The Relationship between CLOTHING and IDENTITY

Clothing is a communicator of identity. What people wear expresses them. That is, clothes can tell a lot about a person. They help us define who that person is; and affect the way we think of that person. In other words, clothing style implies outstanding features of and distinctions among individuals. Those implications may be about individuals’ region (where they come from and/or live in), religion, occupation, gender or sexual orientation, closeness to or distance from a particular subgroup, economical status, and social class. In that sense, it can be claimed that clothing changes individuals’ perception about one another. First impression is very important when we meet someone; and clothing is very important in leaving the first impression. People first look at us, and consciously or unconsciously develop an image of us based primarily on our outlook. This phenomenon has been examined recently via a lot of social experiments. In those experiments, generally, an individual dresses in two ways: first like a homeless one; and then like a business person. Then, the person pretends that s/he needs help. It is observed in most cases that people tend to help the business person much more than they help the homeless one. The question of why this happens leads us to the fact that clothing does have an influence on our perception of and attitude toward others. 

(For the experiments, please check these out:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5CvGJds6DQ  - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuxOrCoYnV0 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gSfS-ZR1Ek)

Most of the time, we apply to stereotypes while forming first impressions about someone we have just encountered. For example, if a person is well-dressed and well-groomed, then we perceive that person as having a good occupation. On the contrary, if a person is in causal or dirty clothes and looks self-careless, then we perceive that person as living in bad conditions, as a homeless one, or sometimes as a beggar. (Do you agree? Let’s check how good you are at forming first impression based on the outlook! Go to http://tinyurl.com/3zkbvxc) Stereotypical clothing is not a recent phenomenon, though. The saying "Clothes make the man" is related to a very old concept of ‘dressing for success’ It suggests that what a professional person wears distinguishes him or her from a labourer or worker belonging to a lower class in the society. Therefore, clothing has been given a great amount of importance by the individuals who want to express their qualifications through their clothes. 

     I believe that stereotypical clothes are part of individuals’ social identities. That is, people who conform to the society’s clothing stereotypes imply that they are like the others in the society. However, when an individual goes out of this stereotype, it reflects his/her personal identity. That is, people who reject the stereotypical clothes imply that they are not like others and that they do not bother being a part of them. I have recently come across a gallery on Onedio about a Suudi princess, Deena Abdülaziz, who breaks the stereotype that all people have in their mind about the way Suudi women dress. (For the original gallery in Turkish, go to http://tinyurl.com/jgrey2m) We immediately imagine women in chadors when we think about Saudi women. However, Saudi princess Deena Abdülaziz is far from the stereotypical Saudi women image. She has an original sense of fashion on her own. She has even founded her own boutique where she displays her own clothing style. This helps her easily convey her identity to everybody else. That is, her clothes at least imply that she is not just one of the other Saudi women who hide their identities under their chadors and get lost in that stereotype. Rather, she prefers to reflect herself, her differences, and her identity via her clothes.

This is Deena Abdülaziz

She  is a bride of the Saudi loyal family,
so she is a Saudi princess

However, she does not look like how most of us think first about Saudi women.

Rather, she has her own understanding of style
and she loves expressing herself in her own way

Since culture, clothing, and identity are all related to one another, a change in one of them leads to changes in the others, as well. As we know, clothing reflects the cultural values of a particular period of time. As time passes, some changes may occur in terms of the culture of a society. These changes are reflected through the changes in clothing styles of people living in that particular time. For example, the Renaissance was the period of various radical changes and developments in many areas of life, from intellectuality to economy and education to aesthetics, etc. All those changes and developments consequently led changes in the clothing styles of Renaissance people. As mirrors spread during this period, people became more interested in how they appear from outside and how they are perceived by others. This led people, particularly men, to prefer tighter clothes in order to show off their body forms after the transformation of tailoring into cutting and sewing. It can be concluded that changes in that particular era served for individuals to express their social identities through how and what they wore.  

To conclude; 

First, identity is a controversial concept and each individual should come up with their own definitions of it. This concept covers various features about individuals such as age, sex, gender, roles, and networks, and so on. Also, everybody is responsible for creating their personal and social identities.

Second, the concept of clothing also covers a wide range of features from body modifications and supplementations to hair and skin colour of individuals, and more. Clothing is constantly changing in accordance with the changes in other parts of the culture and society.

Lastly, the concepts of identity and clothing, and also culture are all interrelated to one another. Clothing is an indicator of identity. That is, clothes reflect their wearer’s identity to some extent. Though there may be stereotypes about certain clothing styles, there are also many people who can go out of those stereotypes. If we want to express our personal identity through what we wear, we should first try to figure out who we are and who we are not so that we do not just copy others in order to look impressive and/or outstanding.