Notes-Fashion and Commodity Form

Baudrillard defines symbolic exchange as:In symbolic exchange, of which the gift is our most proximate illustration, the object is not an object:it is inseparable from the concrete relation in which it is exchanged, the transferational pact it seals between two persons. Baudrillard's took the wedding ring as an example of symbolic object.One does not wear several, nor think of substituting one for another. This is because the ring is intended to be as unsubstitutable and permanent as the relationship itself. The commodity is different because the exchange of commodity can only take place on the basis of exchange value. Therefore, the exchange relation hardly allows for symbolic investment.
Fashion can be understood as a mode of consumption. It is a commodity whose form is at one and the sametime its content, a commodity that is doubly abstract toth as exchange value and as use value. Fashion is no longer limited to designing and shaping human body.It is now the overriding stylistic code that is configuring our whole environment and mannerisms of habitation. Fashion has been likened to language.It is a means of self-expression that allows people to try on many roles in life.It's a way of celebrating the diversity and variety of the world in which we live. Fashion is about change which is necessary to keep life interesting. It shouldn't be taken too seriously or you lose the fun of it. Whatever is fashionable now will quickly become unfashionable. New trends keep coming to replace the old.