Dress for Success(ful Cultural Interrogation)

The western ideal of clothing is couture: One garment being made to fit one woman perfectly at one moment in her life. A more eastern approach to clothing is you have a big piece of fabric and you wrap it around you in some way. Therefore the whole concept of fit is completely different. Having a more open approach to fit allows things to be shared much more.

 

Amy Twigger Holroyd speaks in Grist about clothing, but the implications of this seemingly straightforward observation – the inferences one can draw about philosophy, psychology, and culture – are tremendous.

Conventional historical narratives are those of great men, dominated by warfare.  The process of expanding our understanding of other times and places to include the dailiness of life is still ongoing, and the accoutrements of the domestic sphere – such femininities as cooking and clothing – are often the last to find inclusion.  It’s too bad, because as this quote so succinctly demonstrates, those mundane domestic details can be richly embedded with history, culture, and thought.