Ken Wentworth

'The purchased object seems capable of transfiguring itself into a variety of pleasures; ...The object conceals its utility behind an image of its real or implied value. Roland Barthes illustrates some of the properties of the consumer object with a three-part definition of the garment. He has suggested that any fashionable item, such as a piece of clothing, exists on three separate planes at the same time. It exists as a real garment, a used garment and a represented garment.

The real garment refers to the process of manufacture and design. Every object, after all, has to be manufactured and engineered in a factory, in a workshop, by someone somewhere. The real garment then refers to the economic aspect of the object. The used garment is the object decontextualised; it is from other places and times. [a sweat shop perhaps?] The represented garment is the category of greatest interest, as it refers to the manner in which goods are presented to us where we encounter them ? say, on display in the department store, or being worn by someone... The represented garment is in magazines and on television and film; it is in our imagination. We want to own such goods because of their tantalising appeal. However, most often, after we purchase or obtain the represented garment and put it on our backs (or in the garage), we are immediately disappointed. It does not truly resemble its image. It may still deliver pleasure, but it is not the same as that which drew our attention when it was only an image. Thus aesthetic illusion can be seen to have important social and material consequences.

With this analysis, Barthes makes the point that, in practice, we never encounter the real garment, as we are always in pursuit of and fascinated by the image, the aesthetic illusion of the represented garment. Each time we buy the object of our dreams we find, almost immediately, that its allure has faded or failed, and thus we become vulnerable to fresh advertising that draws us back into the consumer role, in pursuit again of the perfect item. It is at this point that the importance of consumption becomes apparent as it directly connects the private, personal and interior sphere with that of the public and visible.'