Global Fashion and Culture

     Global fashion and culture might be a topic that you've seen here or there and that applies more to your life than you likely know. Maybe it was about fashion week, maybe a social media post about why someone may wear a headdress, or maybe even gossip in the hallways. In this blog, we’ll talk about fashion, culture, and more in terms of the whole world.

One may say that fashion is a generalized behavioral phenomenon. It is expressive dress that is socially and culturally supported that changes over time within a group of people. However, depending on what you’re studying, or your experiences are, I think there can be many different definitions. Global fashion has much more art and subjectiveness than many other areas of study. I can say that all types of dress can be influenced and may be influencing others. For example, that political shirt your mentor is wearing may influence you to think about your values in a similar way. Or a traumatic event in your life may lead you to dress in baggier clothes with dark colors.

That brings me to globalization. Now that we have such quick ways to communicate across the world, we are open to so many more cultures and their ways of thinking. We can delve into someone else’s culture, and they can do the same for us. This causes a lot of cultures to start to blend. Culture is sharing values, tools, or other things with people from the same time and in the same area in order to better survive. We might start to have the same values as someone from across the world because of the feeling of proximity with technology. Although I do not want to see anyone’s culture disappear, I think it is a great thing to start to understand the people whom we share this beautiful planet with. On top of that, coming closer to a global culture does not mean that individual groups of people can’t have things that are still dear to them even if the whole world doesn’t feel the same way.

I believe that globalization supports cultural authentication. Cultural authentication is when one culture takes a form of dress from a different one and tweaks it so it fits their needs better. When we are being exposed to so many things because of the internet or in older days, letters and books, humans are bound to get ideas. Learning about other cultures and their day-to-day lives is certainly what influences others to make similar things that fit their own cultures.

Dress can be non-verbal communication. When you get out of bed feeling sick, you might wear sweatpants and a hoodie. People who know you could probably gather, just from your dress, that you’re not feeling well. Pre-conceived notions can change the way that this is interpreted. Someone who bases people’s value off of their clothes may gather that you are a lazy person who doesn’t care about appearances. This goes to show communication through dress can be unreliable and incorrectly interpreted. For instance, someone from a western culture may see pictures of a funeral where some guests are wearing white and assume that it is kind of rude and odd.  However, that’s not the case at all because in some Asian cultures, white signals mourning. With that being said, using dress as non-verbal communication can also be a very valuable asset in the world, it just has to be taken carefully.

Resources

A complete guide to traditional Chinese funeral customs. Dignity Memorial. (n.d.). https://www.dignitymemorial.com/memorial-services/funeral-traditions/chinese-funeral-traditions 

Evenson, Sandra Lee. "Dress and Identity." Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion: Global Perspectives. Ed. Joanne B. Eicher and Phyllis G. Tortora. Oxford: Berg, 2010. 52–58. Bloomsbury Fashion Central. Web. 15 Nov. 2020.

Johnson, Kim K.P., and Sharon Lennon. "The Social Psychology of Dress." Bibliographical Guides. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015. Bloomsbury Fashion Central. Web. 15 Nov. 2020.