Traditional Dress Vs Modern Fashion
Traditional systems of dress, obviously can make much more accurate social mirrors than fashion ever does.1 Hollander’s idea about the abstract meaning of fashion contradicting the direct representation in traditional dress really interested me. She talks about the traditional costume accurately depicting a person’s social background, while modern fashion ambiguously portraying some obscure characteristics. This idea is given a broad form by incorporating the fact that although there were rules, there was also room for creativity within the traditional sphere. For example, if the dress code for women was petticoat and ribbons, they had the freedom to choose the color and style of each.
Also referencing to the body-painting culture in select societies, in still other cultures, one group of scars on a girl’s face showed that she had passed the menarche, while another array of them on her chest was purely ornamental.2
Hollander even discusses the transmissible and inheriting feature of traditional clothing. Dresses were made not just for one person but for all, as members belonging to a particular group. They were passed down to their offsprings and so on. On the other hand, fashion is very individualistic. It involves complete personal choice. Even though fashion is trendsetting and results in imitation, it does not give out the same common meanings that traditional dress did. It is easier to identify a person belonging to a social group, clothed in traditional wear. Modern fashion does not have the same purpose. It is mainly meant to please the eyes, like modern art. This is where fashion and traditional differ.
- Anne Hollander, Sex and Suits – The Evolution of Modern Dress (Bloomsbury Academic, 2016), 18
- Anne Hollander, Sex and Suits – The Evolution of Modern Dress (Bloomsbury Academic, 2016), 19