The Importance of Fashion in Early Modern England

The Importance of Fashion in Early Modern England

Kubin, Lindsay

Senior Seminar Thesis, Western Oregon University, May (2007)

Abstract

To twentieth century scholars the importance of cloth or clothing in society has often been debated. Its presence can be found in almost any society around the world at any point in history. In 1983 a conference entitled “Cloth and the Organization of the Human Experience” brought together scholars of anthropology, art, art history, and history to discuss the importance of cloth on people and societies. As one of these scholars put it cloth is “an economic commodity, a critical object in social exchange, an objectification of ritual intent, a vehicle of symbolic meaning, and an instrument of political power.” The participants of this conference concluded, “the language of cloth speaks not only to the creation and dissolution of personal and social identities but to wider issues of long-distance trade, colonialism, revolution, and nationalism.” Anthropologist Thomas Beidelman who was present at the conference stated his opinion that “cloth defines the limits and possibilities of people as actors in social relations” and added that “masking, hiding, and duplicity are equally important goals in the use of cloth.”