Dress And Fashion Research Paper

2. Basic Images And Fashion

A group’s basic images represent what Emile Durkheim (1893 1947) called the group’s ‘collective consciousness,’ i.e., the group’s ideas, beliefs, and values. Lasting images enter into the group’s collective memory. When these images are codified, the result becomes a language for social communication. Fashions involving such images as a reshaped head, a lip plug, scissored teeth, or trousers for men and skirts for women convey such a language.

2.1 Collective Memory

Every society has a body of images and meaning that it considers essential. Many images are transmitted from one generation to the next, forming the public memory (Halbwachs 1980). These images become a part of core culture, like time and space, and affect a child’s orientation to social realities. Images relevant in a particular period give shape to societal discourse. A group searching for a visual image to embody its ideas might create a new synthesis from among the elements represented in its public memory—elements that are found in carvings in places of worship, in manuscripts, and in museums and other public places. Mussolini, for example, wanted to create ‘a new organic whole’ composed of people of all levels of society. He commissioned artistic representations that combined images from classical art of the past with those from traditional folk art. In this genre, men assumed the postures of victory portrayed in ancient Roman times and were seen as victors in agricultural setting. Through this appeal to pride in a shared past, Mussolini gained support for his political program (Malvano 1988).

2.2 Language

Clothes worn by a stranger inform the public of the person’s sex, occupation, nationality, and social standing, making it possible for the observer to adjust his or her behavior accordingly, noted Flugel (1930). Writing about Western European societies, Flugel observed that the basic clothing images underlying social interaction are those of power, authority, gender distinction, and seductiveness.

Power is identified by images indicating access to human power and superhuman force. The archetypical elements of the image of power are a sword and a crown. Power is also conveyed when a person’s appearance is augmented by elements that extend the body’s reach, a guard carrying arms, for example. Such elements increase the person’s physical ability to control the environment.

Authority is conveyed by body-concealing attire, a vertical continuity of fabric, and a generalized unity from head to toe. The styles traditionally worn by judges, priests, and nuns increase the size and volume of the person. The resulting commanding presence makes it easier for office holders to perform their roles. Conversely, clothing that is too big, too tight-fitting, or too small can dwarf the body and imbue the wearer with a sense of insignificance (Flugel 1930, p. 36).

Gender distinction, as affirmed by the church fathers, was determined by sexual characteristics at birth (Corinthians 1, Chap. 11). Men were expected to wear clothes that support activity and work. Women customarily wore clothing alluding to their reproductive role.

Seductiveness, the church fathers claimed, was achieved by such elements as color, ornament, and dress that clung to the body or exposed it. They proscribed such attire. As a result, these elements of image became established as a sexually alluring look (Prusack 1974).

According to this type of linguistic model, clothing ‘speech’ can be defined as an individual’s manipulation of the language of clothing to produce specific utterances characterized by personal intonation and style. People interpret fashion, just as they decode other forms of speech, to ascertain the meaning behind the utterance. To understand the meaning of a cultural expression, research from a variety of fields has suggested that knowing something about the author’s purpose, intention, and social situation is essential to valid interpretation (cf. literary critic E. D. Hirsch Jr. (1967), art historian Michael Baxandall (1985), and sociologist Wendy Griswold (1989)).

An example of such a cultural expression is the Codex Manesse, a manuscript in the Heidelberg Library illuminated between 1298 and 1304, that teaches morals and manners. One of the scenes involves a classroom. Sitting on a platform and higher than anyone in the room is the teacher, Magister Henricus. Imposing in size, and voluminously dressed, he lectures from a manuscript. In his left hand he holds a birch branch. The birch is an emblem of Grammatica, one of the Seven Liberal Arts. It is a symbol of learning, but it also extends the teacher’s reach and can inflict punishment. Across the room on a lower level sits the assistant teacher. He is smaller in size and wears a dark tunic not long enough to cover his ankles. His birch branch is smaller. Two students facing him are trembling, as if they had already been hit by the birch rod. The illustration demonstrates that one must listen attentively to the teacher, or the consequence will be punishment and humiliation.

3. Semiotics Of Dress

Clothes that indicate expected behavior are called clothing signs. Elements of dress and styles of appearance that reflect the achievement of cultural values are clothing symbols. Clothing tie-signs are clothes that signify membership in a group and are different from those proffered by mainstream culture. Clothing tie-symbols, on the other hand, represent a preference for a political agenda, a public persona, or a particular social group. It may also reflect an individual’s fears, hopes, or dreams. Clothing tie-signs and clothing tiesymbols are forms of publicspeak, the individual’s response to existing social arrangements.

3.1 Signs And Tie-Signs

Patterns of dress and styles of appearance designated by mainstream culture as identifiers of group membership are clothing signs. Such signs are styles of dress and patterns of appearance required for social participation. They are mandated by a formal code, are instrumental to achieving a goal, and have one meaning. A typical case of sign analysis is dress indicating power, authority, gender, and seductiveness; Flugel’s previously identified as clothing signs. Clothing signs are mandated by a formal code, and are instrumental to achieving a goal.

3.2 Symbols And Tie-Symbols

Veblen (1899, pp. 118–30) coined the term ‘status symbol’ to identify images that reflect the achievement of cultural values. Unlike clothing signs, which identify positions within social institutions and are governed by rules of conduct, the wearing of clothing symbols entails personal choice (Goffman 1951).

Every society establishes its own set of values or goals that members of the society should attempt to achieve. The values lead to the norms that guide behavior. In the Amazon, the desire of the indigenous Yanomamo for equality leads to norms that forbid the amassing of surpluses and show strong attachment to tradition. For adornment they use sticks, feathers, and paint, which are readily available in their environment.

Social change in Western history encouraged new cultural values. Each of the values was accompanied by the appropriate visual image. Until the fourteenth century spirituality was the core value of Christian Europe. Unlike the Romans, who had conceived of the body as a neutral thing placed between nature and society, Christian leaders saw the body as a clearly visible locus of spiritual order. Early Christian writers insisted that what separates Christians from non-Christians is spirituality. Sexual desire and the longing for sensual garments therefore had to be curtailed. Approved clothes were garments that were mono-chromatic and body concealing.

Wealth as a cultural value emerged in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Acquisition of wealth was symbolized by sumptuous fabrics, gold, and costly jewelry. The term ‘elegant’ referred to the ideal of harmony. It entailed creating a costume in which fabrics, colors, and/ornaments were coordinated to create a complementary whole.

Fashion is a category of dress that indicates the openness of the society to social change. Fashion in Western society emerged in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries with the growth of international trade and the resultant spread of affluence to the mercantile class. Fashionableness became the most desired feature of a person’s appearance (Bell 1976). It reflected awareness of the novel.

Beauty as a cultural ideal emerged in nineteenth century England in response to industrialization and urbanization, as strangers were brought together to live and work close to one another. The resulting tension led to a new search for beauty which the ancient Greeks defined as symmetry, harmony, and perfection of the physical form. These qualities were considered to have a calming effect. Beauty as a cultural value was manifested as a preference for better looking servants and employees, for example, and in beautification of gardens and parks (Marwick 1988).

Youth as a cultural value emerged at the end of the nineteenth century as manufacturers chose a younger, more energetic labor force, and desired a population of consumers. The young, having fewer financial burdens, were freer to buy the products of industry. Health as a cultural value was informed by increased awareness that illness could be prevented through cleanliness, vaccination, and consumption of healthful food. At the end of the nineteenth century, charts listing appropriate weights for given heights were hung on the bathroom doors of hotels in London.

Since the United States is ethnically and racially diverse—a nation of immigrants and thus strangers—the values of beauty, youth, and health are particularly poignant. They form the fashionable ideal, and provide criteria for social acceptance and self-evaluation. By the end of the twentieth century the desirability of the fashionable ideal was being promoted in the media, drugstore shelves, and establishments offering cosmetics, vitamins, exercise, diet plans, and plastic surgery.

A different category of clothing symbols entails styles of dress and elements of appearance that cover up what Goffman (1963, p. 45) termed ‘stigma symbols,’ i.e., an appearance that deviates from cultural values and results in feelings of vulnerability, inadequacy, and fear. Such styles are long and wide to conceal deformities such as crooked spindly legs or a hunchback.

Tie-symbols are clothing that reflect alternative values and suggest a desired association. People often wear tie-symbols to inform themselves and others of their support of groups, political ideas, or social agendas. Examples are T-shirts with messages such as ‘Save the Earth’ and Spike Lee’s black baseball cap with the mark ‘X’ reflecting his admiration for Malcolm X. Because clothing tie-symbols express grass-roots sentiments, the wearing of tie-symbols may be the first step in the development of a social movement.

In the 1990s there were about 70 million young adults, teenagers, and school-age children in the United States. The styles they preferred were identified as ‘trendy’ and included hippie, ‘cutting edge,’ ‘freaky,’ and hip-hop. The most popular of these styles was hip-hop. Originating among urban black ghetto youth, the hip-hop style related to a type of music and lyrics; baseball cap turned backwards, pants several sizes too big and other baggy, oversized clothing emblazoned with logos; and to a swaggering manner, all violating the norm of self-restraint. The style was intended to counteract the longstanding perception that blacks and other minorities in America should be invisible. As one rap lyric went, you ‘don’t see us but we see you.’

Hip-hop music is used in backing rap, a form of rhythmic speaking in rhyme that is repeated again and again. Rap songs deliver a message that is streetwise and reality-oriented. As a listener noted, ‘You listen and you say, yeah that’s right’ (Farley 1999, p. 56).

The lyrics encourage listening and evaluating how one feels or what one thinks. The music is composed of a collage of excerpts or samples of familiar songs. The rap of the early 1990s was called Gangsta rap because it emphasized crime as a means of acquiring wealth. Gangsta rap, however, also emphasized the drawbacks of such behavior: paranoia, betrayal, revenge, and bloodshed (Reynolds 1999). The required dress was the baggy style that could hide knives, guns, and other implements of attack and self-protection. It was initially worn or advertised by rap musicians, and their youthful audience regarded the attire as empowering (Staples 1996).

By 1999 the rap in hip-hop songs had changed to the ‘player style,’ celebrating the economic success of the performer, and reveling in the consumption of luxury goods (Reynolds). Hip-hop music and style had become popular in black city ghettos, in affluent white cities like New Canaan, Connecticut, as well as in the dirt-poor Indian reservations of Arizona (Farley 1999, p. 13), and went on to acquire international recognition.

4. Fashion

On the European continent up to the twentieth century, the wearing of fashionable attire by the middle and lower classes was regarded as an attempt to violate social order by concealing one’s social origins. In nineteenth century England, Thomas Carlyle criticized the wearing of fashionable attire by those not entitled to it, as signifying the pursuit of frivolity rather than the pursuit of spirituality.

Fashion in eighteenth century America was seen by American social critics as representing European decadence, violating Protestant norms of simplicity and hard work. Social crusaders in the nineteenth century, Veblen in particular, argued that the function of fashion is to demonstrate access to wealth. Made of sumptuous fabrics, to order, in a style that made it impossible to engage in productive labor, fashionable attire represented ‘conspicuous consumption’ and encouraged social inequality and waste.

The American mass production of fashion was found wanting by European social critics. Techniques of mass production ‘shatter’ the renewal of the human spirit, argued W. Benjamin (1973). Breward (1995) argued that fashion tends to obscure nationality, social status, and gender identity. Coleridge (1988) protested that fashion makes ‘bad clothes’ look good and in doing so, the fashion industry and fashion magazines assault the notion of beauty.

4.1 American Fashion

Fashion in the United States is governed by advances in technology, making possible mass production of clothing at prices affordable to middle class and working class consumers. The main source of style was Parisian fashion. Paris designers used to set the standards, and American manufacturers adapted couture originals for the mass market. This mode of production led to the full-skirted ‘New Look’ after World War II, the ‘sack’ in the 1950s, and the space age sleek look of the 1960s notes Agins (1999, p. 9).

Youth revolution of the 1960s led to a decline of Parisian influence as a source of American fashion ideas. In the 1970s name brands became important (Agins 1999, p. 179). Also American designers introduced new themes in to American women’s fashion such as masculine tailoring and ‘sweats,’ fashions based on dance and exercise clothing. Through advertising, editorials, and fashion shows designers communicated directly with the consumer, and designer labels became household names. Styles most emotionally relevant to consumers were copied, and designated the fashion.

Department stores organized their sales floors into brand name boutiques, geared largely to career women of the baby boom generation who needed clothes to wear to work. As brands began to dominate, store buyers were less inclined to try new and unfamiliar labels. Dozens of specialty chains appeared with their own private labels. In the early 1980s the industry, through market research, also geared itself to respond to a new demand. The profitable way of doing business, they insisted, was to find out what the consumer wanted, and make and market it. ‘The consumer-is-king’ approach became the practice in the United States.

In the fall of 1987, American designers tried, with little success, to take back the authority for the production of fashion. Growth in women’s fashions came to a halt (Agins 1999, p. 182). European fashions also failed to find a profitable market in the United States. Styles introduced by couture designers like the ‘waif’ look, the unkempt grunge look, and the ‘fishtail’ dress with asymmetrical hemlines were commercial flops.

In the early 1990s, marketing analysts coined the term ‘commoditization of fashion.’ It described a new era in the move to low-cost factories and offshore production. The trend, which began many years ago with production of cheap lines of clothing, expanded on a vast scale in the 1990s. This time the aim was to manufacture clothes in ‘classic’ (nontrendy) ‘simple chic’ and minimalist styles that were good-looking and moderately priced. The large-scale production of attractive, reasonably priced clothes emerged as megabrands.

Traditionally, apparel manufacturers had produced several lines and retailers could reorder styles that were successful. In the trend toward greater economy, megabrand manufacturers produced an initial output that included several styles to be retailed at moderate prices. These, however, could not be reordered. To insure that their output would sell, design houses hired stylists to help create new lines that would respond to emerging consumer preferences. The stylists scouted the streets and clubs to identify new trends. Their influence on new styles emphasized comfort and fun, and some stylists developed into designers. In 1999 about 100 designers—more than ever before— participated in the fashion show ‘7th-On-Sixth,’ organized by the Council of Fashion Designers of America.

4.2 European Fashion

In Europe, the quality of fabric and the integrity of design are paramount. The fashion elite decides on the desirable styles and these styles are found in most stores. The demand for clothing is met by machine-made clothes on a smaller scale than in the United States, and by custom tailoring and dressmaking.

A powerful trade group, Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne, sets the standards for couture fashion. It holds the right to designate who can be called a couturier, the highest ‘occupational’ category in the production of fashion for the elite. In the year 2000 only 14 design houses held the title of couturier, which accords social rewards. Although each design house has its own unique style, each is able to draw the audience in, envelop it, and infuse the air with a sense of awe. The trade group is thus the guardian of the expectation that fashion will be an aesthetic experience.

In the 1980s, male and female and European and non-European designers demanded a voice in the production of fashion. Joining together to present their own designs, they formed an international fashion circuit and presented their ideas at fashion shows in Paris, Milan, London, and New York. By the early 1990s there were over 1,500 major showings on the fashion calendar in Paris. The styles they created departed from the traditional criteria of beauty and expressed their own personal experience within a particular cultural milieu. The fashion shows became media events where designers and their sponsors seemed to outdo each other with ‘seminude costumes, strange hair and makeup, and gimmicky staging’ (Agins 1999, p. 37). TV cameras joined in capturing runway footage for news programs.

Their seemingly ‘wild and crazy’ fashions conveyed several themes. The grunge and the ‘heroine chic’ styles reflected the malaise that characterized the period. The seminude costumes and strange hair told of the need to restructure gender and sexual arrangements; the gimmicky staging reflected the split between work and play that governs everyday life. The fashions presented on the international circuit addressed the problems experienced in contemporary society.

The history of the Western world had been marked by centralized control over clothing and appearance. In the twentieth century these strictures loosened significantly. As a result, fashion evolved to give people of all social classes more opportunities for expression of personal preference in clothing and fashion than ever before.

Bibliography:

1. Agins T 1999 The End of Fashion: Mass Marketing of the Clothing Business. William Morrow, New York
2. Bell Q 1976 On Human Finery. Schoken Books, New York
3. Blumer H 1969 Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method. Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ
4. Carlyle T 1838 Sartor Resartus. Everyman’s Library, London
5. Farley C J 1999 Hip-hop nation. Time Feb. 8
6. Flugel J C 1966/1930 Psychology of Clothes. Hogarth Press, London
7. Goffman E 1951 Symbols of class status. British Journal of Sociology A 4: 294–303
8. Goffman E 1963 Stigma: Notes of the Management of Spoiled Identity. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ
9. Halbwachs M 1980 The Collective Memory [trans. Ditter F J, Ditter V Y]. Harper Collins, New York
10. Jacobsen T 1946 The Intellectual Ad enture of Ancient Man. University of Chicago Press, Chicago
11. King S R 1999 Where does generation Y go to shop? 70 million young buyers without a thing to wear. New York Times August 28
12. Malvano L 1988 Fascismove politica dell’immagine. Bollati Boringhieri, Turin
13. Marwick A 1988 Beauty in History. Thames and Hudson, London
14. Prusack B P 1974 Women: seductive sirens and source of sin. In: Reuther R R (ed.) Religion and Sexism: Images of Women in Jewish and Christian Traditions. Simon and Schuster, New York
15. Reynolds S 1999 It isn’t easy being a superman. New York Times Oct. 5
16. Staples B 1996 Dying to be Black. New York Times Oct. 9
17. Veblen T 1899 The Theory of the Leisure Class. Macmillan, New York