Choosing what to wear every day means to stick to the vast assortment of society’s values. Even when we think of doing it following the style we prefer, the choice of what to wear is based on the conditions related to sex or the role we have in our society.
It is not only about personal style, but most of all it is a ritual that humans perform respecting cultural codes, shared values and hidden symbols.
Talking about clothes, therefore, means to talk about how our body communicates: clothes and jewelry, hairstyles and makeup, tattoos or piercings give us the possibility to identify, recognize and distinguish ourselves.
Our body is an instrument to understand the world around us and to show the values we share. Thus the different meanings that women’s veils have assumed in Muslim societies, especially in Islamic feminist movements, show us how the choice to wear or not an item of clothing means refusing or adhering to social paradigms.
The variability of clothing within different cultures is strictly connected to the values that individuals want to convey. If fashion changes is always because something in the society is changing. Sometimes fashion world can anticipate or generate change in the society as well. Just think that the miniskirt in 1968 was a real cultural change!
Anthropologist Daniel Miller, who conducted a study on the use of blue jeans in the North of London, highlights how the worldwide success of the miniskirt is due to several factors. One of these concerns its double symbolic nature: on one hand it allows people to feel part of a globalized world and on the other hand to preserve their personality, thanks to its versatility.
Through fashion people cross from the desire to differentiate themselves more to the need of identify themselves with others.
Therefore, if choosing clothes is a cultural gesture, we have, at the same time, the possibility to choose the cultural values we want to wear
Daria Elia
@dashadael
Reading advice:
Blue Jeans: The art of the Ordinary