# Project Description

Capitals, leopard print and representation

Amelia Provic

Summary

Final work

Amelia is the person to go to for style. Born and raised in London as working class and with Balkan parents she knows a thing or two about style and will not shut up about it. Her favourite brand being Mason Margiela where she hopes to work in the future as a stylist, or archivist or anything in the brand.  Amelia has a styling background working for Wonderland Magazine, and assisting independent stylists. Amelia wanted to add to her fashion knowledge by completing her masters in fashion cultures and histories. Amelia continues to take inspiration for style and fashion from the art she sees working at the Tate.

Amelia is the person to go to for style. Born and raised in London as working class and with Balk...

College London College of Fashion

Course MA Fashion Cultures and Histories

Graduation year 2025

My work focuses on capitals from Bourdieu's distinction, and how when these capitals are reflected either having high or low capitals on tv by a woman wearing a leopard print coat. The leopard print coat becomes a symbol of either good taste or bad taste.

Final work

Theoretical Framework

The concepts of social, cultural, and economic capital, and their impact on the communication conveyed through the portrayal of female characters wearing a leopard print coat in television drama. The theorists used in the framework of this dissertation are Pierre Bourdieu, Stuart Hall, Roland Barthes, Liza Betts, Kate Appleford, Beverly Skeggs, and Owen Willson.

Pierre Bourdieu

As the aim of my dissertation is to explore the connotations that social, cultural, and economic capital have on how women who wear a similar piece of clothing with the same print, and what that means to them, and how a leopard print coat may equate to either good taste or bad taste depending on these capitals. I need to firstly define taste and the capitals according to Bourdieu (1984).

Taste is not something that is inherent to an individual; it is learnt culturally through socialisation and therefore can change based on class; taste is essentially class structures playing out in the world (Bourdieu, 1984). For example, it could be seen that with in the art world, an oil painting would be classified as a higher class. This can be seen as it has related to sophistication on an art gallery website (Themarshallgallery.com, 2024). Rather than that graffiti, as seen in a BBC article connecting graffiti to rebellion (Thomas, 2019). When it comes to capital, there are four different types: ‘economic, cultural, social, and symbolic’ (Power, 1999). Economic capital is wealth that an individual has, cultural capital is both what we own, such as books or art works, and educational qualifications, social capital are the networks an individual has, and symbolic capital is what resources an individual has access too based on their honour (Bourdieu, 1984).

These capitals will inform my aim of how the capitals can change the perception of someone wearing a leopard print coat, and how the coat exists as either a way for people to distinguish one another or a way for people to find similarities. For example, Kat Slater from EastEnders is a pub owner, so she may have higher economic capital than the rest of the characters; however, she seems to have low cultural and social capital. I would argue that in the real world, she would be considered a chav. The reason I argue that Kat Slater has low cultural and social capital is because as mentioned above, cultural capital is according to Bourdieu the understanding of the arts such as music and paintings and the ability to talk about the arts, this is because the more a person is able to decode and discuss artworks, shows how cultured one is (Bourdieu, 1984).In EastEnders which as a soap opera is a celebration of the everyday and for the characters of EastEnders their everyday does not seem to contain much art so it could be speculated that they do not understand the arts nor know how to talk about them, the reason Kat Slater seems to have low social capital is due to her environment as the other characters would not be beneficial for her to move up wards in terms of class or obtaining cultural capital. I believe that this is the reason why when Kat Slater wears a leopard print coat, it is perceived as trashy, as it is fashioned on a body that does not possess the capitals to make the leopard print coat be seen as sophisticated or glamour’s.

Whereas you have Samantha Jones from Sex and the City, and she, too, wears a leopard print coat. However, I would argue that the way an audience member would view Samantha Jones as someone who is glamour’s, cool, and someone to look up too, which is interesting as both Kat Slater and Samantha Jones, I would argue, have similar personality traits. They are both independent, confident, and fierce both with their own income. But to add to the reasoning using Bourdieu’s capital to inform my work, Samantha is someone to look up too and to emulate, whereas Kat Slater isn’t, is because she has higher economic capital due to her having and running her own publicity company, higher social capital, due to her job in PR means she works with and is in contact with people who have high economic and social capital, her friendship group also provides social capital, as you have a lawyer, a writer and an art dealer. And being surrounded by the arts and high-ranking jobs are signs of a high intellect (Bourdieu, 1984). Perhaps giving an insight into why Samantha, when wearing her leopard coat, isn’t seen as bad taste or chavy but rather someone to emulate. She also, I would argue, has high cultural capital due to her social capital, as she has a friend who is an art dealer, therefore allowing her to attended gallery openings, in her apartment in the show it is shown to be decorated with modern and bold art pieces. These capitals, I feel, work in conjunction to provide a narrative to us, the audience, which cements certain stereotypes, which is shown by the wearing of the leopard print coat. The reason for this is that if you have lower capitals you are said to have bad taste, which according to Bourdieu (1984) ‘taste classifies, and it classifies the classifier’. Meaning that Kat Slater having bad taste classifies her as working class, whereas Samantha Jones having good taste makes her middle class, in my dissertation, I hope to analyse how these capitals work to classify women despite them wearing a very similar coat.

However, I must address the fact that I have and will run into some criticism as Bourdieu’s capital and his theory on taste, due to it perhaps being outdated and too simplistic for modern day. Bourdieu’s theory of taste, the classifications that he used was created in the 60s France. How class was traditionally talked about and thought about changed in the 1970s, as employment structure in the West changed and made class distinction on the base of job less clear (Black et al., 2018, pg.110). My previous example of oil painting being held in higher regard than graffiti can further the point of Bourdieu’s theory to simple for contemporary times. As Banksy is renown graffiti artist, whose work has sold for millions (Argun, 2025). Shows cases that perhaps now his theory it too simplistic as there is subversion happening in taste, where you now have a renowned graffiti artist. A major factor of having good taste or bad taste according to Bourdieu, was the father’s occupation (Bourdieu, 1984). So, if the lines of class and work become more blurred, that would mean that taste would also become blurred as the classes would start to have less of a distinction in their taste. However, I am still focusing on class as it has been argued that ‘class distinction through cultural practices and taste persists (Black et al., 2018, pg.110). I would also argue that Bourdieu’s work, which I hope to do needs to be looked at through a feminist lens. As it does not allow the nuance that is women's representation in media in the present day. I think Bourdieu’s factor of father’s occupation is outdated too, as women hold very high power, social, economic, and cultural capital in job positions in today’s world.

Stuart Hall

Following on from my aim, in my dissertation, I want to analyse how media text, especially TV shows, narrate these capitals by the wearing of a leopard print coat and how this representation mirrors what is going on in the culture of the audience. I will be using Stuart Hall to help with my analysis of media. I will be using Hall firstly because of Hall’s reception theory, which sees that the media texts we consume, such as movies carriers of messages, and these messages would be decoded and encoded in these media texts (Lascity, 2021). Reception theory will help me analysis the media texts I use as my case study, following on from this encoding is the meaning that a producer has put into the media texts being consumed, and then the audience will either be making an interpretation of these meanings or they will be decoding these meanings (Evans, Nixon and Hall, 2024 pg.59). In my dissertation this may show up of the producer of EastEnders wanting to code in that Kat Slater a working-class woman, by fashioning her into a leopard print coat and the audience decoding or interpreting the coat as a symbol of working class and to bring to use Bourdieu would therefore represent bad taste.

Secondly, I will be using Hall's representation theory, which gives us these codes in the first place. As mentioned above, codes that are encoded into the media texts are consumed. Come from the culture they are situated in, and culture is, to quote Hall, ‘shared values’(Evans, Nixon and Hall, 2024). For example, it is culturally regarded that murder is wrong. These cultural values are illustrated by the ‘representational system’ In language, we use signs and symbols such as written words, objects, or sounds, to stand for or represent to other people our concepts, ideas, and feelings (Evans, Nixon and Hall, 2024). This could be hearing crying, and the representation would be that a person is sad. In my dissertation, I will be looking into both what the sign/the symbolising of a leopard print coat represents for the person wearing it and out culture. In my analysis of the media texts, I will be looking at how the coat (the object) acts as a sign or representation of being working-class or middle-class, and how tying that in with Bourdieu’s theory makes audiences view that coat as either being poor in taste or something to strive for. To simplify it, Hall is saying ‘that we first learn and understand the world and then give meanings to things or concepts we come into contact with’ (Lascity, 2021). So, we learn clothing as a concept and how clothing may interact with other concepts, such as class. We understand what the leopard print coat is, and if the class is known to the wearer, we might attach the meaning of poor taste or sophistication. Then, whenever we may see the article of clothing depending on the styling of it, we apply that to a woman wearing it in a tv show or real life; to further this, we then may attach certain personality or character traits of the person wearing it, such as being feisty or confident.

To add to both my points of using Hall in my dissertation, I must preface and say that my dissertation will have my interpretation of my case studies and how I am interpreting what I think the audience are decoding. I am aware that my interpretation will be the dominant reading, which is where most of the audience would have the same interpretation (Lascity, 2021). Agreeing that Kat Slater is working-class, or that Bet Lynch is feisty. But you have a negative reading of cast studies, where you can see the general codes the media text is using, but they are reading it differently (Lascity, 2021). Seeing that codes are there for Kat Slater being working class but viewing the leopard coat or her fashion as glamorous and not tacky. Finally, there is the oppositional reading of the media texts which reads the codes as completely opposite to other audiences (Lascity, 2021). For EastEnders, the opposite reading could be that the show is a comedy, or rather than depicting real life, it depicts moments of fantasy.

Thirdly, I will be using Stuart hall’s view on stereotypes. I will investigate how stereotypes are perpetuated in visual culture. It is only inevitable that stereotypes will appear. Stereotyping fundamentally breaks down people into ‘a few, simple, essential characteristics, which are represented as fixed by nature’ (Evans, Nixon and Hall, 2024 pg.191). This is a breakdown of recognisable features or traits that many people know and memorise. Like a character and their leopard print coat worn sadly, as it will be seen in my analysis, broken down into stereotypes, for example, chav. I will touch upon the word later in this chapter. Stereotyping is sadly used as a signifying practise, which will be seen in my dissertation how the stereotype is narrated through the leopard print coat. Stereotypes carve out what is acceptable or considered ‘right’ from what is considered ‘wrong’ or unacceptable, leaving out any sort of nuance that could arise (Evans, Nixon and Hall, 2024 pg.192). It upholds certain ‘cultural expectation’, I would argue that the stereotype of Kat Slater being low capital and having bad taste upholds Bourdieu’s theory of taste, not allowing for the nuance that perhaps audiences view her as bad taste because of her capital, and it has nothing to do with the coat. I hope to break down some of these stereotypes and show that just because someone has low capital does not mean their taste is bad, and it is just classism at play.

Roland Barthes

Following on from Stuart Hall, who uses Roland Barthes' theory of semiology and myths. I will be using an amalgamation of theories and writing from Roland Barthes. Which include

Elements of semiology, mythologies, language of fashion, and the fashion system. Barthes will form the framework that I will use to analyse how the language used when talking about fashion gains its meaning and therefore can be translated into representation theory and into Bourdieu’s capitals, how they are all interwoven.

Barthes' theory on semiology is where we have a sign, which is established by a signifier and a signified. These signs are what builds up culture in giving us our understanding of society. Barthes' theory on semiology is a building block for representation theory by Stuart Hall, as I would argue that these signs are the building block for the codes that are written in or formulated into media texts. Firstly, to break it down to its simplest form, a sign is a combination of a signifier and a signified (Barthes, 1957, pg 112). For my dissertation, the signified will be the concept of either poor taste or good taste, the signifier will be the mental image or the representation of the concept, and these two forms the sign of the leopard print coat. I hope to analyse how the combination of the signified and the signifier came to be represented by the sign of the coat.

I will be using Barthes' theory of mythologise to argue why the leopard print coat has different meanings due to different levels of capital. As his theory takes the sign which, as mentioned before, is a combination of the signified and the signifier. Which makes the sign become a signifier that forms a myth (Barthes, 1957 pg. 113). In my dissertation, this will be how the sign of the coat acquires different meanings, which are then represented in media texts. To link it to Stuart Hall, these myths become a ‘broad, ideological theme (Evans, Nixon and Hall, 2024 pg.24). I will be looking at how the coat symbolises the theme of good taste and bad taste in society, and how, in essence, because of the myths means that the coat can represent anything.

To aided in talking about fashion in terms of semiology I will be looking at the vestimentary codes, which is how fashion magazines talk about pieces of clothing and give meaning to them (Barthes, 1967 pg.41). This will aide me at looking at how media texts may show a character wearing a leopard print coat and how this narration of the coat gives meaning on the type of character being shown. This ties into semiology as the coat will be a signifier and how it will be a signified of either poor taste or bad taste. I will also be looking at the coat with the help of Barthes because when clothing is ‘signalled through the signified: such and such an outfit can notify concepts of psychological or sociopsychological appearance (Barthes, 2013 pg.13). I will be analysing how the coat being worn showcases different levels of capital. Finally, I must mention connotations and denotation, as that is the crux of my analysis of media texts. As mentioned above, I will look at how a person viewing media texts may detonate what the producer is trying to show in their media texts. The connotations comprise signifiers, signifieds, and the process which unites the former to the later (signification) (Barthes, 1964 pg 91). The person will, I think, be denotating the leopard print coat as either good taste or bad taste based on how the producer choose to portray the character of having high levels or low levels of capitals. Connotations also make up Stuart Hall's representation theory, as once again connotations are a fragment of ideology’ (Barthes, 1964 pg 91). I will take a look at what ideas of high or low capitals a character has, that the producer of the media text is trying to portray when wearing a leopard print coat. Finally, I need to mention why im using Barthes as I am studying written text. It is because the theory of myths can be shown through ‘photography, cinema, sport, shows, publicity (Barthes,1964, pg.108). I will be looking at the myth of the leopard print coat.

Kat Slater

Naomi Campbell

Literature review

This dissertation looks at how Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of cultural, economic and social capital, perpetuated stereotypes of female characterisation in visual culture which is communicated by wearing a leopard print coat. This review will explore literature that is currently available on taste, leopard print, stereotypes, media texts and the intersections of these themes. This review will hold the perspective that the intersection of fashion, class, stereotypes and media. Have been studied before but not with a singular focus on a particular garment or print. The review will utilise the current literature, looking at these themes which provided a foundation for my research question to look at a particular print as a way to connect all of these themes. The literature review will firstly provide a small summarised version of my theoretical framework. Secondly the review will look at the current research in the field that has helped with my foundational knowledge on the topic. Finally, it will look at the specific area of intersection that I am interested in and how it relates to the more border literature mentioned above and where I feel my work sits within the current research.

Theoretical framework

Distinction: A social critique by Pierre Bourdieu (1979) states that a person has good taste or bad taste depending on social class. These social classes work on the biases of capitals social, economic, cultural and academic. A person may work their way into achieving high economic capital, but it may not translate into cultural or social capital. This is because Bourdieu argues taste is not inherently individual but rather shaped by the socialisation available which causes people to differentiate themselves or their group from people of lower social classes, taste is used as a way of social distinction. ‘to the socially recognised hierarchy of the arts, and within each of the, genres, schools or periods, corresponds a social hierarchy of the consumers’ (Bourdieu 1979 pg, 21). The quote further showcases that aesthetic preferences and your engagement in the arts correlates to your social class, this continues as a person’s aesthetic or taste, will ‘distinguish themselves by the distinctions they make between the beautiful and the ugly, the distinguished and the vulgar in which their position in the objective classifications is expressed or betrayed’ ( Pierre Bourdieu 1979 pg, 26). Further emphases that classes will separate and distinguish themselves on the bases of their taste which as mentioned before continues to be perpetuated as taste is a product of socialisation.

What underpins taste and the distinction of the classes through taste, are the capitals. Firstly, economic capital which Bourdieu argues ‘associated with professional and management’ (Bourdieu 1979 pg, 18). Essentially one has economic capital based on their occupation. Following from this is cultural capital which is engagement of the arts, ‘whose high status is publicly symbolised by high levels of engagement with legitimate culture (opera, classical music as well as art). (Bourdieu 1979 pg, 18). Higher cultural capital equals higher engagement in the arts, I have my own criticism with this quote as the use of the word legitimate art is to me already classist as what makes classical music legitimate culture but not rock music. In my dissertation the final capital I will be looking at is social capital. social capital is all about the connections that you have, that are useful ‘they accumulate through privileged social connections’ (Bourdieu 1979 pg, 18). These capitals are the underpinning of taste, if you are lower in these then it can be assumed you have bad taste. Bourdieu’s theory will be interesting to see in my analysis of female characters wearing a leopard print coat which in today’s society can be said to represent bad taste and how these capitals play into audiences view of these women as either tacky or glamorous.

As I am looking at representation in media texts, Stuart Hall’s representation (2025) will also be a foundational text in my analysis. Hall’s representation theory will assist me in answering how a female character’s leopard print coat is representable of her capitals and how media texts perpetuates these. Hall’s theory of representation builds upon how people giving meaning to objects, people and events, and these meanings is how we represent them and that it what makes culture (Evans, Nixon and Hall, 2024 pg.3). This is the meanings we give to certain people to create stereotypes as discussed previously or that roses can be mean romance.  Following on culture according to Hall is ‘shared meanings’(Evans, Nixon and Hall, 2024 pg.1). These shared meanings of culture I would argue is what is represented in media texts, the focus of the leopard print coat the shared meaning I am arguing is that when worn by someone with low economic capital. The coat ‘shared meaning’ is it being bad taste.  Representation (2025) address the question of how is meaning produced, and in accordance meaning is produced ‘at several different sites and circulated through several different processes or practices’ and this gives us the cultural circuit (Evans, Nixon and Hall, 2024 pg.3). As you can see in the chart meaning also included identity and consumption as well as representation. In my look into the leopard print I will be studying the identity that is given to the female character that is wearing it and how that may differ her from the identity of the upper classes, how people consume and read the character in the leopard print coat and finally the representation of them on screen.

To follow on from what is representation and culture, I am using Hall’s book to aid in my reading of characters in a media text as he outlines how media texts create representation and circulate meanings. His constructionist perspective will give us an answer to this. The construction perspective involves creating meaning by building links between things such as people, objects or events, the concepts that we have created in our heads and the signs which represent or communicate these concepts (Evans, Nixon and Hall, 2024 pg.59). to know what word to use to communicate these concepts we have codes, which allow us to know ‘what word to use for what concept’ (Evans, Nixon and Hall, 2024 pg.59). We can see this in the concept of red roses in media texts equalling love and romance, the way in which media texts represent the concept in by a producer encoding the meaning of romance into a red rose and the viewer decoding the meaning of the red rose as romance. However, it also needs to be known that codes are not fixed but are changeable (Evans, Nixon and Hall, 2024 pg.59). We can see the changing of codes even in the leopard print coat, as when worn by a woman of lower capital she has bad taste but when worn with a higher capital she has good taste. These codes also do lean into stereotyping which I talked about in my previous chapter, a reason too as why I am using Stuart Hall’s Representation (2025) book as a foundational text for my dissertation. As can be seen throughout my pervious chapter and this one, Stuart Hall takes inspiration form Roland Barthes and his semiotic theory along with his theories of myths which I will be discussing below.

Roland Bathes is fundamental in my dissertation as his work gives me the background in which to analysis the language of my media texts. I will be using several of his writings. Firstly, Elements of semiology (1964) will be used to give a foundational base for my analysis of the semiology of the leopard print coat. The reason for the use of the book is it allows an understanding of his semiology theory and breaks down signs, signifiers and signified, along with connotation and denotation. For example, how there may not be a concrete object as the ’the signified is not a ‘thing’ but a mental representation of the thing (Barthes, 1964 pg 42). In my dissertation work the signified would-be good taste or bad taste and how that is represented by the leopard print coat. To allow a deeper analysis of the leopard print coat as I am looking at the different meanings it has based on capitals. Mythologise (1957) will allow me to do that as it informs me how the sign becomes the signifier. As the signs, signified and the signifier as mentioned is a first semioloigcal system, but mythologies is a second order system where the sign becomes a signifier. This second order system allows for border ideological and theme of the sign thus allowing me to view the coat as either good taste or bad taste.

As I am talking about fashion, I needed to use the fashion system (1967). As it will aide me in how fashion gains connotations and is used for representation. This is done through the vestimentary codes which the book writes about. This will add to perhaps what it is about capitals that give the leopard print coat its connotation and how media texts perpetuate that. Finally, I will use the language of fashion (2013). I used this book to give me a more simple overview of how clothing is used as a sign and studied in a sociological view.

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My work focuses on capitals from Bourdieu's distinction, and how when these capitals are reflected either having high or low capitals on tv by a woman wearing a leopard print coat. The leopard print coat becomes a symbol of either good taste or bad taste.

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