Yellow Vests

Abstract

The French social movement known as the Yellow Vests has produced intense visuals around the “accessory” from which it takes its name. Since November 17, 2018, the yellow safety vest has become both a visual sign of collective identification and a medium for textual and iconographic expression. In the article, we address the various forms of representation in which it has been both the vehicle and the object as an emblem of the movement. We examine these representations as carriers of written and visual inscriptions that were not only documented extensively but also helped to shape the image of the movement. Finally, we analyze the yellow high-visibility vest as a motif that proliferated in public spheres, both urban and peripheral, and in the digital realm. Through all these regimes of representation, the Yellow Vests have implemented a series of reactions to the liberal policies that oppress them and have reacted to the discourses fabricated against them by the media, and they have reactivated and challenged the image of the crowd. In this way, the Yellow Vests movement appears as a context for emancipation through their self-representation and self-mediation.