Abstract
Military style is not limited to a single period but represents various image communications related to items, synthetic images and different periodical culture backgrounds. The purpose of this study is to define the communicational function of the military style beginning from the 1st world war up to the modern days, and furthermore explain the characteristics and contents of military styles in different periods by studying the nowadays various symbols of the military style in denotative and connotative aspects. The research method is documentary studies through the literature and academic paper, and examined masters' and doctors' thesis, domestic and overseas books and fashion magazines, photographs and materials collected from the internet. As a result, first, the military style is a significant fashion code in understanding modern fashion by serving as a strong communication function representing people’s ritual through various image items called the 'military look'. Second, the meaning of the image communication through military look changed throughout the different periods. During the 1st and 2nd World war the military look supported Fascism by serving as a media representing extreme patriotism and at the same time social images like functionalism, women liberation, regulation and saving. During the cold war period it was used by young progressives like hippies and punks to send an opposing message towards war and commercialism. Since then up to the 80s it was a medium representing the ‘new role of women’, who possess same social rights and power as the men. However in the 90s the military style had to go through a paradigm transition period. Since this period it got affected by the post modernism and designers, consumers alike adopted military style to create unique beauty It can also be said that it began to be used as a pure fashion code representing intertextuality. It was rather expressed as a metonymy than a metaphor and combined with elegance and feminine factor, which contrasts to the original military concept, it now represents totally new hybrids such as difference, dissemination and varieties.
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