Clothes Representing Gender

Running head: CLOTHES REPRESENTING GENDER
CLOTHES REPRESENTING GENDER
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1CLOTHES REPRESENTING GENDER
This essay discusses the importance of garment for gender identity. Fashion clothes is
a matter of intense historical, sociological, anthropological as well as semiotic analysis in the
contemporary social theories. This phenomenon in fashion, the influence of which is
predictable from the famous cliché that the man is what the man wears, offers an intense, rich
and opulent set of garment options. It reveals multiple as well as unexpected ways through
which the concept of fashion becomes the part of tangible, tangible complicated, profound as
well as symbolic process of building a modern self, body, identity as well as the social
relations. The development of gender identity has been always a social construct where the
fashion or garment bear two factors of this specific configuration (Hollander, pp.139).
Fashion and clothes have become the part of social procedures of discrimination, the
production of the position of hierarchy as well as prestige in this deeply unequal society. The
aim of this essay is to sense various types pf human thoughts on the development of gender
through the fashion and clothing and define female alone with male appearance in the
evolution of different dress styles.
In his book ‘Clothes’, John Harvey has deployed his considerable scholarships along
with his intelligence on the topic which concerns all- that is the clothes one wears. He writes,
“clothes may help us to possess our soul, and we may place our soul within the clothes”
(Harvey, p. 11). The issue of clothes can be the question of life and death as the introductory
part of the book discloses that two young goths were beaten up due to their outlandishly
distinctive appearance and cloths. The clothes represent metaphor of either interpretation or
misinterpretation. With the progress of the society, science, economy and politics, people
started to look for a kind of blatant individual beauty. In the modern world, the refinement of
the highlighted personality is regarded by the people greatly. Therefore, sex in the designing
of garment has always been the complete factor with in the deliberation of the fashion
designers since the ancient time. Despite the fact in today’s world, the clothing fashion has

2CLOTHES REPRESENTING GENDER
become more neutral, in some cases the gap is more wide. In this modern western society, the
men’s clothes and the women’s clothes have become more alike but in the ancient time the
pattern style and the choices of colors were completely different from men to women
(Rokison, pp. 360). From the ancient times, the slandered of the traditional clothing have
emphasized the roles played by the men and worm. It was the identifying factor for both of
the gender. In the Elizabethan period, the idea of disguise was prevalent where most of the
comedies of Shakespeare have recorded the idea of cross dressing where the women used
man’s attire to change their identity in order to execute particular tasks only allowed for men
at that time.
Clothes have always been used as communication tool to present one’s status and
gender. Clothing of a human being is closely aligned with the gender and seen to be a part of
cultural constriction. The change in clothes can change the perspective, for example when a
Victorian woman wears trousers at home, she is seen to be very aggressive and dominating
especially going against the accepted norms of the society (Campbell, pp.405). This woman
is seen to be more masculine than her passive counterpart. Trousers has been considered to be
an attire of men therefore, comes with more masculine features. Therefore, it can be said that
the clothes themselves do not have any gender connotations but the society has put
definitions on them. Gendered dressing has been more complementary in role playing. The
trouser has masculinity and skirts denotes femininity. In addition to this, power relations are
more inextricably involved in clothing (Lindsey, pp.354). The women’s espousal of male
clothes represents an important readjustment of description of femininity. However, it is not
essentially a change in the current balance of power. The feminine males are often associated
with transgenderism or homosexuality. These assumptions by the society show to what extent
the cross-gendered dressing has been accepted and highlighted gender differences.

3CLOTHES REPRESENTING GENDER
As mentioned before, the definition of being men and women is strictly connected to
the appearances. This however changes with the change of region also. The clothes which are
accepted for the women in the western world, often worn traditionally by the men in different
countries. For example, ‘skirts’ is seen to be a feminine garment but worn by the men in West
Africa, Indonesia and Scotland. A tube form of clothes fitted in the waist is seen to be worn
by the men in West Africa, the Scottish skirt is worn in the social events for creating a social
as well as cultural identity stands for identification of masculinity. On the other hand, the
skirts mainly codpiece used to be worn by the Elizabethan and Jacobean men. In this context,
the portrait of Henry VIII by Hans Holbein the Younger can be discussed. The king of
Scotland and England in this portrait has worn stockings, shirt, doublets, breeches, hat and
jerkin. The use of ruff was prevalent in higher class men and women.