Jacques Derrida : fashion under erasure

Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) is probably most renowned for confirming the popular notion that philosophical thought is slippery, difficult to pin down. Derrida is known for having a difficult style that destabilizes and unravels language and arguments to show that the meaning of a word, or a voice in a literary or philosophical text, is undecidable. John McCumber accounts for Derrida's reputation as a difficult philosopher who performs 'guerrilla raids on the French language': 'The best way to read him, as with any highly original writer, is first just to relax and let it wash over you' (McCumber, 2011: 333). I would add that one wash is often not adequate and one needs to rinse and repeat, that is, read Derrida again, to develop an awareness of the questions he poses and how they might be useful to the fashion student. As with many continental philosophers his writing is complex, original in style, and has been translated for English readers from a Romance language, French.