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The Study of Dress and Fashion

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Joanne B. Eicher, Regents Professor Emerita, University of Minnesota, USA

Introduction
Outline
Further Reading
Enrichment Materials
Additional Discussion Questions and Tasks

INTRODUCTION

What is this unit about?

Three words, dress, costume, and fashion, have been used interchangeably often in writings about what children and adults wear or how they have covered or modified their bodies, for many reasons, such as modesty, decoration, display, warmth, or hygiene. Some of the writings relate to history, others to the importance or meaning of dressing the body, or signifying personal and/or cultural identity. Distinguishing types of people and describing who they are often involves understanding their dress. Many scholars, including anthropologists, art historians, costumers, economists, historians, psychologists and sociologists all study dress, even psychiatrists who want to know more about their patients.

What will students learn from this unit?

This unit focuses on the similarities and differences among dress, costume, and fashion, how different scholars view these three words and how the ideas involved in them are used in the Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion and the Berg Fashion Library. In addition, other words are related, such as ethnic and national dress and world fashion. This learning module begins with articles providing definitions and concepts followed by other articles that connect to these ideas.

Key Words

 Costume  Dress  Fashion  Undress  Nudity
 Ethnic dress  National Dress  Clothing  World Fashion  Ethnic Style

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OUTLINE

This unit of three lessons is intended for students at first year undergraduate level and above. Assigned readings and discussion questions are included to provide an understanding of the ideas to be discussed in class.

(Instructors are encouraged to adapt these to suit the needs of their classes)

Week 1: Clothing, Costume and Dress

Core texts to be read before the lesson:

Discussion Questions:

  • How do the three words (clothing, costume, and dress) differ?
  • What does it mean to be dressed?
  • What does it mean to be nude?
  • If you are not wearing clothes, can you be dressed?
  • Why would you be interested in these ideas if you were an anthropologist?
  • What difference would it make in using these ideas if you were an art historian or historian?

Homework:

Find images in magazines and newspapers from articles and advertisements that you can share in class to show examples of dress, clothing, and nudity.
Week 2: Fashion and Technology

Core texts to be read before the lesson:

Discussion Questions:
  • What is fashion?
  • How do fashion and dress interlink?
  • Think about how changes in technology affect what happens in fashion. Give three examples of current technology changes that are affecting fashion where you live.

Homework:

Write a short two-page essay about how an economist, psychologist, or sociologist could use some of the ideas about fashion to develop a research project.
Week 3: Ethnic and National Dress and World Fashion

Core texts to be read before the lesson:

Discussion Questions:

  • What is the difference between ethnic and national dress?
  • What is the idea behind world fashion?
  • Consider how culture relates to dress, to fashion, and to ethnic and national dress.

Homework:

Select an example of ethnic dress that you know about from personal experience or reading and write about how it is used in either festivals or special events.

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FURTHER READING

Eicher, Joanne B., Ed. Dress and Ethnicity: Change Across Space and Time, 1995, The Berg Fashion Library. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2752/9781847881342

Eicher, Joanne B., Evenson, Sandra Lee, Lutz, Hazel A., The Visible Self: Global Perspectives on Dress, Culture, and Society, Fairchild 2000, 9781563670688. Not available on The Berg Fashion Library.

Entwhistle, Joanne and Wilson, Elizabeth, Body Dressing, 2001, The Berg Fashion Library. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2752/9780857854032

Johnson, K.K.P., Torntore, S.J., and Eicher, J.B., Fashion Foundations, 2003, The Berg Fashion Library. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2752/9780857854070

Loschek, Ingrid, When Clothes Become Fashion, 2009, The Berg Fashion Library. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2752/9781847883681

Lynch, Annette, Dress, Gender, and Cultural Change, 1999, The Berg Fashion Library. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2752/9781847888686

Yurchisin, Jennifer and Johnson, Kim K. P., Fashion and the Consumer, Understanding Fashion series, 2010. Not available on the Berg Fashion Library.

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ENRICHMENT MATERIALS

Films

  • Annie Hall, 1977
  • A Single Man, 2009
  • Blow-up, 1966
  • Funny Face, 1957
  • Gilda, 1946
  • House of Elliot (TV Series) 1991 - 1994
  • La Dolce Vita, 1960
  • Pride and Prejudice (TV Series), 1995
  • Rear Window, 1954
  • The Cook, the Thief, his Wife and her Lover, featuring costumes designed by Jean Paul Gaultier, 1989
  • The Seven Year Itch, 1955


Magazines and Journals

If your institution has a subscription to the following journals, you will find many relevant articles for further reading within:

  • Fashion Theory
  • Fashion Practice

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ADDITIONAL DISCUSSION QUESTIONS AND TASKS

Find an image of a garment on the Berg Fashion Library that represents national identity to you. List five key elements that make your chosen garment a signifier of a particular national identity. Explain your reasoning.

Find images of garments on the Berg Fashion Library that are worn for the following reasons: modesty, decoration, to keep warm or to keep cool, and health/hygiene and answer the following questions for each:

  1. List five design reasons why you have chosen each garment for each category, for example, a high neckline and long sleeves could be design elements of a dress that evokes modesty.
  2. What kind of person would wear each of these garments? What do the garments tell us about the person that would wear them?

For students also taking a practical course or studying fashion design:

  1. Using the Berg Fashion Library and the set class readings as inspiration, design a new style of national dress or costume for the country in which you live.
  2. Using the Berg Fashion Library and the set class readings as inspiration, design an outfit that represents one of the following ideas and write a short paragraph explaining your design to accompany it.
  • Modesty
  • Health or Safety
  • Power/independence
  • Luxury or frivolity

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