Clothing
Humans wear articles of clothing (also known as dress, garments or attire) on the body for one or more of the following purposes:
- protection against the elements
- protection in work conditions
- modesty
- adornment
- as a statement of socioeconomic class or religious affiliation
- as a means of maintaining a power hierarchy.
(Humans may also dress up non-human animals for a variety of reasons.)
The English language uses the word clothing as a collective noun; with "garment" or "article of clothing" as the singular equivalent.
Other adornments, such as jewelry, hairstyle, hats, and tattoos, sometimes count as articles of clothing.
Clothing size can sometimes serve to express the size of body parts, also to express the aim or result of dieting or some forms of body modification. See for example bra sizes.
History of clothing
Prior to the invention of clothing, mankind existed in a state of nudity.
The earliest clothing probably consisted of fur, animal skin, leaves or grass, draped, wrapped or tied about the body for protection from the elements. Knowledge of such clothing remains inferential, since clothing materials deteriorate quickly compared to stone, bone, shell and metal artifacts. Archeologists have identified very early sewing needles of bone and ivory, from about 30,000 B.C., found near Kostenki, Russia in 1988.
Mark Stone, an anthropologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, has conducted a genetic analysis of human body lice that shows they first evolved only 72,000 ± 42,000 years ago. Since humans have very sparse body hair, body lice require clothing to survive, so this suggests a surprisingly recent date for the invention of clothing. Its invention may have coincided with the spread of modern Homo sapiens from Africa, thought to have begun between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago.
Clothing and social status
The use of clothing can be a powerful social statement. Luxurious, perfectly tailored clothing in expensive fabrics marks the wearer as wealthy and powerful. Royalty has long assumed the exclusive privilege of wearing unique materials, such as purple-dyed cloth, ermine fur, or feathers of rare birds. Garments with a unique or trendy appearance show that the wearer is knowledgeable about fashion and wants to make a favorable impression. Mahatma Gandhi wore a simple loincloth to show his humility. Excessively worn, soiled clothing may indicate either poverty, illness, or disdain for appearances.
The "plain clothes" dress of Amish and Mennonite women not only sets them apart from the rest of industrialized America, but their headpiece specifically indicates acceptance of the hierarchy (God above men, men above women). Corsets worn by women from the Victorian era through the 1800s were intended to help support their frail bodies, but may instead have caused their fainting spells.
Dress codes
Dress codes function on certain social occasions and for certain jobs. Schools may require school uniforms; if they allow plain clothes they may place restrictions on their use (see for example [1] ). A doorkeeper of a disco or nightclub may judge visitor's clothing and refuse entrance to those not clad according to specified or intuited requirements: for example an establishment may not allow sport shoes.
Transparent or semi-transparent clothing can play with the boundaries of dress-codes regarding modesty, for example: in a wet T-shirt contest.
See also Mourning, Sharia#Dress_code.
Inappropriateness and clothing
Possible imperfections in clothing itself may include:
- stains
- faded colour
- smell
- tears
- broken seams
- thin spots
- holes
- missing buttons
- broken zippers
One or more safety pins may temporarily repair some of these imperfections.
Possible inappropriate (but see below) clothing relative to the person wearing it includes garments:
- Too large (wide, long)
- Too small (tight, short)
- Not corresponding to the sex, age or peer group of the wearer
Possible "inappropriate" or socially unacceptable ways of wearing clothing include:
- unbuttoned (especially embarrassing for the fly)
- unzipped (ditto)
- backward
- inside-out
- two different socks
- a wide dress, skirt or shorts exposing underwear or genitals by the way one sits, or when blown upwards (see also Marilyn Monroe), etc.
- a bra, wrongly positioned, revealing a breast (one occasion of this "wardrobe malfunction" has become notorious: see Janet Jackson).
Possible "inappropriate" or socially unacceptable situations of wetness include:
- transparency, due to wetness (or thin spots), exposing underwear or intimate parts
- wetness due to sweat
- wetness apparently due to urine, etc.
Possible inappropriateness regarding day-to-day variation of clothing:
- too little variation.
Possible inappropriateness of clothing relative to the occasion (see also the previous section on dress-code):
- too bright and merry for a serious or sad occasion, e.g. a job interview or funeral
- too somber for a festive occasion
- not modest enough
- too prudish
Of course some of these clothing faux pas may occur intentionally for reasons of fashion or personal preference.
For example, people may wear intentionally oversized clothing. The rap duo Kris Kross of two teenage boys wore all of their clothes backwards and extremely baggy.
Functional clothing
Some clothing functions as specialised equipment for a special purpose, such as a diving suit (see the list below).
Manufacturing may render parts of the surface of clothes retroreflective (small parts of coats, large parts of special high-visibility clothing for rescue workers, etc). In this way they become much more visible in the dark for observers near a light source, such as drivers of cars with headlights on. The pattern of the retroreflecting parts also helps to distinguish between objects and people.
For greater visibility in the daytime, as well as for decoration, fluorescence can produce very bright colors in clothing. To reduce their visibility, on the other hand, soldiers, wildlife hunters and wildlife observers may wear clothes with a camouflage pattern.
Fashionable clothing
Fashion in clothes has allowed wearers to express emotion or solidarity with other people for millennia. Many modern Westerners have a seemingly wide choice available in the possible selection of their clothes. What a person chooses to wear can reflect their personality or likes. When people who have cultural status start to wear new or different clothes a fashion trend may start; others who like or respect such people may start to wear clothes of a similar style.
Fashions may vary significantly within a society according to age, social class, generation, occupation and geography, as well as over time.
Fashion houses and their associated fashion designers, as well as high-status consumers (including celebrities), appear to have some role in determining the rates and directions of fashion change in clothing.
Fashions in clothing design can emphasise or de-emphasise specific parts of the human anatomy, such as:
- head (hats)
- face (ruffs; masks)
- shoulders (padded shoulders)
- breasts ("Wonderbra")
- nipples ("falsies")
- torso (corsets)
- waist ("wasp-waist" fashions)
- penis (codpieces, penis sheaths)
- buttocks (bustles)
- legs (miniskirts)
- ankles (high-heeled shoes)
- feet (if one regards foot-binding and its footwear as fashionable)
Materials
Common clothing materials include:
Less common clothing materials include:
Reinforcing materials such as wood, plastic and metal may be used to stiffen garments such as corsets, bodices, or swimsuits.
Fetish clothing
See main article: Fetish clothing
Some people fetishize some types of clothing or clothing materials. Commonly fetishized materials include leather, rubber, lycra and PVC. Commonly fetishized types of clothing include shoes and skin-tight clothing. Note that these materials also occur in functional clothing, and that mainstream fashions have adopted some elements from fetish clothing.
Production methods
Clothing production methods: