At the beginning of the semester, I mostly perceived fashion as a form of art which has a practical aspect of wearability. During the course, the readings and class discussions have taught me the importance of dress as a cultural signifier, one that reflects the time and place society is at, its uniformity and the way it serves as a political tool. In addition, I have come to terms with my personal practices of dress and the people around me. Those practices, I realized, embody each person’s subject position and the manner in which each subject position intersects according to social influence and mostly, ideas of gender and race. Fashion serves as a connector between the body and the outside world and thus, has vast importance in how we define ourselves. One of the most valuable ideas I discovered about subject formations, dealt with the concept of “cultural knots” and the usage of those knots to challenge social norms. The starkest example was Susan Kaiser’s words in relation to gay activist Harry Hay that combined masculine and feminine elements of dress as a form of protest: “If we begin to interpret difference not as something that is apart from our own identities, but rather a kind of entanglement, we can begin to imagine more openness to difference..” The act of blending gender also connects to Judith Butler’s theory on gender and how breaking the norms can be used by troubling existing ideas of gender – presenting gender as a social construction. The view that gender is constructed, emphasize the importance of fashion and dress as the primary signifier of it, allowing subject formations constantly – “fashioning the body is one of the ways individuals can represent their momentary sense of who they are becoming.”(Susan Kaiser).
