The borrowing of emotive connotation; a marriage of convenience between fashion and music.

“Both the fashion and music industries...are image-making industries" (Kawamura 2005)
This paper explores the fluid relationship of fashion and music. Exploring the legitimisation of the cultural narrative of moment through the mutual engagement of the different visual and aural expressions. Kawamura (2005) argues that “culture is not simply a product that is created, disseminated and consumed, but it is a product that is processed by organisational and macroinstitutional factors.”
The obsession of image construction of both industries creates the arranged marriage of convenience but all too often neglects the art form in favour of the proven formula. Innovation remains on the fringes of both industries neither considering each other until the commercialisation of each insists on the marriage of convenience.
Each with the aim that the other will add legimation to their own art form expression. Music gives meaning to fashion as fashion gives meaning to music. It is the dissemination channels that draw the two together each seeking to borrow an icon of the other to trigger the absorption of meaning.
How does this marriage of convenience become consumed as meaningful? Does the collaborative efforts trigger a continuing narrative within our minds each a trigger to connect with the other creating a powerful image within ourselves of which we continue to dance with? The performative self interlocks the emotive expressions with both phonological coding and visual coding each triggering the other to fire in our reminiscence, each firing further reinforces the mutual dependency embedded in our memories. Baudrillard (1996) defines “the brand’s primary function is to designate a product: its secondary function is to mobilize emotional connotations” thus the marriage of convenience of fashion and music is to borrow emotive connotation from the other. The discussion draws together research from the two disciplines to explore their interdependency in the cultural legitimation process.
Keywords: Fashion, Fashion and music, Fashion narrative, emotive connotation
Baudrillard, Jean (1996) The system of objects, Verso
Kawamura, Yuniya (2005) Fashion-ology: An introduction to fashion studies, Bloomsbury