Fashion: A Tool of Class Division
by Free Palestine (email: [email protected])

Walking down the street it is evident; class warfare. An acute observer sees someone in a business suit walking to avoid someone wearing a sweatshirt or an article of clothing that has been dirtied through an actual day of work, looking at them as if they had two heads. He then spots a humbly dressed man scoff at a guy yapping away on his high-tech camera phone, suited as if he just robbed a mannequin from Banana Republic. These types of events rarely escalate to a horrid point, but every day people are becoming less aware of others and their feelings. The fact that these events even occur at all serves as a testament to the importance of fashion which, as an indication of wealth and class, possesses ample power.

For centuries individuals and societies have used clothes and other body adornment as a form of nonverbal communication to indicate wealth. History is cluttered with examples that reaffirm this claim. Take the Edwardians of the 19th century for example, they were a group who were so socially arranged into classes by fashion that those who wore tailor-made clothing looked down on those who could not afford it as "cast offs". The ruling elite's attire did not deflate their ego and class as the poor's tattered rags did. For they made heir social superiority and wealth known upon first glance through the display of their extravagent, ruffled, varied and expensive attire. The women in particular of this era were by far the most guilty perpetrators of this shameful act by adorning themselves in superfluous jewlery in addition to rotating their expensive outfits according to their daily activities. This enhanced their body image in the conscious of those who, by perforce of the unfair system, already saw themselves as socially inferior for their lack of wealth and therefore lack of capability to match the elite's extravagant displays. Anyone who did not subscribe to their extravagant garb was immediately dismissed as socially inferior, and of a low rank in the social hierarchy simply because of the quality of cloth they were draped in.

However, the Edwardians were certainly not the only society guilty of falling victim to the power of fashion. Another painful yet historic example is pre-revolution France, where French elites emphasized their wealth and class by dressing in more extravagent, elaborate, and diverse garbs. The elites favored brighter colors and more decorative styles, both tastes which a highly skilled and well-paid tailor could satisfy. This practice, however, later became condemned when the French revolution became an influential movement and it's ideals of liberty, equality, and brotherhood were championed. Fashion in post-revolution France served as the anti-status among males. Volunteers in the revolutionary military, for example, who typically hailed from the lower classes, were called sans-culottes (meaning without breeches) due to the fact that they wore trousers of homemade fabric rather than the extravagant knee breeches of the elites. Their trousers rose as a metaphor of the ideals of the revolution and the forces of democracy that went along with it. Before the 19th century had expired, trousers that fell to the ankles had permanently substituted the former standard knee breeches and the sober, uniform dark suit was popularized. Other articles of clothing now denounced under the eye of the French revolution received equal scorn, such as high-heeled shoes, waistcoats, and powdered wigs.

The wealthy elites were finally no longer afforded the ability to flaunt their wealth, for the resentment steming from the poor and disenfranchised classes had developed into an influential movement. As J.C. Flugel wisely reaffirms this in his essay The Great Renunciation, "one of the purposes of decorative dress was to emphasize distinctions of rank and wealth". (Flugel, 88) And this was precisely the reason for all the scorn that led to the abolition of these constant perpetuators of the unfair system of social inferiority and hierarchy. That, coupled with the simultaneous movements for a democratization of Western society were what depleted fashion of it's ample power. Movements in France and America advocated new ideas of all men being equal under the law and the fashion reflected this. Before, the attire of the aristocrats and wealthy elites varied to a great extent from the rags of the commoners. In addition, sumptuary laws governed clothing among other adornments to maintain the difference and perpetuate the unfair hierarchical system. The lower classes therefore were stuck in a system of constant social inferiority while the elites scoffed at their poor existance. Little did they know that the lower classes were the ones whose growing resentment would eventually bring an end to their aesthetic fascism.

Today, fashion still affects our psychology and augments the distinction of wealth, however, it is of a different essence. There are no longer sumptuary laws to thwart the lower classes from dressing similarly to our society's elites, yet it is highly dubious the poor would be able to afford to. The legal restrictions have thus been alleviated yet the financial limitations remain. Regardless, the wealthy elites favor to emphasize their wealth through cloth in more subtle ways in the current day. The industrialization of the textile industry has made it feasible to produce high quality clothing that is strikingly similar to that of the highest grad, so the rich have opted for other alternatives to indicate their wealth. For one, the rise of name brands has since emerged and it places emphasis more on the prestige of the company producing the clothing rather the extravagence or quality of it. Secondly, the element gold remains in limited supply and the elites have tended to indicate their financial status through copious adornment of jewlery crafted of the very same aforementioned, scarce and expensive material. Lastly, one must acknowledge that fashion is an all-encompasing invention that is not limited to clothing. The elites, have therefore shifted displays of their wealth on bigger and more awesome displays such as luxury automobiles and spacious homes. After all, how better to flaunt wealth than with a car or house costing more than the average person's lifetime savings?

As is illustrated through the aforementioned historic examples, fashion clearly, as Garber quotes in the textbook selection, "ties into psychology and sociology." We've come a long way and have shown a lot of progress toward defeating this tendency, but the fact remains that humans are inherently jealous creatures. From birth, we are indoctrinated through a bombardment of daily advertisements illustrating what is and what isn't desirable. The elites have alwaysand likely always will be the driving force dictating our fashion cycles precisely because they're the ones with the resources and power. No matter what the style, they will always be the entity that the lower classes seek to emulate due to their inborn feelings of social inferiority should they not follow them. This is the method in which fashion plays into the psychology of the populace; by dictating what is and isn't desirable, the masses' collective mentality becomes one of envy. If the masses were to one day wake up and reject the elite's desire for them to envy the wealthy, the emulation and mental captivity the lower classes are chained by would evaporate and emphasis on wealth through fashion would vanish.