Fashion Culture. Sociological studies of fashion tend to relate the studies of fashion to two central sociological themes: social control and social change. Sociologists who have dealt with fashion as a mechanism of social control have focused their attention on the relationship between fashion and custom. The question is to what extent fashion is oriented towards innovation (departure from established custom) and to what extent it is a mechanism of convention. Fashion as a mode of social control can be structured around many issues.

Sociological studies of fashion tend to relate the studies of fashion to two central sociological themes: social control and social change.

Sociologists who have dealt with fashion as a mechanism of social control have focused their attention on the relationship between fashion and custom.

The question is to what extent fashion is oriented towards innovation (departure from established custom) and to what extent it is a mechanism of convention.

1) the relationship between fashion and social stratification: does fashion mirror the social structure or does it represent an equalising force? is fashion an exculsionary (and exclusive) discourse originated by the mainstream élite, or does it give voice to marginalised discourses?

2) the functions, ideological meanings, and rationale of the uniform in general, school uniform in particular. (this section will involve a group research project that would provide illustration of ideological critique through critical discourse analysis).

3) body alterations (tattoo, piercing, cosmetic surgery): is it a discourse of empowerment and control over one's body, or is it locked into the terms of reference of patriarchal ideology.

Theorists from Veblen to Simmel (trickle down or conspicuous consumption theories) regard differentiation and stratification as essential preconditions of fashion. Others like Smelser and Blumer regard fashion as an expression of collective behaviour: a movement that is not concerned about a change in the social order, but confines itself to "positive wish fulfilment". People follow fashion not in order to imitate their social superiors, but because they want to be "in fashion" as capturing the mood of the times.

As opposed to class stratification theorists who see fashion as a means by the elite to distinguish themselves (whose subsequent change occurs when the lower strata start emulating those fashions, when they trickle down and are no longer exclusive). Some theorists (e.g. Davis) point out that not only do fashions fail to trickle down, but often the inspiration for new fashions start from the street. Others (e.g. Crane) argue that consumer society replaced class with "lifestyle groups". Still others, like Bourdieu and Baudrillard see social hierarchy reflected in subtle practices of education and consumption that underlie apparent social change.

Thanks to course document on the sociology of fashion at University College Dublin. Professor Efrat Tseëlon - efrat.tseelon@ucd.ie, ucd.ie/sociolog/sociologyinfo/PBL/html/efrat.html

Clothing styles are carriers of a wide range of ideological agendas. For centuries uniforms have been used to impose social identities on more or less willing subjects. This form of social control was increasingly evident in the nineteenth century through the imposition of uniforms and dress codes. To the traditional (e.g. military, religious) form new types of occupational clothing were added replacing traditional forms that hed disappeared. With the simplification of upper and middle class clothing in the course of the nineteenth century, uniforms were used to express social distinctions and status boundaries that could no longer be expressed as blatantly in regular attire. The major categories of uniforms that existed during this period were: uniforms of public servants, occupational clothes of private empolyers, domestic servants, students. Unlike the first three categories, school uniforms, especially for girls, did signify "alternative dress" and "marginal public space".

Crane, Diane (2000). Fashion and its social agendas: class gender and identity in clothing. Chicago University Press.

Simmel, Georg (1904/1957). Fashion. International Quarterly, 10, 130-155. Reprinted in American Journal of Sociology, 62, 541-558.

Blumer, Herbert (1969). Fashion: From class differentiation to collective selection. Sociological Quarterly, 10, 275-291.

Davis, Fred (1991). Herbert Blumer and the study of fashion: a reminiscence and a critique. Symbolic Interaction, 14, 1-21.

Horowitz, Tamar (1975). From élite fashion to mass fashion. Archives Europeenes de Sociologie, 16, 283-295.

McRobbie, Angela (1989) Second-hand dresses and the role of the ragmarket. In A. McRobbie (ed.) Zoot suits and second hand dresses: An anthology of fashion and music. London: Macmillan.

Crane, Diane (1999). Clothing behaviour as non-verbal resistance: Marginal women and alternative dress in the nineteenth century. Fashion Theory, 3, 241-268.

Walsh, Margaret (1979). The democratization of fashion: The emergence of the women's dress pattern industry. Journal of American History, 66, 299-313.

Crane, Diane (2000). Fashion and its social agendas: class, gender, and identity in clothing. University of Chicago Press. (pp 87-95).

Abler, Thomas S. (1999). Hinterland warriors and military dress: European empires and exotic uniforms. Oxford: Berg.

Roche, Daniel (1994). The culture of clothing: Dress and fashion in Ancient Regim. Cambridge. (ch. 9: the discipline of appearances: the prestige of uniform).

Ewin, Elizabeth (1975). Women in uniform through the centuries. Totowa: NJ: Rowan and Littlefield.

Maynard, Margaret (1995). Fashioned from penury: Dress as cultural practice in colonial Australia. Cambridge UP.

Joseph, Nathan (1986). Uniforms and nonuniforms: Communication through clothing. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

Joseph, Nathan and Alex Nicholas (1972). The uniform: A sociological perspective. American Journal of Sociology, 77, 719-730.

McVeigh, Brian (1997). Wearing ideology: how uniforms discipline minds and bodies in Japan. Fashion Theory, 1, 189-213.

McVeigh, Brian (2000). Wearing ideology: The uniformity of self-presentation in Japan. Oxford, Berg.

Harte, N. B. (1976). State control of dress and social change in pre-industrial England. In D. D. Cleman and A. H. John (eds.) Trade, government and economy in pre-industrial England. London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson.

Hunt Alan (1996). Governance of the consuming passions - A history of sumptuary laws. London: Macmillan.

Johnson, Kim K. P. and Lennon Sharon J. (1999). Appearance and power. Oxford: Berg.

Hodder, Ian (ed.) (1989). The meaning of things: Material culture and symbolic expression. London: Unwin Hyman.

Appearance has been repeatedly shown to have a potent and immediate effect on others in a wide range of circumstances. In particular women's appearance seems to have a key role to self and identity. "a woman is made to feel continually insecure about her physical appearance, and simultaneously so dependent on it " (Chapkis, 1986, p. 140). Women (and to some extent men) are willing to go to dangerous lengths and to endure painful procedures to 'improve' and alter their appearance.

The increasing popularity of practices of body modifications such as dieting, tattoing, piercing and cosmetic surgery attests to theimportance of appearance in social relations. But some of the participants in such practices claim to be resisting rather than reifying hegemonic influences.

Cahill Sharon and Riley Sarah (2001). Resistances and reconciliations: Women and body art. In Guy Ali, Green Eileen, and Banim Maura (eds) Through the wardrobe: Women's relationships with their clothes. Oxford: Berg.

Biggs, T. M., Cukier, J., & Worthing, L. F. (1982). Augmentation mammaplasty: A review of 18 years. Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, 69(3), 445-450.

Gilman, Sander (1999). Making the body beautiful: A cultural history of aesthetic surgery. Princeston University Press.

Haikin, Elizabeth (1997). Venus envy: A history of cosmetic surgery. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Davis Kathy (1997). My body is my art: Cosmetic surgery as feminist utopia, European Journal of Women's Studies, 4, 23-27.

McCorquodale, Duncan (ed.) (1996). Orlan: This is my body...this is my software. London: Black dog.

Orlan (1995). I do not want to look like...: Orlan on becoming-Orlan, Women's Art Magazine, 64, 5-10.

Ince, Kate (1998). Operations of redress: Orlan, the body and its limits. Fashion Theory, 2, 111-127.

Gotch, Christopher and Scutt Ronald (1974). Skin deep: The mystery of tattooing. London: Peter Davies.

Moos, David (1996). Memories of being: Orlan's theater of the self, Art & Text, 54, 66-73.

Marcia-Lees, Frances, Sharpe, Patricia (eds) (1992). Tattoo, torture, mutilation and adornment: the denaturalization of the body in culture and text. State University of NY Press.

Mifflin, Margot (1997). Bodies of subversion: a secret history of women and tattoo. Juno.

Rubin Arnold (ed) (1995). Masks of civilization: artistic transformations of the human body. California University Press.

Rufus, C. Camphausen (1997). Return of the tribal: a celebration of body adornment: piercing, tattooing, scarification, body painting. Inner Traditions Intl ltd

Sanders, Clinton R. (1989). Customizing the body: The art and culture of tatooing. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Consuming brotherhood: men's culture, style and recreation as consumer culture, 1880-1930. - In her exploration of the historical relationship between American men and cosmetics, Kathy Peiss outlines how the late-nineteenth and early twentieth-century discourse of heterosexual masculinity denied and covered up men's cosmetics use by defining men's numerous grooming products as toiletries rather than cosmetics or beauty products. This denial of the feminine "other" lurking within men was so sustained and successful that it became a "self-evident statement" of twentieth-century culture that "real men" do not use cosmetics. findarticles.com/cf_0/m2005/n4_v31/20870387/p1/article.jhtml?term=sociology

The fashion industry has always celebrated innovative design and young talented fashion designers can make a huge impact as they explore new ideas and push boundaries.

This book showcases the diverse and unique work of the best 100 new creatives in fashion design from around the world. These designers are characterized by their single-minded interpretation of clothing and their ambition to present alternative solutions in dressing for their customers. The book focuses on designers still in the first decade of their career either working alone on their own label or brand or teamed up into small companies showcasing collections. As well as pinpointing the best new talent worldwide this visually stunning survey provides a comprehensive showcase of cutting-edge imagery including original design work drawings and photography.

The ultimate reference guide to the world's movers and shakers in fashion today this is a book all fashionistas will want to own.

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Some Wore Bobby Sox : The Emergence of Teenage Girls' Culture, 1920-1945 (Girls' History and Culture) (June 26, 2004)
Book by Kelly Schrum
Images of teenage girls in poodle skirts dominated American popular culture on the 1950's. But as Kelly Schrum shows, teenage girls were swooning over pop idols and using their allowances to buy the latest fashions well beforehand. After World War I, a teenage identity arose in the US, as well as a consumer culture geared toward it. From fashion and beauty to music and movies, high school girls both consumed and influenced what manufacturers, marketers, and retailers offered to them. Examining both national trends and individual lives, Schrum looks at the relationship between the power of consumer culture and the ability of girls to selectively accept, reject, and appropriate consumer goods. Lavishly illustrated with images from advertisements, catalogs, and high school year books, Some Wore Bobby Sox is a unique and fascinating cultural history of teenage girl culture in the middle of the century.

Nothing in Itself: Complexions of Fashion (Theories of Contemporary Culture) Book by Blau Herbert, Herbert Blau, Herbert Blau
Beyond the theatricality of fashion, or its commerce, are other seductive issues that come with dress in its fascination-effect, including the validities, vanities, and deceits of appearance. No more than appearance, "nothing in itself," that fashion has substance, complex and elusive substance, is the thematic of this book, putting another complexion on the subject, the look, and the look that incites the look, in high style, street style, classical elegance or fetishistic chic, from farthingale and corset to power suits and grunge.

Fashion Cultures: Theories, Explorations, and Analysis
Book by Stella Bruzzi (Editor), Pamela Church Gibson (Editor)
From the catwalk to the shopping mall, from the big screen to the art museum, fashion plays an increasingly central role in contemporary culture. Fashion Cultures investigates why we are so fascinated by fashion and the associated spheres of photography, magazines and television, and shopping.
Stella Bruzzi is Senior Lecturer in Media Arts at Royal Holloway College.

A Matter of Taste : How Names, Fashions, and Culture Change Book by Stanley Lieberson
Social scientists have long been interested in the question of how notions of taste and fashion change over time. Do aesthetic judgments reflect external forces such as state policies, class stratification, or commercial advertising, or are these judgments informed by largely subjective factors that are difficult to pin down in scientific terms? Lieberson (sociology, Harvard) has written a subtle and technically sophisticated analysis of changes in taste by examining the cultural patterns influencing the first names given to children in the past two centuries. As Lieberson notes, "compared with fashions in clothing, cars, and sodas, the naming process can be studied without worrying about the effect of organizations dedicated to influencing these tastes." While he acknowledges the impact of external forces on name selection (the emergence of popular movie stars, for example), he emphasizes the importance of "internal taste mechanisms" that shape fashion "even when external conditions are fixed." This carefully reasoned study should be of interest to sociologists, historians, and students of cultural studies. Recommended for academic libraries.DKent Worcester, Marymount Manhattan Coll., New York
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Stanley Lieberson is Abbott Lawrence Lowell Professor of Sociology at Harvard University.

Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations
Book by Christopher Lasch
Fantastic reading !, April 23, 2005
Reviewer: Richard Skaff "Rick S" (Rancho Palos verdes, Ca United States)
Christopher lasch has touched a very sensistive social nerve in his book "The Culture Of Narcissism." He gives the reader the awareness of living in a society that has become increasingly self-absorbed, out of touch with its past and future, and totally focused on the moment where everyone is seeking decadence and immediate self-gratification. I strongly believe that the narcissism in our culture is the direct result of the combination of consumerism and individualism that are both advocated for by the corporate elite and the politicians. The end result is profits !!! Mr. Lasch's book is a powerful and accurate portrayal of an ailing society heading toward disaster....
I would highly recommend this book for every American that is interested in comprehending himself and his society. It will surely provide the reader with an educational experience and an electrifying reading!

He created a concept , March 1, 2005
Reviewer: S. Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel)
In this book Lasch defines a cultural reality and reveals a concept the Western world is living with, and to a degree suffering from today ' cultural narcissism'. Lasch saw that the whole culture built around ' self - centeredness' is less than healthy. He saw that the focusing of ' the me generation' on themselves led to a more fragile and broken America. Those willing to put themselves first and nothing else second were the same people who broke marriages easily, readily used friends and discarded them.
Individualism carried to extreme and self- indulgence upon which no limit is placed are the heart of the culture of narcissim that we are in some sense still living with today.

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Fashion, Culture, and Identity
Book by Fred Davis
Davis (emeritus professor of sociology, Univ. of California-San Diego) discusses several intriguing theories about fashion's social and psychological significance in modern culture. What makes clothes fashion; how fashions evolve; how fashion choices express social status, gender identity, sexuality, and conformity; and how fashion is (or is not) accepted are all discussed, Davis having reviewed over 200 sources of writings by social scientists and fashion students. Especially good is the chapter on the dynamics of certain groups' intentional resistance to fashion. Davis does propose a few of his own ideas, always backed up by the literature. The work would have been enlivened by increased emphasis on Davis's actual interviews with designers, editors, and manufacturers, whose opinions are only briefly summarized. This book is a good basis for further reading, but lay readers will need handy access to an unabridged dictionary to cope with the scholarly language. For academic and specialized collections.
- Therese D. Baker, Western Kentucky Univ. Libs., Bowling Green
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
What do our clothes say about who we are or who we think we are? How does the way we dress communicate messages about our identity? Is the desire to be "in fashion" universal, or is it unique to Western culture? How do fashions change? These are just a few of the intriguing questions Fred Davis sets out to answer in this provocative look at what we do with our clothes--and what they can do to us.
Much of what we assume to be individual preference, Davis shows, really reflects deeper social and cultural forces. Ours is an ambivalent social world, characterized by tensions over gender roles, social status, and the expression of sexuality. Predicting what people will wear becomes a risky gamble when the link between private self and public persona can be so unstable.

Social Communication in Advertising: Persons, Products and Images of Well-Being
Book by William Leiss, Stephen Kline, Sut Jhally
Now available in a significantly updated second edition featuring two new chapters, Social Communication in Advertising remains the most comprehensive historical study of advertising and its function within contemporary society. It traces advertising's influence within three key social domains: the new commodities industry; popular culture; and the mass media which manages the constellation of images that unifies all three.

Consumers and Luxury : Consumer Culture in Europe 1650-1850
Book by Maxine Berg (Editor), Helen Clifford (Editor)
From tulips to jewels, gastronomy to silver, coffee to colors, the late seventeenth century and the eighteenth century saw an explosion of consumer and luxury objects and a growing demand for their consumption by a widening section of the population. This highly entertaining and interdisciplinary volume brings together an outstanding group of scholars to chart the rise of consumer culture in Europe during this period. The volume includes essays on France and Holland, but the focus is primarily on Britain.

Beauty and Business: Commerce, Gender, and Culture in Modern America (Hagley Perspectives on Business and Culture)
Book by Philip Scranton (Editor)
"Until recently, business historians have not yielded to beauty - at least as a subject of scholarly inquiry. But beauty is big business." - Kathy Peiss, from the Introduction
Beauty seems simple; we know it when we see it. But of course our ideas about what is attractive are influenced by a broad range of social and economic factors, and in Beauty and Business leading historians set out to provide this important cultural context. How have retailers shaped popular consciousness about beauty? And how, in turn, have cultural assumptions influenced the commodification of beauty? The contributors here look to particular examples in order to address these questions, turning their attention to topics ranging from the social role of the African American hair salon, the sexual dynamics of bathing suits and shirtcollars, and the deeper meanings of corsets, to what the Avon lady tells us about changing American values. As a whole, these essays force us to reckon with the ways that beauty has been made, bought, and sold in modern America.

Buzz: Harness the Power of Influence and Create Demand (April 18, 2003)
Book by Marian Salzman, Ira Matathia, Ann O'Reilly
"Marian Salzman has a knack for telling you what you'll be doing before you know it yourself." (The Observer, 29 June 2003)
"...an enjoyable read, liberarally peppered with illuminating and insightful case studies..." (Marketing, 3 July 2003)
“ …well covered…”(Gulf Business, July 2003)
“…brand owners must get their wares talked about. The question is: how? The authors of Buzz... believe they have an answer…”(Financial Times, 24 July 2003)

In the Culture Society: Art, Fashion and Popular Music
Book by Angela McRobbie
We may be living in a material world, but Angela McRobbie pinpoints a "new materialism" in In the Culture Society. She provides a lively, incisive look at how different artistic and cultural practices develop in contemporary consumer culture, by examining the new populism of young artists such as Damien Hirst and Tracy Emin and the proliferation of underground forms of dance music.