Fashioning Meaning

Fashioning Meaning: The Graphic t-shirts of Butan Wear and Magents Lifestyle Apparel as Alternative forms of Socio-Cultural Communication about South African Collective Identities Nonduduzo Simphiwe Siphosethu Ngcobo (214567601) Supervisor: Dr Lauren Dyll A dissertation submitted to the Centre for Communication, Media and Society, University of KwaZulu-Natal In fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Social Science 21 December 2016 i College of Humanities Declaration - Plagiarism I, Nonduduzo Simphiwe Siphosethu Ngcobo declare that: 1. The research reported in this dissertation, except where otherwise indicated, is my original research. 2. This dissertation has not been submitted for any degree or examination at any other university. 3. This dissertation does not contain other persons’ data, pictures, graphs or other information, unless specifically acknowledged as being sourced from other persons. 4. This dissertation does not contain other persons' writing, unless specifically acknowledged as being sourced from other researchers. Where other written sources have been quoted, then: a. Their words have been re-written but the general information attributed to them has been referenced b. Where their exact words have been used, then their writing has been placed inside quotation marks, and referenced. 5. This dissertation does not contain text, graphics or tables copied and pasted from the Internet, unless specifically acknowledged, and the source being detailed in the dissertation and Bibliography. Signature: Date: Place: Supervisor: Date: Signature: Place: ii Dedication Parts of this dissertation were written while at St Joseph’s Psychiatric Hospital. I wrote these particular words of this dedication at a time where death seemed easier than life. The completion of this dissertation means that my life continues, no matter how hard that may to be. It only fitting that I dedicate my efforts to others like me. This is for the ones whose smiles hide a thousand silenced tears, the ones whose heart wrenching cries feel unheard, and the ones who wear long sleeves in the heat to hide the scars of their mental pain, soothed by sharp blades. To the many that sought escape from an anguish filled life by silencing their beating hearts and the ones who feel ‘happiness’ by popping a prescribed pill a day: This is for you. To the mother and father who lost their first-born son too soon, I could not choose life, I did not choose death; I chose to finish my work for you. Your strength saw me through. iii Acknowledgements Props to Jesus but I would like to thank Yeezus for this thesis, as it was the Yeezy Season line of clothing that sparked my interest in studying fashion as a form of communication. Julian, Sandile, Didi and Thei-Thei you guys are legends… Thanks for my all access pass into your creative worlds. Without you guys there would be no thesis. It was Dr Leora Farber’s work that planted the seed of the academic study of graphic t-shirts, for that I am grateful. A great deal of gratitude is owed to Dr Deidre Pretorius whose advice on how to study the fashion design process enabled me to make the links between fashion and communication. Wrapping my head around semiotics is due to Prof Keyan Tomaselli, who I cannot thank enough for the multitudes of readings he sent my way. I appreciate the manner in which Dr Sarah Gibson swooped in and saved the day with her Circuit of Culture knowhow. And of course, thanks to Caitlin Martin’s fairy dust. Big-ups to Phiwe, Yonela, Collen, Basil and Mpume for their sage advice. I’m forever grateful for Kena’s words of wisdom and support through this whole journey. And a thank you Rosemary for inspiring with her words when my brain stopped thinking. Simone, Prof Ruth and Dr Lauren… Thank You. A special thank you to Prof Ruth, who taught me a valuable lesson about the difference between a vapidly perfect and perfectly-imperfect submission. I cannot begin to express my appreciation for Simone and her ability to keep me sane throughout this whole process. Dr Lauren, I am so grateful that I found a supervisor who likes Hunter S Thompson as much as I do. I appreciate all your guidance and your responses to my midnight email rants about Barthes. Thank you for backing me up when I decided Vikings could inspire my research approach and understanding my pet peeves of consecutive parentheses in a sentence. Most importantly, thank you for going above-and-beyond, for your yellow highlights, smiley faces in the margins, words of encouragements, and beyond epic supervision skills. Since this is not an Oscars acceptance speech I can’t thank the academy. But I would like to thank the National Research Foundation, without whom paying my data bill for the numerous online sources cited wouldn’t be possible. On a serious note… The financial support from the NRF made all of this possible. iv Abstract This dissertation explores the socio-cultural communication properties of the Butan Wear and Magents Lifestyle Apparel graphic t-shirts. As a study located in the field of communication and informed by Cultural Studies, this research argues that the study of the creation of clothing reveals meaning about the collective identities who use certain clothing styles to express their identities. This research defines fashion as the creation of clothing styles that are reflective of the cultural narratives of certain collective identities (Barnard, 1996; Kawamura, 2005; Jackson, 2006; Mitchell et al., 2012). It contextualises fashion design as communicative tool used by designers to convey knowledge about the lived reality of their target market (Crane, 1999; Gick and Gick, 2007; Kazmierczak, 2013). Qualitative in nature, Fashioning Meaning, as the title suggest, is concerned with the meaning making process and is framed by inductive reasoning, which focuses on the process of the creation of meaning (du Plooy, 2007). It employs a qualitative content analysis that utilises semiotics as an interpretive tool for the analysis of the Butan Wear and Magents Lifestyle Apparel t-shirts (Chandler, 1994; du Plooy, 2007; Fourie, 2009). Semiotics as an interpretive tool is utilised to uncover the latent meanings of the four graphic t-shirts under analysis (Fiske, 1990; Chandler, 2007). Semiotic theory further serves as a theoretical framework alongside the Encoding/Decoding model (Hall, 2006; [1980]) and the Circuit of Culture model (du Gay et al., 1997). Using the Circuit of Culture interrelated moments of production, consumption, representation and identity (du Gay et al., 1997); this research interprets the aesthetics of Butan Wear and Magents Lifestyle Apparel graphic t-shirts as a form of text. The Encoding/Decoding model serves as a further interpretive and theoretical framework for the analysis of the encoding processes utilised by the above-mentioned fashion brands under analysis (2006; [1980]). Keywords: Graphic T-shirts, Semiotic Theory, Circuit of Culture, Encoding/Decoding, Communication, Butan Wear, Magents Lifestyle Apparel v List of Figures Figure 1.1: Durban Students Protest ........................................................................................... 1 Figure 1.2: Students are Marching to the Union Building in Protest of University Fees ........... 2 Figure 1.3: South Africa Relief Map ........................................................................................ 11 Figure 2.1: Milkcrate Athletics T-Shirt .................................................................................... 25 Figure 2.2: Neon Ama-Kip-Kip T-shirt .................................................................................... 28 Figure 2.3: Vintage 80's Lumberjack Shirt - Red and Black Flannel ....................................... 35 Figure 2.4: A model wearing a black woollen Utility Atrima dress in 1943 (D 14826) .......... 36 Figure 2.5: BlackLivesMatter Tee ............................................................................................ 37 Figure 3.1: Black Labour White Guilt T-Shirt ......................................................................... 52 Figure 3.2: Original Cultural Circuit Model ............................................................................. 53 Figure: 3.3: Circuit of Culture Model ....................................................................................... 54 Figure 3.4: Circuit of Speech .................................................................................................... 56 Figure 3.5: Encoding/Decoding Model of Communication ..................................................... 57 Figure 4.1: ‘Bossy’ Tank Top .................................................................................................. 82 Figure: 4.2 ‘Obey’ Tank Top .................................................................................................... 84 Figure 4.3: Obey Billboard, Film Still from the They Live (1988) ........................................... 85 Figure 5.1: Butan Wear Brand Name ..................................................................................... 111 Figure 5.2: Butan Wear Undefeated Logo.............................................................................. 112 Figure 5.3: Real Recognise Real Tank Top ............................................................................ 115 Figure 5.4: Africa is the Future T-shirt................................................................................... 117 Figure 5.5: Back to the Future Two Promotional artwork ....................................................

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