Encyclopedia
Clothing, like other aspects of human physical appearance, has various
social aspects.
Wearing specific types of clothing or the manner of wearing clothing can have the deliberate purpose, or the desirable or undesirable side-effect, to correctly or incorrectly be interpreted in terms of
social class, income, occupation, ethnic and religious affiliation, attitude, marital status, sexual availability, and sexual orientation. This may be considered a "social message", even if it is not deliberate. If the "code of interpretation" applied by the receiver differs from the "sending code", this may give misinterpretations.
The manner of consciously constructing, assembling, and wearing clothing to convey a social message in any culture is governed by current
fashion. The rate at which fashion changes varies; easily modified styles in wearing or accessorizing clothes can change in months, even days, in small groups or in media-influenced modern societies. More extensive changes, that may require more time, money, or effort to effect, may span generations. When fashion changes, messages from clothing change.
For example, wearing expensive clothes can be due to
- Being wealthy
- preferring to spend more money on clothing
- Managing to obtain clothing cheaper than usual
An observer can see the resultant, expensive clothes, but may be wrong about the extent to which these factors apply. See also
conspicuous consumption. All factors apply inversely for wearing inexpensive clothing, and similarly for other goods.
Other messages clothing can give:
- Stating or claiming personal or cultural identity
- Establishing, maintaining and defying social group norms
Social status
In many societies, people of high rank reserve special items of clothing or decoration for themselves as symbols of their social status. In ancient times, only
Roman senators could wear garments dyed with
Tyrian purple; only high-ranking Hawaiian chiefs could wear feather cloaks and palaoa or carved whale teeth. In
China before the establishment of the
republic, only the emperor could wear yellow. In many cases throughout history, there have been elaborate systems of sumptuary laws regulating who could wear what. In other societies , no laws prohibit lower-status people from wearing high-status garments, but the high cost of status garments effectively limits purchase and display. In current Western society, only the rich can afford haute couture. The threat of social ostracism may also limit garment choice.
Occupation
Military, police, and firefighters usually wear uniforms, as do workers in many industries. School children often wear
school uniforms, while college and university students sometimes wear
academic dress. Members of religious orders may wear uniforms known as
habits. Sometimes a single item of clothing or a single accessory can declare one's occupation or rank within a profession — for example, the high
toque or chef's hat worn by a chief cook.
See also undercover.
Ethnic, political, and religious affiliation
In many regions of the world,
national costumes and styles in clothing and ornament declare membership in a certain village, caste, religion, etc. A Scotsman declares his clan with his
tartan. A
Sikh may display his religious affiliation by wearing a
turban and other traditional clothing. A French peasant woman may identify her village with her cap or
coif.
Clothes can also proclaim dissent from cultural norms and mainstream beliefs, as well as personal independence. In
19th-century Europe, artists and writers lived
la vie de Bohème and dressed to shock:
George Sand in men's clothing, female emancipationists in bloomers, male artists in velvet
waistcoats and gaudy neckcloths.
Bohemians,
beatniks,
hippies,
Goths,
Punks and
Skinheads have continued the tradition in the
20th-century West. Now that haute couture plagiarizes street fashion within a year or so, street fashion may have lost some of its power to shock, but it still motivates millions trying to look hip and cool.
Marital status
Hindu women, once married, wear
sindoor, a red powder, in the parting of their hair; if widowed, they abandon
sindoor and jewelry and wear simple white clothing. Men and women of the Western world may wear
wedding rings to indicate their marital status. See also Visual markers of marital status.
Sexual interest
Some clothing indicates the modesty of the wearer. For example, many Muslim women wear head or body covering that proclaims their status as respectable women. Other clothing may indicate flirtatious intent. For example, a Western woman might wear extreme
stiletto heels, close-fitting and body-revealing black or red clothing, exaggerated make-up, flashy jewelry and perfume to show sexual interest . A man might wear a tightly-cut shirt and unbutton the top buttons.
What constitutes modesty and allurement varies radically from culture to culture, within different contexts in the same culture, and over time as different
fashions rise and fall. Moreover, a person may choose to display a mixed message. For example, a Saudi Arabian woman may wear an
abaya to proclaim her respectability, but choose an abaya of luxurious material cut close to the body and then accessorize with
high heels and a fashionable purse. All the details proclaim sexual desirability, despite the ostensible message of respectability.
Sexual orientation
Clothing can also be used as a public signal of sexual orientation.
Gay pride-themed clothing or decorations, including symbols such as the
rainbow flag, or the logo of the
Human Rights Campaign, are fairly obvious choices for someone wishing to indicate that they are not straight. However, heterosexual
gay rights supporters may also choose to display such symbols as a political statement, which leads to some possibility for ambiguity.
T-shirts with printed slogans or icons have also become somewhat popular for use in casual social situations, and are offered for sale at many LGBT-oriented clothing stores. They often include witty sexual innuendo, comical expressions of affection for people of a particular gender, or non-sexual use of gay slang.
Sometimes people make fashion choices for or against a particular look based on whether or not it "looks gay" . Stereotypically "gay" fashion choices include dressing against prevailing
gender norms , and for gay men, looking "fashionable" or well-kept. While some people do exploit these stereotypes, many people either ignore them in their fashion choices, intentionally avoid them, or are unaware of them. General erosion of traditional gender norms and the ambiguity and changing standards of
fashion contributes to the unreliability of determining a person's sexual orientation based on these stereotypes, and some people would consider it offensive to try. Members of some local LGBT communities do seem to try to differentiate themselves as a group, but the particulars vary by location, and can be difficult to detect .
Clothing can also be used to express interest in a particular sexual activity or role. One trend in the 2000s is a line of
T-shirts that has iconic 1950-style depictions of the baseball positions
pitcher and
catcher, which are intended to correspond to the
top and bottom sexual positions. An older example is the handkerchief code used in the
BDSM subculture.
Laws and social norms
In
Tonga it is illegal for men to appear in public without a shirt.
In New Guinea, men wear nothing but penis sheaths in public. Women wear string skirts. In Bali, women go topless. In India, Hindu women can show their stomachs but not legs.
In the island of
Bermuda there is a strict dress code, such that restaurants are designated with different dress-code levels such as "business casual" or "casual." It is also illegal to not wear a
shirt or
shoes on any of the public places on the island with the exception of the
beach.
Private dress codes
Dress codes may be enforced by private entities, usually imposing a particular requirement for entry into a private space. "Dress code" may also refer to a social norm.
- By religious law or tradition
- For employees, pupils/students, etc. - sometimes a uniform; sometimes depending on the day, see Casual Friday; see also International standard business attire
- For customers, e.g. for a disco, nightclub, casino, shop or restaurant
- In special parties; sometimes a specific costume is requested
- As social rules in general
Dress codes function on certain social occasions and for certain jobs. A
school or a
military institution may require specified uniforms; if it allows the wearing of plain clothes it may place restrictions on their use. A bouncer of a
disco or
nightclub may judge visitors' clothing and refuse entrance to those not clad according to specified or intuited requirements.
Some dress codes specify that
tattoos have to be covered.
A "formal" or
white tie dress code typically means tail-coats for men and full-length evening dresses for women. "Semi-formal" has a much less precise definition but typically means an evening jacket and tie for men and a dress for women. "
Lounge suit" also known as "business casual" typically means not wearing
jeans or track suits, but wearing instead collared shirts, and more
country trousers . "Casual" typically just means clothing for the torso, legs and shoes.
Transparent or semi-transparent clothing can play with the boundaries of dress-codes regarding
modesty.
Dress codes usually set forth a lower bound on body covering. However, sometimes it can specify the opposite, for example, in UK gay jargon,
dress code, means people who dress in a militaristic manner.
Dress code nights in nightclubs, and elsewhere, are deemed to specifically target people who have militaristic fetishes .
Setting a dress code can often lead to great embarrassment. One particularly famous example is that of UK
Chancellor of the Exchequer,
Gordon Brown, who asked the
Bank of England's board to wear
lounge suits to their annual dinner, a highly prestigious occasion, as an act of modernism in tune with
New Labour thinking . However, he had not reckoned with their determination not to kow-tow, and when sat at dinner, he was the only person not dressed in
White Tie.
See also
shoe etiquette,
mourning, sharia, Dress code .
Work clothing
Business-wear clothing has changed over the years. In an office, appropriate corporate attire may be clean, formal clothing, such a
shirt and
tie, suit, or other similar outfits.
While previous eras of clothing had very standardized business wear, differentiating strongly between male and female apparel choices, the two types have converged as women's business styles have become less exclusively focused on skirts and blouses and have introduced suits as an article of business wear for either sex.
Casual wear has made some inroads into corporate culture recently, with the advent of the
Silicon Valley technology company bringing with it a more common acceptance of informal clothing at work. Additionally, some companies have specific days set aside in their workweeks - generally Fridays - during which employees may wear less formal apparel.
Some employers believe that discrimination laws restrict their right to determine appropriate workplace dress. In fact, employers have a lot of discretion in what work clothes they can require. Generally, a carefully drafted dress code that is applied consistently should not violate discrimination laws. However, this fact will not stop employees from questioning company dress code policies.
Business casual
Business casual, also known as "smart casual", is a popular dress code that emerged in white-collar workplaces in
Western countries in the
1990s. Many
information technology businesses in
Silicon Valley were early adopters of this style of dress. In contrast to business formal wear , business casual wear has no generally accepted definition; its interpretation differs widely between organizations and is often a cause of confusion.
The job search engine Monster.com offers this definition: "In general, business casual means dressing professionally, looking relaxed yet neat and pulled together." A more pragmatic definition is that business casual dress is a middle ground between business formal wear and street wear. Examples of apparel combinations that are considered appropriate for wearing to work by some organizations that consider themselves to be using a business-casual dress code are:
- for men, a collared shirt and cotton trousers
- for women, a tennis shirt and trousers
Neckties are generally not part of business casual dress unless worn in a very non-conservative way.
The acceptability of
jeans is variable — many organizations frown upon them as too casual, but will accept men who wear jeans with a sportcoat.
Inverse dress codes
Inverse dress codes, sometimes referred to as "
undress code", set forth an upper bound, rather than a lower bound, on body covering. An example of an undress code, is the one commonly enforced in modern communal bathing facilities. For example, in Schwaben Quellen no clothing of any kind is allowed. Other less strict undress codes are common in public pools, especially indoor pools, in which shoes and shirts are not allowed.
Places where
nudism is practised may be "clothing optional", or nudity may be compulsory, with exceptions, see
manners in nudism.
Gender and clothing
Various traditions suggests that certain items of clothing intrinsically suit different
gender roles. In particular, the wearing of
skirts and
trousers has given rise to common phrases expressing implied restrictions in use and disapproval of offending behaviour. For example, ancient Greeks often considered the wearing of trousers by
Persian men as a sign of effeminacy.
See also
cross-dressing.
Violation of clothing taboos
Some clothing
faux pas may occur intentionally for reasons of
fashion or personal preference.
For example, people may wear intentionally oversized clothing. For instance, the
teenage boys of
rap duo
Kris Kross wore all of their clothes backwards and extremely baggy.
A common deliberate violation of clothing taboos is the removal of the shirt, together with pulling down the pants to show the underpants.
The trend in
underwear has moved toward underwear that looks less like underwear, e.g. instead of white briefs that say "Mr Brief" or "Fruit of the Loom" in large letters around the waistband, trends have shifted toward undergarments that look like bathing suits or
beach shorts. However, some people are going back to the plain white underwear with bold underwearlike lettering around the waistband, i.e. familiar underwear brand names around the waistband, to enhance the violation of the taboo against showing underwear as a fashion statement. For women, deliberately showing bra straps has also become fashionable.
Mooning is the deliberate baring of the buttocks as a gesture of teasing or contempt.
Underwearing
See also underwearing.Some people strip down to their underwear as a fashion statement, as a form of protest, or to get attention , in cases where one does not want to go as far as being nude. As a fashion statement,
Tommy Hilfiger ran a series of large billboard advertisements showing mixed-gender groups wearing only their underwear in public. For example, groups were shown at outdoor splash areas, frolicking in nothing but their underwear. This implied a certain spontaneity, as one might find at an
urban beach where people decide to strip to their underwear to cool off in a fountain on a hot summer day. Traditionally, people would need a bathing suit, but because of the popularization of underwearing, the taboo against showing underwear has been weakened, and in some ways reversed, making the showing of underwear actually fashionable.
Some groups protesting against fur have adopted the phrase "I'd rather be in my underwear than wear fur". Members may confirm their words by stripping to their underwear in public.
As a form of attention-getting, freshpair.com has created "National Underwear Day" and had large numbers of models walk through
Times Square wearing nothing but their underwear. This helped to draw tremendous attention to the day and to freshpair.com.
Reversalism in the sociology of clothing
Social attitudes to clothing have brought about various rules and social conventions, such as keeping the body covered, and not showing underwear in public. The backlash against these social norms has become a traditional form of rebellion.
Nudity and contamination
During the
2001 anthrax attacks, large numbers of people stripped to their underwear in parking lots and other public places for hosing down by fire departments, often in front of TV news crews covering the events.
On the other hand, some people are unwilling to violate their self-imposed and fully internalized social norms of body covering, even in a situation where mass stripdowns and
washdowns could save their lives.
See also
- Dresscode
- Sumptuary law
- Chav
External links
