Abstract Focusing on Edith Wharton’s New York trilogy of (1862–1937), the author interprets the function of fashionable dress as a means of constructing social identity. The paper looks at how the concept of “passing” develops through the language of dress and the poetics of behavior. The semiotics of dress reflects the wearer’s strategies of performative “passing”: efforts to become accepted in a certain social group, in this case, New York high society of the Gilded Age. The paper analyses two key conceptual discourses used in the works of Edith Wharton: Veblenian theory of the leisure class and the Darwinian idea of natural selection.

中文翻译：

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“在我们放弃之前，我们都被期待漂亮和穿着得体”：伊迪丝·沃顿小说中的时尚与“过客”

摘要 作者以伊迪丝·沃顿 (Edith Wharton) 的纽约三部曲 (1862-1937) 为中心，将时装的功能解释为一种建构社会身份的手段。该论文着眼于“传递”的概念如何通过着装语言和行为诗学发展。服装的符号学反映了穿着者的表演性“传递”策略：努力被某个社会群体所接受，在这种情况下，是镀金时代的纽约上流社会。本文分析了伊迪丝·沃顿 (Edith Wharton) 作品中使用的两个关键概念话语：有闲阶级的凡勃伦理论和达尔文的自然选择思想。