy, but I can understand why, if they're going to carry a purs, they don't want real pockets. Otoh, I have seen quite a few summer dresses w/functional pockets this year.

― Le présent se dégrade, d'abord en histoire, puis en (Michael White), Tuesday, August 11, 2009 3:31 PM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this doesn't really show that it's the other way around. unless i am not understanding. women are carrying purses ----> let's design clothes based on that assumption, and that's good because we won't "ruin the line" (and who cares if your clothes are not "functional") -----> our clothes don't have pockets ------> that's ok because you can put stuff in your purse. i mean what sarahel said still holds. it goes in a circle.

my bf pretty exclusively wears work pants (dickies, carhartts, etc.) ... do they vanity size those, too?

steve shasta i think u are missing the point, arbitrary as men's clothing sizes may be, they at least imply a relatiotionship with an actual measurement, 32 in a men's trousers actually means the waist is 32 inches, yeah it is usually bollocks but the relationship between sign and signified is pretty clear cut, wtf is size six supposed to mean, its more abstract and therefore invents its own connotations in relationship to women's bodies without anything as formal as a measurement it seems

^ yes. men's clothes doesn't have a 0, for example. the fact that both have vanity sizing just means both want to be smaller than they are, which is another (related) problem.

if you go to pull and bear in ireland they don't do size small, the label says Spain: M Ireland : S or Spain: L Ireland M.

hang on, can we get back to that 'false choice' thing, because much as I <3 debord, deleuze &c &c, and much as that quote is OTM re: aspirational marketing, false lifestyle dichotomies and other such symbiotic competitive ventures, I would argue that fundamentally instinctive entertainments such as sport, and necessary civic arbitrations such as elections, are somewhat above the insidious corporate spectacle being addressed by debord. supporting a sports team is not like choosing a piece of clothing or a new kitchen. it comes much more naturally; it is tribal, and is not suggested so much as implored. as for voting in an election, the falseness of the choice depends on what information is available, and how trustworthy it is.

I never read the comix ... so all I have to go on is the tv show. Having her be revealed as queer was a shift, and kinda felt like a tension release in a way? I kinda don't know how I feel about it. I guess one thing that connects Riverdale & Gotham (outside of being based on comics) tv shows, is the way that they incorporate the retro and the contemporary. Like, these shows are "period" and also not, but they try to make it appear cohesive ... idk.

Gotham's even "weirder" in that it incorporates (or tries to) elements from multiple time periods, as opposed to Riverdale which is just 50s + contemporary

riverdale feels like a subversion of the comix - like a lynchian undressing of idyllic small town american high school life. by contrast sabrina despite being also a much more mature + at times disturbing version of its source material feels like it preserves the essential conflicts of the original work. it's just like a much darker take on the torn between two worlds narrative and wanting to be a normal teenager etc. on the show do betty + veronica ever fight over archie? i only watched the first few episodes and the show seemed to be studiously avoiding putting them in competition over his affection.

they don't really fight over archie. show begins with betty having a thing for archie, but she later gets over it and dates jughead. betty and jughead, and veronica and archie who are also a couple, break up for a short time, and archie and betty kiss during this time. but theres not really any "fighting" and both respective couples get back together

it definitely does the Lynch thing, sometimes so much so that I'm rolling my eyes. It's fun tho. I like Gotham better. It actually is interesting in terms of commentary on mental health issues

also re Riverdale, there's the extra-textual thing of Archie's parents being played by Molly Ringwald and Dylan from 90210

i keep getting ads for this company. this is one of the ads -- from a Marx-informed perspective -- this whole ad campaign is ... damn ....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ho4LUg9avZA