Dress has been defined as the total arrangement of all outwardly detectable modifications of the body itself and all material objects added to it. In other words, dress includes not only clothing, but all accessories, hairstyles, and any other alterations made to the body, temporary or otherwise. We will look at:
Dress is an important feature of all human societies.. In addition to the obvious function of providing protection and warmth, dress serves many other purposes, most of them having to do with communicating our identity to others. Indeed protection and warmth may not have been the earliest purpose of dress. Many people have always lived in warm climates where clothing is not needed for protection from the elements, yet they have developed forms of dress.
Modesty is another commonly cited purpose for dress. Yet the
definition of modesty varies greatly from place to place, and even in the same
locality, over the course of time. In Muslim cultures, for example, both men
and women cover most of the body in public, as do people in many other times
and places. However, in other times and places exposure of various parts of
the body may not be a concern.
Beauty/ seduction are also important purposes of dress. Most
people want to look attractive, at least under certain circumstances. But what
is considered beautiful is also subject to variation. Ideals of beauty also
change over time within the same culture, as we will see.
Status or Identification with one's social group is clearly
a very important purpose of dress. Through our dress we all signal our affiliation
with a social group: this is true whether your group is a Mayan village in Guatemala,
or undergraduate students at Cornell (of which, of course, there are many subgroups,
including those who profess no interest in prevailing fashions).
Ceremony or ritual may be the purpose of certain specialized
forms of dress reserved for certain occasions or people; such as wedding attire,
or liturgical dress.
Fashion or style is another purpose that drives dress in some cultures.
Fashion is a process by which the accepted form of dress is transformed. Mass fashion as it
is has been termed in industrialized societies is transformed for reasons that are basically
economic. Mass fashion is driven by a manufacturing and distribution system that is
motivated to promote frequent changes in styles- that is, frequent changes in the definition of
what kinds of dress are beautiful, or confer the desired status or group identity. Since many
of the new ideas for mass fashion these days are drawn from the street, even those who
profess to be "anti-fashion" are subjected to the pressure to innovate, if they wish to wear
styles that remain distinguishable from the main stream.
Historically the basic forms of clothing construction can be divided into four
categories.
Draped garments are simply a length of fabric wrapped or tied about
the body; no sewing is done. The Roman toga, the Indian sari, and the Indonesian sarong are
all garments of this type.
Semifitted garments are assembled from simple shapes, usually
rectangles, and seamed. There is no real attempt to shape the garment to the
contours of a specific body; seams and edges are mostly straight. However, the
garment may be belted or laced to the body to achieve a close fit. Semifitted
garments have been worn since prehistory, particularly in cooler climates where
draped garments could not supply needed protection from cold. The kimono is
a well known example of a semifitted garment; but semifitted garments are certainly
also part of the repertoire of modern fashion.
Garments tailored to fit first appeared in Europe in the 14th
century. The earliest examples were probably designed to be worn under heavy plate armor introduced at that time. A garment tailored to fit the individual body was needed
because semifitted garments would wrinkle, bunch and chafe under the armor. Tailored
garments have curved seams, round armsceyes, and darts that shape the garment to the exact
contours of the body. Tailoring has been a major feature of Euro-American dress since the
15th century.
Garments tailored to exaggerate first appeared in the 15th
and 16th century. Padding and/or constriction of the body were combined with
the techniques of tailoring to restructure the body silhouette. This portrait
of Queen Elizabeth I shows dress that narrows and elongates the waist through
corseting, exaggerates shoulders through the use of padded sleeves and stiffened
collar, and distorts the lower body form and proportions by the use of a hooped
petticoat (known as the farthingale) and a relatively short hemline. Corseting,
shoulder pads, and even hip pads have all been used in this century to accentuate
body features deemed beautiful according to current fashion.
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