The meanings in clothes and the interrelationship of culture and clothes
In Jeanette C. Lauer and Robert H. Lauer’s words, “Fashion has been called, among other things, a tyrant, a despot, a god, and a mystery” (1981: 1). A little exaggeration could be applied to the statement, but it certainly addressed the prominent role fashion has been playing in societies. As Marilyn J. Horn put it, “there is probably no sphere of human activity in which our values and lifestyles are reflected more vividly than they are in the clothes that we choose to wear”(1968: 1).
As for the interrelationship of clothing and culture, Horn indicated that clothing is like a cultural mirror from which we could understand a certain group or a culture, “yet it is one of the most visual expressions of the habits, thoughts, techniques, and conditions that characterize a society as a whole” (p. 29).
