The spatial fashion language: to dress in white and vestire di bianco in comparison

The spatial constructions are very important for the classification and identification of pieces of clothing and the correlate lexicon items. In this semantic field, the TEMA always is the human body, but the single elements and the spatial markers are different in the diverse languages. In this article we compare the specific expression of the Italian Fashion language vestire di bianco with that English to dress in white. As in other examples of other sectors (for example that of cooking: tarte au citron, Catricalà 2015), we show here that the prepositional change is linked to a different semantic role given to the clothing pieces and to a diverse conceptual representation of the same event. The comparison is useful for explaining some cultural aspects of the two traditions and, in the same time, for showing that, between the First Language Hypothesis and the First space Hypothesis of Landau (2010), the fashion language confirms her Hybrid Hypothesis.