Dress to Digress

What does it mean to be fashionable? Why does it seem like wearing dresses made of money, or obscure looking pants, or hats that no one has seen in almost a hundred years has such a profound effect on how people look at it, who wears it, and what it means to be "in-style." We change our styles from time to time, buy new clothes, and see what matches what, but really, who are we trying to impress? The way a person will dress says a lot about their character, what they might do for a living, how much money they have (or don't), where they're probably going or coming from, and whether or not they look like that everyday will depend on their character.

Bill Cunningham New York was a documentary focusing around the life of fashion photographer Bill Cunningham who'd been taking countless photographs of men and women on the streets of New York for decades. Yet, he does not photograph anyone. He looks for the clothes, the hats, the shoes, and trousers. He's out looking for individuals who aren't afraid or ashamed to stand out from the norm of how people dress to express their character in a barrage of colors, styles, and complete disregard for the modern day suit-and-tie image that is seen everywhere everyday. Cunningham had built a reputation with some of the oldest and well known fashion designers of his time (and he's a pretty old dude). He's seen all the styles before and he looks for copies and inspirations. What some people had claimed to have just designed, he will send a photograph of the same outfit or pattern from his collection that he'd taken nearly 50 years before.

Bill wasn't social from what I could tell. Nobody who knew him could say much about him. He didn't talk, he only photographed. He was old-fashioned and used an old camera with film prints, physically cutting out and laying photos on a magazine spread. Yes, he was different, but what Cunningham was looking for had said a statement about modern society; that modern society was really losing it's form for what was different, that people all look the same, and wonder why people feel the need to dress to fit in or to look "neutral."

In T.R. Fyvel's article, "Fashion and Revolt," Fyvel suggests that fashion revolt dated back to the post-war English culture of the 1940's in response to American styles. Fashion was seen a social protest had involved individuals dressing how they liked, regardless of reaction or public opinion. These individuals were often seen as the rejects, the groups that were not respectable, and not socially acceptable. At first, they almost seemed like a gang by dressing the same and representing the counter-culture of the era, but as time had progressed by the 1950's, it was clear to society that even after years of continual use of the "Teddy-boy" style, that youth groups of unskilled and poor workers would no longer be exempt from the society that offered pleasures to the wealthy and the famous who dressed "appropriately with class." They would instead be found as conservative rebels who were "cool" for the first time ever. The styles of the Teddy-boy were altered and changed with time to produce attractive fashion styles for both men and women bringing together the perfect mix of the working class meets first class clothing. It wasn't formal, but it wasn't ugly, they wore these clothes on a daily basis which grew rather attractive to the one's in rags, and the first class women who were taught to dress proper their whole lives.

The way people dressed had allowed the way other people to expand on who exactly this person is, why they dress the way they do, to deem them socially acceptable or not. If you can't change your social class, change your clothes. "...Even in the dead-end districts of London, there had been radical social change. Boys and youths working in unskilled jobs were no longer loutish but searching to take part in ordinary mid-twentieth century city life." (Fyvel, 287) Fyvel's quote describes the result of the fashion revolt of the Teddy boy culture of the post-war society. It had brought on a new era of how people were expected to dress, how one could choose what to wear without care or worry of what others thought.

Like other forms of sub-culture, the fashion induced members of society are looking for an identity within their clothes the same way graffiti artists look for one in their name and their paint. Even if fashion is more of a victim-less crime than graffiti or the sex-trade, it offers a place for individuals looking to be the same, looking to be different, to be formal, be casual, be rich, or poor. Clothes offers the person a chance to represent their identity through physical subtly and threads, it even offers the chance to be someone you're not, even if only for a short while.