Dress Function and Fashion

Some of the most basic function of dress are to provide warmth and protection, to
beautify, and to supply information about the wearer (i.e., age, sex, social status and
occupation). People’s perception of which garments or styles best server those
functions is not universal or constant. For example, even though women in other parts
of the world had been wearing trousers for centuries, in Europe and North America
pants were considered inappropriate and unattractive wear for women until the 20 th
century.
The idea that fashion is a reflection of wealth and prestige can be used to explain the
popularity of many styles throughout costume history. For example, clothes that are
difficult to obtain and expensive to maintain have frequently been at the forefront of
fashion. For the same reason, clothes that require expensive fabrics or materials were
fashionable.
Similarly, impractical fashions, which are difficult to wear, have often been
considered beautiful. One example is the popularity of European styles that limited a
woman’s ability to man oeuvre or move by confining her into corsets and weighting
her down with excessive layers of petticoats and skirts. The fact that a woman was
dressed in such a manner was proof not only that she did no domestic work but also
that her husband or father could afford to hire servants to do such work for her.
Status or relative power has also influenced fashions in dress on a larger, nationwide
scale a dominant political state can affect not only the national policies of weaker or
dependent countries but their fashion as well. For example, many styles of traditional
Japanese and Korean dress reflect Chinese influences. Similarly, during the 19 th
century, when Great Britain was firmly established as the world’s foremost industrial
and economic power, Britain took the lead in setting men’s fashions. The three-piece
lounge suit introduced in Britain in the 1850s for informal wear became popular in
other industrializing nations as well. It gradually became accepted for city wear in
Britain and was then adopted by men as a business uniform throughout the rest of the
world. The role of the adoption of Western styles of dress by educated urban elite
virtually worldwide.
The need for fashionable clothes has lead to the development of clothing machinery.
Until the 18th century all tailoring operations were performed by hand. Finally in the
late 1700s the invention of foot-and water-powered machinery for spinning and
weaving made factory production of cloth possible. This breakthrough stimulated the
first practical machine in 1830.