CLOTHING AND FASHION IN CONTEMPORARY CRIME FICTION BY ROBERT GALBRAITH

Abstract

The plots of Robert Galbraith’s Strike novels are built around the problem of crime; at the same time, the author covers a wide range of social topics that reflect today’s urban culture. The descriptions of fashion tendencies, high-style apparel and clothes worn on the street, personalized styles and mundane clothing communicate the idea of social, ethnic, cultural, subcultural diversity of contemporary London. Three general constituents of fashion phenomenon are spotlighted in Galbraith’s novels: design and advertising/promotion, trade, clothes and their wearers. Their presentations are studied through Text World Theory analysis: world-builders (characters/enactors and objects), relational processes, and function-advancing propositions; linguistic cues that guide the interpretation of particular text-worlds are indicated too. At the opposite points of the spectrum of fashion phenomenon – text-worlds of designing and text-worlds of wearing clothes – the role of characters/enactors is more pronounced than that of objects: clothes are means of self-expression and self-presentation. Alternatively, clothing sometimes is a telltale sign; also, on the reception side, the effect may be opposite to the one intended. In text-worlds of advertising/ promotion, the role of objects is more important than the role of enactors. In text-worlds of fashion trade, objects are often presented from the enactors’ perspectives, which suggests equal importance of both world-builders. In the context of Galbraith’s novels, clothes “interact” with people who create and wear them, highlighting their identities, social status, views, tastes or revealing their true nature.