Manière de faire et manière d’être: À la mode de (SN) vs à la mode

This article aims to describe the differences between à la mode de (SN) ‘in the fashion of’ and à la mode ‘fashionable’. These two constructions are characterised by the fact that in the first one, the noun mode must be modified by a prepositional phrase, an adjective or a relative clause, whereas in the second one, modification is impossible. In contemporary French, these constructions appear in different syntactic contexts : à la mode de (SN) works both as an adjectival or a verbal modifier, whereas à la mode behaves as an adjectival modifier only. Though à la mode first appears as an ellipsis of à la mode de (SN), the noun mode has different meanings in these two constructions : it must be understood with its ancient meaning of ‘manner’ in the first case, but with a more recent meaning of ‘fashion’ in the second one.