Transgression in fashion. From violation to norm.

Why do we pay attention to labels when choosing clothes? What meanings are behind them, and what lies at the core of our need to follow fashion? Tracing the centuries-old history of the development of livery, from which the label emerged, Maria Guryanova suggests looking at Western European fashion as a series of canon violations. By exploring the phenomenon of transgression in the realm of costume, the author aims to show how individual innovations become the new norm and how the legislators of fashion change in different historical periods: from the lord and monarch to the couturier and designer. Maria Guryanova is a candidate of cultural studies at the Higher School of Economics, a fashion researcher.