fashion / branding as transferable signifiers.

Fashion is a way of communicating. When you get your message wrong, it’s good that the people around you let you know. - Dries Van Noten.

Branding practices, in general, have a lot to learn from fashion.

Over the last several months, I've developed a more than passing interest in fashion. This has, for some people, come across as more of a vanity issue than anything else. I'll freely admit that vanity has something to do with it, as I care what I look like. But I also care what the way I look says. I care about the role clothing plays in my projected persona, and the interpretations of my identity that others make.

I recently referred to branding as a transferable signifier, something that consumers can take onto themselves as an element of a constructed, projected identity. The connection between clothing and branding is one that transcends logos. A specific cut, style or fit, is potentially as heavy with meaning as the brand of any global corporation.

A lot of my ideas about this stem from issues and questions I have related to racial identifiers and stereotypes. As a mixed-race (Jamaican / Irish) individual, I find myself asking questions about how certain clothing makes me look. I'll be the first to admit that this is a stupid thing to have to ask, but I'm in no way blind to the fact that if you put me in certain clothing, a percentage of the population will immediately make negative assumptions about me. There is a smaller-still percentage that will make negative assumptions about me regardless, but I'm still fascinated by the potential of having an immediate visual signifier that I can control - in contrast to my facial features and skin tone, an immediate visual signifier that I cannot (and have no desire to) alter.

If fashion is a method of communication, then I would argue branding with logos is the crudest form of yelling in comparison. Brands should aspire to be like clothes - something that adds to the consumer identity without usurping it. Something that takes first impressions into account, and manipulates them to the consumers advantage. Something that intends to speak louder than words.