Following the process of transformation in the movie “Limitless” and analysing the aspects using fashion theory reference and texts.
I will be analysing the transformation process of the character as described by the changes in his costume. The clothing design blend, between the beginning and the end of his transformation, will be discussed with reference to fashion theory as used in similar genres and the film industry worldwide. In the movie ‘Limitless’ the protagonist undergoes the stark transformation from a homeless writer to a senator. The movie takes place in current times, where the specific qualities of fashion items (such as colour, fabric, design and etc.) is of secondary importance, compared to the fact that it is simply on the market. Signifying both body and garment – the main character is followed on his path of complete class and personality metamorphosis. Every step of the process is described through a different costume design, which corresponds to his current level in materialistic modern society in which the branded goods act as a method of distinction and classification. The final version of the character emulates for the many people who see him as an ideal that brings together beauty, self-transformational skills, wealth, business sense and success.
In the Tractatus logico-philosophicus, Wittgenstein proposes a clothing
metaphor for language: [4:5]
“Language disguises the thought, so that from the external form of the clothes one
cannot infer the form of the thought they clothe, because the external form of
the clothes is constructed with quite another object than to let the form of the
body be recognized (Wittgenstein, 1922: Proposition 4.002).”
Language, thought and dress are associated in the text. It describes clothing as a form of bodily disguise, just like language is a disguise for thought. Wittgenstein explains how language and dress are sign systems which “speak” without revealing the true inner mind of the source. It can be verbal language or a different dress style. But there is something that Wittgenstein could not take into account at the time. Nowadays people have various ways of signifying information to the spectator, that has become common everywhere and is “speaking” to us in the same way that the other forms of language would. Therefore, like any other language in this sense, clothing functions like syntax to a set of more or less constant rules. These rules allow body covering to signify meaning, weather that is an important social significance in a logo carried through history, or just following the criteria set by the fashion industry.
