In 1995, Joanne Eicher along with Barbara Sumberg extended the discussion of the term “dress” by critiquing the phrase “western dress.” They claimed that “designating items as western for people who wear them in other areas of the world, such as Asia or Africa, is inaccurate” (296). Labeling it “western” privileges the West, they concluded. In an attempt to encompass the entire globe in the academic discourse on dress, they proposed “world fashion” or “cosmopolitan fashion” to describe Western fashion worn in non-Western countries (296).
“Dress” as the overall preferred term has received widespread acceptance among scholars from multiple disciplines. Titles of key scholarly works now specify dress and fashion, such as the Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion, a ten-volume set edited by Joanne Eicher and published by Oxford University Press. This specification implies a difference between dress and fashion. The usage of the dual terms “dress” and “fashion” may be a function of the changing meanings of the words as the field develops. For some, fashion is a subset of the dominant category of dress. Yet, for cultural theorists, fashion has emerged as the preferred term. For example, the publisher (originally Berg, now Taylor & Francis) chose the name Fashion Theory rather than Dress Theory or Costume Theory for its new journal in 1997.
Clothing
Literally speaking, clothing is a body covering made from cloth. It is limiting to use “clothing” as a synonym for fashion in two ways. First, cloth is made from fibers, natural or manufactured, through a variety of processes, most commonly weaving or knitting. Body coverings made from skins or furs or other non-cloth material are thus (potentially) excluded in this definition of clothing. Secondly, clothing does not incorporate other body supplements such as attachments and handheld objects, or body modifications such as tattoos, or hair color and styling.
In her book Fashion-ology, Yuniya Kawamura distinguishes between clothing and fashion. Her position is that all clothing is not fashion. An item of clothing can become fashion, but not until it gains symbolic value. She argues that fashion has invisible elements: it is “a system of institutions, organizations, groups, producers, events and pract ices, all of which contribute to the making of fashion, which is different than dress or clothing” (Kawamura 2005: 43). She goes on to say that
clothing is material production while fashion is symbolic production. Clothing is tangible while fashion is intangible. Clothing is a necessity while fashion is an excess. Clothing has a utility function while fashion has a status function. Clothing is found in any society or culture where people clothe themselves while fashion must be institutionally constructed and culturally diffused. A fashion system operates to convert clothing into fashion that has a symbolic value and is manifested through clothing. (Kawamura 2005: 44)
Fashion historian Ingrid Loschek further illuminates this perspective, arguing that adoption transforms clothes into fashion. Clothes are produced via a design and manufacturing process. Society, or a group of people, determines which clothes are accepted and thus become fashion. Her example of this transformation is the bumster pant with a bare midriff top, a look for women introduced in 1996 by Alexander McQueen. At that point, the products were clothes. She posits that the look became fashion in 2001, when young people in large cities made it visible (Loschek 2009: 133–34).
Roach-Higgins and Eicher say clothing does not include body modification, which is why they prefer their term “dress.” Indeed, “clothing” has fallen out of favor as a term used in American universities as a disciplinary descriptor: former departments of “textiles and clothing” have changed their names to variants of “textiles and fashion.” In 1991, the former Association of College Professors of Textiles and Clothing voted to change its name to International Textile and Apparel Association. However, its scholarly journal, first published in 1982, retained “clothing” in its title: Clothing and Textile Research Journal. Such changes demonstrate a disciplinary shift in the United States away from the confines of the design, manufacturing, and sale of “clothing” to more comprehensive topics. We concur that clothing is too limiting a term.
Costume
One of the most puzzling words associated with fashion is “costume.” For many years, costume has been widely used to describe historic dress, or dress worn for performance, for Halloween, or other masquerade events. However, this was not always the case. Interestingly, the word “costume” in reference to everyday dress was not in general use until the nineteenth century. According to the OED, it originated among Italian artists to describe a “guise or habit in artistic representation.” It was then picked up by the French and English in the early eighteenth century to mean a “manner of dressing, wearing the hair, etc., and in later times to dress.” A further definition in the OED is: “the mode or fashion of personal attire and dress (including the way of wearing the hair, style of clothing, and personal adornment) belonging to a particular nation, class or period.” This definition sounds much like the one Roach-Higgins and Eicher give for their preferred term “dress,” except that they don’t refer to mode or fashion, or thus to temporality. Roach-Higgins and Eicher opposed the use of the term “costume” as an all-encompassing and neutral term because by the late twentieth century, it referred to dress for special activities or role-play, such as performance, folk festivals, ceremonies, and rituals. They called this dress for “out-of-everyday” activities.
In surveying nineteenth-century fashion images, “costume” appears with regularity in reference to a total ensemble. The OED recognized this usage in a third definition for “costume”: “fashion or styles of dress appropriate to any occasion or season; hence, dress considered with regard to its fashion or style.” An example of period usage is provided: La Belle Assemblée, an English lady’s magazine, included an “outdoor costume” in its May 1818 issue. The term was equated with contemporary fashion throughout the nineteenth century, as illustrated by Figure 2.2. The description for this image uses another synonym: “Walking dress of purple silk poplin, made with two skirts, both trimmed with a ruffle and puff of darker silk.”
Figure 2.2 “Fashionable Costumes.” Godey’s Lady’s Book and Magazine, October 1871. Historic Textile and Costume Collection, University of Rhode Island. “Fashionable Costumes,” meaning contemporary fashions, was a monthly feature in Godey’s.
Numerous other examples can be given to provide evidence that “costume” was synonymous with dress in the nineteenth century. For example, Amelia Bloomer’s dress reform outfit was called “the bloomer costume” in published sources at the time it was presented to the public (Figure 2.3).
Pravina Shukla, a folklorist, deliberately chose the word “costume” for the title of her book Costume: Performing Identities Through Dress (2015). She considers costume to be the clothing that is worn when discarding everyday identity. Shukla defines costume as the “clothing of whom we are not” (4). In this way, her understanding of costume echoes that of Roach-Higgins and Eicher, dress for “out-of-everyday” activities. She studied dress worn for Brazilian carnivals, folk festivals in Sweden, events sponsored by the Society for Creative Anachronism, Civil War reenactments, living history sites, and theatrical performances. Her goal was to investigate “how costume enables individuals to perform identities that are not expressed through daily dress” (Shukla 2015: ix).
Figure 2.3 “The Bloomer Costume.” N. Currier, 1851. Lithograph. Historic Textile and Costume Collection, University of Rhode Island. Amelia Bloomer’s reform outfit was introduced as a practical, everyday “costume.”
For centuries, people had worn outfits to masked balls that gave them other identities. By Victorian times, these became “fancy dress balls,” which were like modern-day costume parties. For ideas about what to wear to such a ball, people turned to publications like Ardern Holt’s Fancy Dresses Described (1887), which explained and illustrated a myriad of ideas including “Witch” and “Hornet” (Figure 2.4). It also offered outfits that drew on historical styles, for example, the �
�Watteau costume,” shown in Figure 2.4. It appears that “fancy dress” was the more common term for “dress up” clothes than “costume” in the nineteenth century, a reversal of usage in the early twenty-first century.
Figure 2.4 “The Witch,” “The Hornet,” and “Watteau.” Fancy Dresses Described; or What to Wear at Fancy Balls, Ardern Holt, 1887. London: Debenham and Freebody. Collection of Linda Welters. Reprinted with permission. Victorians used “fancy dress” instead of “costume” to describe outfits worn to costume parties, known at the time as fancy balls.
Costume had been the word of choice when the study of historic dress began as a subject of academic interest. Early books on dress history, like Auguste Racinet’s Le Costume Historique (1876–88), employed “costume” in the title. American universities also adopted the word “costume” for course titles; major museums with dress and textile collections also titled their departments with the term “costume” instead of “dress” or “fashion.” Further, professional organizations that focus on dress history are still called “Costume Society” (of America, of Great Britain, of Nova Scotia, and of Ontario). The British Costume Society’s journal is called Costume. To avoid confusion, the Costume Society of America, which modeled itself after the British society, named its journal Dress.
Only in recent decades has “costume” become an unfashionable word. Course titles are slowly changing to either “dress” or “fashion,” as are names of museum collections. To wit: the Department of Textiles and Costumes at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston changed its name to Textile and Fashion Arts in 2004 upon reception of a bequest from David and Roberta Logie. The Victoria and Albert Museum no longer calls its dress gallery “the costume court”; its vast collection is now “Fashion and Textiles” instead of the former “Dress and Textiles.”
The Costume Society of America debated changing its name for several years, but decided to stay with “costume.” This debate affirms that language is a living thing, words go in and out of use, and meanings change over time. Costume is no longer a synonym for fashion. We agree with Roach-Higgins, Eicher, and Shukla that costume refers to dress worn to present an identity other than that projected on a day-to-day basis.
Toilette
Another word once synonymous with fashion that has changed meaning over time is “toilette” and, as a result, has gone out of normal use. The French term appeared in the English language in the late seventeenth century, referring to the “manner or style of dressing; dress, costume,” as in this 1752 observation: “Tis so long (tell Lady Caroline) since I have seen so spruce a Toylet as hers” (OED Online s.v. “Toilette”). Its use peaked in the 1860s. Toilette emphasized grooming behaviors, especially ones that required assistance from others or that were complex.
Apparel
Apparel is a synonym for fashion that emerged early in the English language, toward the end of the Middle Ages. The OED defines apparel as “personal outfit or attire; clothing generally, raiment, dress.” It derives from the French apparel, also appareil. In 1330, the following description appeared: “fourscore armed knights, in silk appareled,” which must have been quite a sight. Apparel has also been used as a verb, as in “to apparel.” Today, one rarely hears someone ask, “What apparel are you wearing?” Rather, the term references the production of fashion, for example, the apparel industry.
Habit
“Habit” is one of the oldest terms in English for dress, and it derives from Latin. Not surprisingly, it is the term Cesare Vecellio used for the most famous of the sixteenth-century costume books, his Habiti Antichi et Moderni, originally published in Italian.
It is defined as “fashion or mode of apparel, dress.” The word refers to a set of clothes or a specific garment. “Habit” has other closely related meanings such as the dress of religious orders (e.g., nun’s habit) and the dress worn by ladies on horseback (e.g., riding habit).
Descriptors of fashion
Several terms associated with fashion can be considered a related group that define or name aspects of fashion. Such terms include taste, style, fad, classic, and trend.
Taste
Displaying good “taste” featured prominently in eighteenth-century discourse. The OED explains taste as “the sense of what is appropriate, harmonious, or beautiful, esp. discernment and appreciation of the beautiful in nature and/or art.” Sir Joshua Reynolds, the painter, writing about taste in 1776, reflected that “taste in dress . . . is certainly of the lowest subjects to which this word is applied” ([1776] 1831: 66). The period’s discourse concerning taste included philosophical examination of aesthetic value, such as Immanuel Kant’s examination of taste in Critique of Judgment ([1790] 2007) that employs fashion as a foil for commentary on taste. Reynolds disparaged taste in relationship to dress because for him, taste was a component of creating beauty, using well-honed skills, and carefully nurtured preferences (taste) to create beauty, such as in art and architecture. Fashion, subject to change, was thus not a matter of taste in his view. William Hogarth shared this view. In 1742, he painted Taste in High Life, a satirical comment on the British aristocracy’s obsession with fashion. It was later engraved and printed for wide distribution (Figure 2.5).
Figure 2.5 “Taste in High Life.” William Hogarth, 1746. Engraving and aquatint, 1798. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1932. Licensed by Creative Commons. License available online: http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode. Hogarth satirized British aristocracy and their obsession with fashion in this image, which was first created as a painting and later reproduced as an engraving.
Style
The OED defines “style” as “manner, fashion,” that is, “a particular mode or fashion of costume.” For those who study fashion and work in the fashion industry, the word incorporates both silhouettes and details. The OED provided an example from 1860: “The dress is of the style called in Paris, the robe Impératrice” (meaning Empress gown), after Empress Eugenie. Another example is from 1891: “The front was all white satin, made in Empire style.” Empire style specifically refers to the presence of an elevated waistline on a garment, which is placed just below the bosom and thus gives no visual emphasis to the natural waist.
However, style has come to mean something else. Coco Chanel famously said “fashion passes, style remains.” Actually, she made this statement in French and used the term “mode.” La mode se démode, le style jamais (Chanel, Chanel 1986). Subsequent translations substitute “fashion” for “mode.” This meaning has to do with an individual dressing well in clothes, accessories, and grooming that suits their looks and personality, their age, and the occasion. In this meaning style is a personal attribute related to aesthetic skills and not to the specific attributes of a garment.
Fad
The OED does not have much to say about “fad,” a relatively recent arrival to the English language. Its etymology is unknown, and it is defined simply as a “craze.” It appears in the mid-nineteenth century in reference to being concerned with trifles as evidenced in this 1867 example from The Trollope: “She may take up some other fad now.” Current usage of the word “fad” as related to dress implies a short-lived fashion adopted by a subset of a larger culture, such as the hot pants worn by young women in the early 1970s.
Classic
A classic, on the other hand, is a recurring style. It is long lived and goes through only minor modifications to reflect fashion’s changes. The OED defines classic clothing as “made in simple, conventional styles that are almost unaffected by changes in fashion.” An example from 1937 is provided: a company adheres “to what they call their classic blouse because it’s always in demand.” A contemporary example is the trench coat, a style developed for British officers during the First World War and worn since by both men and women.
Trend
OED defines “trend” as both a verb and a noun. The verb “to trend” means “to turn in some direction, to have a general tendency.”
The noun “trend” means “the general course, tendency, or drift.” The OED’s examples are from the 1960s; for example, the Guardian described two people as “a trendily dressed couple” in 1967. Interestingly, the rise in the usage of the word “trend” corresponds with disruptions to the mid-twentieth-century fashion hierarchy through which the fashion industries of a few European cities dictated the direction of fashion for the West. Since the decline of their dominance in the late 1960s, multiple fashion directions have appeared in cities around the globe, many created by youth who dressed in so-called street style in response to an ever-increasing network of cultural shifts.
Antonyms of fashion
The opposite of being fashionable is being unfashionable. Many in the fashion field think that the way most people dress has nothing to do with “fashion.” Teri Agins, a former reporter for the Wall Street Journal, declared that fashion was finished in The End of Fashion (1999). She argued that women were dressing more like men and that they were more inspired by the street than by designers in choosing what to wear. She also observed the increasing casualization of the American wardrobe, the rise of stylish clothes available through chain stores, and the lack of risk-taking by designers in an era in which publicly owned fashion labels run the show. Yet, fashion as Agins understands it influences the way people dress: inexpensive clothing reflective of fashion trends is available through mass merchants like Target and Tesco. While Agins correctly diagnosed causes of infrastructure changes in the fashion business brought about by shifts in the dissemination and adoption of styles and trends among the public, her perspective gives little note to the desire to participate in fashion, to wear clothes that reflect the preferences of one’s group or community. This is evidence of the fashion impulse at work.
Fashion History Page 5