The difference between Fashion and Clothes, Gentle Reader, is often the difference between audience and intent.
We wear clothes; we own fashion. We live in clothes; we thrive in fashion.
So many people believe fashion is unncessary, a weakness decidedly and dismissively feminine in its audience, its appeal, and its importance. Why should it matter, some might say, to think smartly and engagingly about clothing?
Scholar Anne Hollander, in her book Seeing Through Clothes argues that we, as a society, are more comfortable clothed than naked. This so-called “natural state,” the birthday suit, if you will, is the anomaly, not the clothing we wear to cover it, or the fashion we wear to decorate and enhance it.
Let us begin to think smartly and engagingly about fashion and clothes, about corsets and bustles. About suffragettes and writing, reading good books and important books, and yes, Dear Friend, about hats and gloves and other useless things.
I do so love useless things. They are so very… useful.
Like what you’ve read? Visit my website: The Life and Times of the Postmodern Bluestocking.
The Postmodern Bluestocking 