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“We make the shoes, you make the story” Teenage girls’ experiences of fashion: Bricolage, tactics and narrative identity

“We make the shoes, you make the story” Teenage girls’ experiences of fashion: Bricolage, tactics... This article explores the ways that French teenage girls use fashion discourse to construct their evolving identity from their recently left childhood to their future as fully grown women. Verbatim texts of 14 phenomenological discussions concerning clothing, accessories, make‐up and fashion are interpreted using the concepts of bricolage (Lévi‐Strauss), tactics (Certeau) and narrative identity (Ricœur). The findings resonate with Thompson and Haytko’s portrayal of a dialogical relationship between consumers and a system of countervailing fashion meanings and with Murray’s exposition of a dialectical and discursive tension between sign‐experimentation and sign‐domination. But beyond this we elucidate the process by which teenagers also acquire, from personal social milieu, skills and tactics through which they toy with preconstrained sartorial symbolism to construct the plot line of their own lives which, in turn, reflects their past, defines their present self and presages their future. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Consumption Markets and Culture Taylor & Francis

“We make the shoes, you make the story” Teenage girls’ experiences of fashion: Bricolage, tactics and narrative identity

Marion, Gilles; Nairn, Agnes
Consumption Markets and Culture , Volume 14 (1): 28 – Mar 1, 2011
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References (53)

Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Copyright
Copyright Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN
1477-223X
eISSN
1025-3866
DOI
10.1080/10253866.2011.541181
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

This article explores the ways that French teenage girls use fashion discourse to construct their evolving identity from their recently left childhood to their future as fully grown women. Verbatim texts of 14 phenomenological discussions concerning clothing, accessories, make‐up and fashion are interpreted using the concepts of bricolage (Lévi‐Strauss), tactics (Certeau) and narrative identity (Ricœur). The findings resonate with Thompson and Haytko’s portrayal of a dialogical relationship between consumers and a system of countervailing fashion meanings and with Murray’s exposition of a dialectical and discursive tension between sign‐experimentation and sign‐domination. But beyond this we elucidate the process by which teenagers also acquire, from personal social milieu, skills and tactics through which they toy with preconstrained sartorial symbolism to construct the plot line of their own lives which, in turn, reflects their past, defines their present self and presages their future.

Journal

Consumption Markets and Culture – Taylor & Francis

Published: Mar 1, 2011

Keywords: teenagers; fashion; narrative identity; bricolage; tactics

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