Fragments of a Fashionable Discourse

This article was really interesting! One of the ideas that I found particularly intriguing is that idea the 'gender specific' clothats at one point never really exsisted. For me, it isreally difficult to imagine our world with no stereotypes about what one should wear because of gender. It is really interesting to think that at one time clothes were the way in which people defined social status and not the lens through which people were judeged, as often the case is today. Although clothing today may give others a clue about what class you belong to, fashions today for mand and women are much differend where as in the 16th and 17th centuries it was harder to distinguish. Although Silverman pointed out that more 'gender specific' clothing appeared as the "volunimous clothing and elaborate wigs of noblemen slowly dwindled," I still find myself asking the questions: Where did the sterotypes in fashion come from? Today, it seems as if clothing has become another way in which society presses its stereotypes upon individuals as some fashions are seen as accepted on only some genders. I also find it interesting to think about the fact that these 'normalcies' of fashion and clothing vary by country and culture.

Another section of this article which I sfound significan was the affect that clothing has on proclamtations of sexual identity. Silverman states that, "Clothing exercises as profoundly determining an influence upon living , breathing human bodies as it does upon their literary and cinematic counterparts [...] Dress in one of the most important cultural implements for articulating and territorializing human cororeality -for mapping out its erotogenic zones and for affixing a sexual identity." It is a really interesting reminder to think about the affects that clothing has on our society and how it is used by society to define aspects of our living. Clothing is used by society to define groups of individuals and make it easier for them to identify with eachother; clothing also play a role in declaration of sexual identity as clothing has become a way through which indeividuals both define and identify themselves. In our culture, it seems as if there are imaginare boundries drawn to define the clothing that can we worn by different genders; and it also seems that whenever those boundries are crossed, judegement and condemnation is immediate. Although I can see how the different catagories and definitions of clothing help us identify with eachother better and help humans organize themselves, I also feel that these seperations can have negative affects as well. But my question is WHY? Why is it acceptable for some people to wear certain clothes and not others? Where did the mindsets come from?