The linguistics associated with style and fashion are typically ones embedded with signs and symbols that represented a set of values. One only needs think of the Mao jacket or the Cheongsam to see how Chinese fashion is not only associated with the nation but also the values of its culture. The Cheongsam was meant to act as a sign of the shapeliness of the female form but also to conceal any parts of the body whose exposure would be viewed as immodest. Modesty and other values are, therefore, what drive different ôfashionsö and ôstylesö in clothing as surely as Leach (p. 181) reveals that Eco maintains they do in architecture and public structures, ôThe pavilions serve less as functional buildings than as symbols of the values of their national culture.ö
Eco contends that architecture is not meant to be communicative, merely functional, but that it takes on a communicative function due to the values of those designing it. From the Eiffel Tower to FoucaultÆs imagined panopticon, Eco maintains that architecture has both a ôsymbolicö and a ôfunctionalö purpose, (Leach, p. 181). Likewise, a number of the essays in Rethinking Architecture maintain that architecture is most often used to control the masses. This is surely the case with contemporary organizations and their surveillance measures and partitioned cubicles. In a similar manner, Chinese fashions were often defined and limited by government leaders in order to maintain a national identity and its core values in the face of encroaching western influence and, therefore, western values on Chinese fashion. The dull, drab peasantÆs outfit or the uniform that was used by laborers was meant to demonstrate the values of communism and state-owned enterprise.
We see in particular fashions or styles that various trends develop. However, these trends are quite often a fatade that only barely conceals the underlying values and meaning of the signs repre
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