Clothing–the fabrics, the colors, the styles, the objects and means of fastening, even the shoes we wear–tell stories. They tell stories about who we are, what groups we belong to or want to belong to, how we view ourselves as individuals, even our occupations. We might assume, for example, that someone wearing well-worn cowboy boots, jeans, a chambray shirt, and a sweat-stained Stetson is a working cowboy. Or that someone wearing a clerical collar is a pastor or priest in a liturgical church. But since all kinds of people now wear cowboy boots and hats, even those who’ve never ridden a horse, that assumption can no longer be used as an accurate means of assessing someone’s occupation. And now that white collars are less de rigeur for corporate America, and now that white collar workers don blue collar clothes on weekends, it is even more difficult to categorize someone by the clothing they wear.

Clothing laws in Europe during the Middle Ages made occupations and class distinctions easier to discern by prohibiting members of various groups from wearing specific styles of clothing or from wearing clothing made from certain fabrics which were indicative of social class, political position, or guild membership. If one was a member of the gentry, for example, one certainly didn’t want some peasant wearing the colors of royalty–purple or indigo blue.

In more modern times, clothing associated with particular classes or types of work continued to be used to connote one’s occupational status much as it did during the Middle Ages, but without the attached laws. Now we have "white collar" workers carrying briefcases through the halls of corporate office buildings while "blue collar" workers carry mop pails and brooms through the same halls.

The idea of exclusive fashions extended, during many historical periods, even to the shoes one could or couldn’t wear since they too served as indicators of one’s wealth, station, and occupation. It would be difficult to mention fashion and shoes without thinking of Cinderella, the quintessential narrative of the way fashion serves to reveal one’s social status and how the lack of the proper fashion can keep one out of a given milieu. Although Cinderella owned a pair of glass slippers, and could rightfully wear them since her father had been a man of substance, her straitened circumstances kept her clothed in the "uniform" of a drudge, thus belying her claim to that superior status. (This narrative may have originated in China where the shoes that Cinderella wears are tiny, made to fit a woman whose feet had been bound, an indication of high social class.)

In Linda O’Keefe’s Shoes, she addresses this idea of social and economic status in relation to the way shoes were reflections of these privileged or less privileged places. O’Keefe relates that early 19^th-century aristocratic women "wore paper-thin slippers of brocade, their soles too fragile to withstand even a few steps outdoors, while their maids toiled in sturdy black leather boots" (14). She further explores the idea of the narrative quality of fashion when she writes that "[s]hoes not only reflect social history, they are a personal record of our lives–touchstones that evoke a time, a place, an emotion. As mementos of occasions on which they were worn, shoes preserve the past, triggering memories as vivid as those in a photo album. . . " (14).

During the years of the bubonic plague in Europe, the laws requiring strict adherence to clothing styles which indicated one’s work or social status began to disappear. People of every social strata died so quickly and in such large numbers, including members of the upper classes, that there were few to protest the wearing of fashions outside one’s own socio-economic bracket. And because members of the wealthy (thus ruling) class died in great numbers, the way was cleared for members of the lower classes to gain property and become more upwardly mobile. The lower classes then took over the property and the clothing of those in higher social classes, eventually becoming the merchant class, able to market, purchase and wear the very styles and fabrics that had been previously prohibited to them.

Although we might like to consider ourselves more enlightened about allowing the free choice of clothing styles, there were laws in America well into the 19^th century that forbad the wearing of certain clothing styles by certain groups. A woman could be arrested for wearing pants, for example. And it would be safe to assume that the reverse was also true. While not a state or federal law, ties and jackets were once required (Is that still done?) in certain clubs and restaurants. The lack of such apparel could be viewed as an indicator of lack of position and/or money. The only way to avoid being required to "dress the part" was to be a wealthy eccentric whose behavior was accepted as a substitute means of entry into such venues.

Gaining admittance to previously forbidden places often necessitates the borrowing and/or switching of clothing so that one’s appearance matches that of others in that particular group, thus allowing access to that group. One can think of numerous narratives whose premise is a case of mistaken identity due to characters switching clothes and passing themselves off–most often–as members of the opposite sex or as members of a different socio-economic strata. Shakespeare used the exchanging of clothes to allow characters safe passage or to gain access to forbidden or inaccessible others. Many European and American novels treat of rightful heirs to the throne being denied their ascendancy by an imposter dressed in royal garb. Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper parodies those narratives by having the Prince choose to pass himself off as a pauper in order to gain a new experience.

Fashion styles can be viewed almost as uniforms which allow diverse peoples to gain access to what are often privileged or elite institutions which makes this year’s fashion of military uniform-type designs for women’s clothing a curious one. Khaki cotton rip-stop skirts. Satin military jackets. Sailor caps. Camouflage dresses. Even camouflage underwear. What kind of statement is being made by women through the wearing of such clothing? Are they feeling a need for solidarity? Just a desire to belong to a group of like-minded (or at least like-dressed) people? Where does it leave those who choose not to dress in fashions that connote military power? Maybe this is an attempt to help women feel more empowered. Or maybe those women are attempting to tell a different story about themselves and their place in American society in the 21^st century than the one that has been handed to them.

Perhaps of greater importance is the question of where the dictates of the fashion world leave those whose choices of clothing styles marginalize them. We might, as an example, consider such styles as "grunge" or "hip-hop" which appear to come directly from the ghetto, but which are appropriated by those who do not fit into that particular strata of American society. Whose story is then being told? It would seem safe to say that it is not the same story, that the clothing styles do not carry the same meaning for the appropriators as they do for the designers of such a style. The same might apply to the appropriation of ethnic clothing, and I wonder if those whose ethnic background is that of the white majority can fully appreciate the symbolism that may be inherent in such clothing.

Along with specific styles, color is a further way of making a statement about who you are, what you do, where you’re going. Purple and blue were long colors available only to royalty, partly because of the expense of creating the dyes. Thus, they became associated with the ruling class.

White became the symbol of purity in western cultures when it came to be used for wedding dresses by women whose capitalist families had amassed enough wealth to afford an impractical dress meant to be worn only once. But white is the color of death in many Asian countries. Black, the color worn to funerals in the U.S. is also considered a "rich" color in the sense that it is used for tuxedos and "little black dresses" worn to high-class functions. Not usually considered an appropriate color to wear to weddings, it is the color traditionally worn by bride’s mothers in Japan.

Another color that was long considered off limits for weddings is red, mainly because it was associated with prostitutes. I have read that red was a dye color that was cheap to produce and so was often used to dye women’s flannel petticoats. Because prostitutes traditionally had little money, they were forced to wear those cheaper red petticoats. Now red is considered a power color. Power ties for men are red, and red eyeglasses are a brash fashion statement that speaks volumes about the way the wearer sees herself.

Maybe what we are all trying to do through our clothing choices is to "speak," to tell our own stories without words. To shout, exclaim, or to calmly put forth a sense of who we are, the way we see ourselves, or the way we wish others to perceive us. Our choice of fashion thus becomes a sort of advance guard, warning others away or inviting them to parlay with us. And from day to day, year to year, season to season, age to age, our stories change as do the fashions we choose to reflect and illustrate those stories.

Work Cited