Fashioning a Rhetoric of Style: A Rhetorical Analysis of Urban Street Style Representations in New York City

摘要

This thesis examines how urban street styles are used rhetorically within local boroughs in New York City as a form of resistance to the dominant fashion industry that dictates what is u22in fashionu22 through media. A total of fifteen video blogs developed by The New York Times were analyzed, each containing a representation of one of the five boroughs of New York City: Staten Island, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Bronx, and Queens. The analysis identified themes of a rhetoric of style, consisting of primacy of text, imaginary communities, aesthetic rationales, market contexts, and stylistic homologies. These themes were then analyzed by drawing upon neo-Marxist and semiotic theoretical concepts. Findings from the analysis suggest that individuals engage in street styles as a form of anti-fashion to convey cultural ideologies, which can possibly be used to create societal change.