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 Fashion gender related?

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PaulRyckier
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PaulRyckier

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PostSubject: Fashion gender related?   Fashion gender related? EmptyMon 06 May 2019, 20:30

Some days ago, I don't remember in what context, I was wondering if fashion, from the ancient times, was differentiated between the genders. I did a bit of research on the internet (google) and ran in some difficulties...

First as I started with the word "mode", as it is in French, Dutch and German I realized at the end that it was "fashion" in English. Then as I searched with "origin of fashion" all information was related to "fashin design" and that seems to have only started in the 19th century in Europe...
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-origin-of-fashion


As I see "mode" as a behaviour of how people wear their clothes, I saw that "fashion" in this context wasn't perhaps not the right word. So I started with the history of "clothing" and of course wiki was the first more common entry:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_clothing_and_textiles
But that entry was so vast and general that it at the first sight brought no answer to my question.


So I sought more in the direction of the history of "clothing" and found indeed nearly immediately something interesting even under the title "history of fashion" Wink from the Egyptians on...
http://www.softschools.com/timelines/history_of_fashion_timeline/267/
And they say always about the Americans...
http://mathforum.org/library/view/67186.html
And so I saw that it was from mathschool
https://www.nctm.org/About/
Already from 1920...and again, who say the Americans...

As it was a bit American related, I found better
https://bellatory.com/fashion-industry/History-of-Clothing-Why-We-Wear-Clothes
And the "about us" of Bellatory
https://bellatory.com/about-us
And here I found for the first time what I sought. And "gender" was only one part of the many purposes of clothing, and of course the first one was "protection" and one had also "status" and that many others
From the article:
"People wear clothes for many reasons, primarily for protection and decoration. While it may seem that protection from the elements is the main function of clothing, the concept of decorating the body is an ancient practice, going back to the days of the Neanderthal who disappeared 30,000 years ago.
Garments have been worn for thousands of years as gender identification, to promote sexual attractiveness, to display status, age, occupation, religion, group membership, and political affiliation, for ceremonial occasions, and for personal expression. Primitive cultures of the modern world who live in clothing optional societies adorn themselves with scarring, tattoos, body paint, amulets, and headgear.
Throughout history, clothing choices were limited by available materials. When people began to devise garments, they were limited by their environment, technology, and geographical place in the world. An abundance of sheep offered wool. In or near places where flax grew, linen became a primary source of woven fabric. As trade routes grew, people were able to expand their use of various materials.
Functionality also played an important role in the wearing of clothing. Hard working peasants needed garments that allowed for ease of movement while the elite displayed their status and power by wearing more elaborate costumes that often restricted movement."


And she comments each item apart as the "gender related one"
"Throughout history, people have worn clothing as gender identification and to appear attractive to the opposite sex. In most cultures, men and women wear slightly different types of garments.
In ancient times, the length of a robe depended on gender. In Ancient Rome men wore shorter hems wile women wore long, draped gowns. The costumes of Ancient Egypt are also gender specific. In medieval Europe men wore tunics exposing their legs, while women's legs were covered at all times.
The idea of what is sexually attractive can change over time. After long years of deep decolletage that highlighted the bosom, style changes were made to emphasize the hips. When hemlines rose in the early 20th century, women's legs were emphasized as the object of attraction.
While the occasional appearance of women in trousers seemed ridiculous and unfeminine in the late 19th century, one hundred years lager, slacks came to be viewed a quite fetching."


I will comment the gender related clothing in an addendum.

Kind regards from Paul.
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PaulRyckier
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PostSubject: Re: Fashion gender related?   Fashion gender related? EmptyMon 06 May 2019, 22:12

Addendum.

I further found a study about something like "de kleren maken de man" and now I saw that the proverb in English is exactly the same: "the clothes make the man"
From birth on, society and parents push the children in a gender frame, by chosing the clothes dictated by customs for the male or female gender, even for the in betweens, the parents together with the psychologue chose a gender and push the child in the chosen gender by means of gender related clothes
https://www.encyclopedia.com/fashion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/gender-dress-and-fashion
It is too much to summarize, but perhaps if one has read the article, we can discuss the item that is of interest for her/him?
For instance as customs can change about blue for boys and rose for girls...
From the article:
"Historically, dress and gender have not always been fixed and have enjoyed some latitude. Researching dress and gender from a historical viewpoint stimulates awareness of the shifts regarding appropriate dress for males and females. For example, the expectation of blue is for boy babies and pink for girl babies has not always been the case. Paoletti and Kregloh (1989) discussed how the color "rule" in 1918 was pink for the boy and blue for the girl. Pink was interpreted then as a stronger and more assertive color and blue as more dainty and delicate"
And we Westerners seems still to be stuck in the Greek beauty ideal...
From the article:
"One approach to critically analyzing gender and dress is to examine cultural ideals of beauty. In Western culture, a slim waist for women and men is emphasized, along with large breasts and hips for women and broad shoulders and slender hips for men. Greek ideals of beauty are still present in Western culture. The Greek ideal of perfect body proportions has stood the test of time in Western culture (Etcoff 1999). Minoan artifacts, which date from 2900 to 1150 b.c.e., illustrate men and women with extremely tiny waists. Some scholars speculate that this was the result of artistic convention while other authorities suggest that young men around the age of twelve or fourteen wore belts that constricted the waist (Tortora and Eubank 1998, p. 48). There have been periods in history when men adopted the corset to achieve the fashionable silhouette of the time (Kidwell and Steele 1989). As a result, neither Western men nor women have escaped Greek beauty ideals."


And for this one I wanted that Temperance was here:
Responsing of the brain to nude vs.clothed human bodies by a Finnish university team of Biological Psycholopgy
http://becs.tkk.fi/bml/pdf/alho_etal_2015.pdf

And I hear Temperance already say: see the whole human mind is brought down to material processes of electrical stimuli and biochemical commands. We discussed once something simular. And I think when she appears, that we can have a "fruitful" talk about it. It is a bit as the discussion of male and female clothing...

Kind regards from Paul.
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LadyinRetirement
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PostSubject: Re: Fashion gender related?   Fashion gender related? EmptyTue 07 May 2019, 11:33

When I went through my conspiracy theory studying period, I came across (I may have mentioned this before) I came across some strange videos which were claiming that practically every famous person was a secret transgender who worshipped the baphomet!!!!!  The people who make these videos I feel must either be charlatans who know that there will always be gullible people who can be lured in by "clickbait" or else they are nutters who really believe what they aver.  But I did wonder if these folk really knew much about the history of clothing.  I mean I'm not an expert but even I know that at one time baby and toddler boys were dressed in frocks for a time (maybe until they were out of nappies?) and I sometimes think the fashion for leggings and a long T-shirt worn by some women these days resembles the tunic and leg attire worn by medieval men.  Also in some cultures women wear trousers frequently - outfits like the salwar kameez for example.

I knew men sometimes wore corsets in the past - I had wondered if it was to support the back and then there is the S bend corset that women wore at one stage.  I personally am fond of A line skirts because they hide a multitude of sins and do have some long skirts that I wear sometimes (especially in winter). I do have slacks as well of course.

I remember back in the 1960s there was some controversy about ladies wearing trouser suits to "posh" events and I some places wanted ladies to wear frocks or skirts.  Nowadays it does seem the trouser suit is here to stay for the female gender though.
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