Hurricanes and Clothes

            In this week’s blog I choose to focus the concept of clothing as a language as well as the concept of fashion as a commodity. The piece written by McCraken gave great insight about clothing and how it is a form of language which I felt had some interesting points that correlated with my trousseau dress. Also the Stallybrass article that looked at fashion and its relationship to the capitalist society spoke about fashion as a commodity and fetish which also is related to the trousseau dress.

            The McCraken article was interesting because it touched upon many numerous points however the overall theme of clothing as a form of language and how clothing communicates the language and culture of the time. McCraken states that clothing can be used as a means to study the cultural principles at the time. When looking at my trousseau dress I believe that the dress represents the etiquette that was expected from young women in the 19^th century following their wedding. The Trousseau dress was worn by women during the honeymoon and newlywed phase of the marriage. The women were expected to have the dress and in my research I found that the women were expected to wear the trousseau dress during their first hosting event in their new home. This cultural piece demonstrates how much emphasis was placed on the etiquette associated with the bride and what was expected of her after the wedding.

            The Stallybrass article hint many great points however a theme that I believed was the most important was that fashion was a commodity in culture. We see that this is present in our culture today in which there are tons of fashion shows, fashion magazines, and fashion districts all that are specifically designed to share the fashion culture with others. I believe that my trousseau dress was viewed as a commodity and many believed that in order to step out correctly in society following your marriage the woman needs to be in her trousseau dress. Fashion was a commodity in the 19^th century because it was a visual classification of social class and construction. The theme of Stallybrass’s article was that fashion is a commodity in culture and thus we should continue to pay attention to fashion in the past because they can teach us many lessons such as what was important at that moment in time. 

- Hope everyone is safe during the storm!