The semiotic heritage of grunge and the distressed sneakers trend

Abstract

This article offers a cultural biography of the distressed sneaker as a fashion item: the complex of stories, stereotypes and assessments that accumulates in our collective memory, and helps us determine our attitudes. It was found that the cultural associations that distressed aesthetics trigger are neither universal nor always immediately apparent. Two main narratives are built around reading such intentionally applied imperfections on sneakers as defect (the negative narrative) or as asset (the positive narrative). This article also calls attention to the process of negotiation of the meanings inside and outside fashion industry and conceptualizes the fashion aestheticization as an ongoing process of negotiation and tension between contradictory interpretations attributed to particular items or their distinctive features. In today’s media landscape, Barthes’ idea of the key role of written fashion needs to be reconceptualized from ‘a machine that makes Fashion’ into an arena where meanings of fashion are (re)negotiated.