Can clothes be historical sources? Yes, of course! For this last optional make-up assignment, you are going to explore what people wore in the past. What people wore, how the clothing was made, and who made it can offer important insights into social and personal histories. Fashion and fashion accessories convey a great deal about the people who wore them and the societies they lived in.
How have historians studied fashion?
People have been studying fashion for much longer than you think. The earliest books on fashion history were published in Europe during the Age of Discovery in the 16th century. Between 1520-1610, over two hundred books on the dress were written in Europe. These were little books designed for wealthy readers and contained wood-engraved plates with minimal text. As European explorers sailed around the world, they encouraged enormous curiosity about foreign ways of dressing. Since then, books on fashion have never gone out of style.
We need to know about three types of fashion studies.
The first and oldest of these is object-centred dress history. From the beginning of the 20th century, scholars have focused on the clothes themselves, often examining surviving garments to catalogue what different groups of people wore in the past.
The study of clothes as objects soon opened up further questions about the psychology of dress. Why did people wear those specific clothes? What followed was the social orientated history of clothes. This approach focused on a theoretical interpretation of the function of clothing more than the object itself.
New approaches appeared in the 1980s with the growing interest in cultural history. These studies focused on clothes as a guide to the “coded body” – fashionable, subcultural, gender, and sexuality identity – of the wearer. These new cultural studies have now come to dominate academic study. We no longer wear clothes; today, we put on a costume.
The assignment will be a specific analysis of how historical fashion choices help historians understand changing gender norms.
ASSIGNMENT:
Stereotypes are the common beliefs and values of the group, culture, or religion and gender stereotypes are fixed ideas about men’s and women’s traits and capabilities and how people should behave based on their gender.
Often these stereotypes are linked closely to clothing because clothing is one of the most important ways of publically representing and reinforcing identity norms and expectations.
Sometimes clear rules and regulations govern who can where what. We can often find these in clothing laws that restrict clothing items to specific genders and punish transgressors.
More often, what men and women wear is decided by unwritten and unspoken gender dressing codes. To understand these “codes”, we need to conduct careful historical research into societal value systems.
Moving through history, we see that when societies change, gender norms change and the accepted fashions for men and women also change accordingly. This week we will read about the theory behind gendered fashions and explore several examples.
Download Deconstruction of Gender Stereotypes Through Fashion.pdf
In the reading, you should focus on the number of different ways fashion can reconstruct gender stereotypes. You should focus on the item of clothing, the adornment (accessories) of the clothing, and the colour of the clothing.
Next, think about what changing fashions have revealed about changing gender norms. In particular, how have ideas of masculinity and femininity changed over time? And, what is the idea of gender fluidity in more modern fashions?
Instructions:
In the reading, you will find many different examples, from 17th Century Puritan New England to the Smoking Collection of Yves Saint Laurent in the 1960s. Choose ONE of these examples to explore in more depth. Your goal is to explain how clothing can perform gender, being specific as possible about how particular items of clothing make gender statements. Include historical aspects
Your assignment should include an image of your costume example and a 1 page analysis of the costume. You should include citations for all material used in the paper.
Deconstruction+of+Gender+Stereotypes+Through+Fashion
APA
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