Published 30-06-2026
Keywords
- original,
- fashion's paradox,
- myth,
- shanzhai,
- counterfeit
How to Cite
Copyright (c) 2026 Maria Spadoni Battistoni
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Abstract
This mythology analyzes two images of garments: a T-shirt repeatedly printed with the word ‘ORIGINAL’ and a jacket bearing its misspelled variant ‘ORIGIANL’. Through close reading, it approaches garments as sites in which the term ‘original’ is tested and deformed. From this starting point, the text conceptualizes ‘original’ as a fashion myth: not an empirical quality, but a discursive mechanism that organizes value, novelty, and authorship within a paradoxical system structurally dependent on repetition. Drawing on Barthesian myth critique, the text traces how originality is produced through linguistic declaration and collective recognition rather than through actual material difference or origin. The mythology argues that counterfeit and Shanzhai practices do not negate originality; instead, they render its mythic structure visible, transforming imitation into a form of vernacular critique. In doing so, the text contributes to debates on fashion’s discursive mechanisms, showing how the mythology of originality persists not despite repetition, but because of it.
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