Fashion and Social Status

One thing I found to be very interesting from this week’s readings was a passage from the introduction in Fashion-ology: An Introduction to Fashion Studies by Yuniya Kawamura. According to Kawamura “Fashion was not always a gendered phenomenon, and both men and women clothed themselves with elaborate costumes until the eighteenth century” (10). I found this to be very astonishing because I would have never guessed that during some point in time men’s style of dress can be similar to women’s. But now that I think about it dressing more intricately would signify their displays of wealth. This would make sense because the more elaborate the women dressed the higher they would be in the social order. So by dressing elaborately like the women, the men’s social status would be apparent through their clothing of choice.

In contrast to the society prior to the eighteenth century, in today’s strenuous society, the possession of designer name brands signifies social status. On the website, College Candy, there is an article that mentions how wearing designer clothes can put you in parallel with the elite/high status people. The article then proceeds to talk about those in the elite members can easily identify others who are in the same league as they are. Therefore, what a person wears does make a difference in how others view them and where they stand in society.

As for the Compact Challenge, it did pose as challenge for me at first because I kept on forgetting about it. I went to Walmart this weekend and I almost ended up buying something that is not considered a necessity. Apparently, when I see something I like I forget about everything else, including the challenge. Fortunately, I was able to hold myself back at the last minute. So hopefully, for the rest of challenge I can continue to hold myself back.

Marcella Lee

Blog #1

[Inside Source: Kawamura, Yuniya. Fashion-ology An Introduction to Fashion Studies. New York: Berg, 2005.]

[Outside Source: http://collegecandy.com/2008/08/17/designer-brands-why-are-we-so-obsessed/]