BLOG 1- Aayushi Dhawan
After watching a number of better lives lectures, and even attending some, the lecture that caught my interest the most was the Katelyn Toth-Fejel’s society lecture. Katelyn stated, “Dressing is considered as a social act.” and this immediately got me think why did she say so I started thinking to myself that do we not dress up for ourselves? Cause that’s what I always thought that we dress up well to please ourselves and not others. That’s when she quoted Hughes, Michael and Carolyn J. Kroehler (2008), “Each of us is a social being. We are born into a social environment; we fully develop in to human beings in a social environment; and we live our lives in a social environment. What we think, how we feel, and what we say and do all are shaped by our interactions with other people.” And that’s when I started understanding that we human beings are a part of a social environment where we are in some way or the other being judged by the society and somewhere we judge others too and this is usually influenced by our interaction with other people and in my head I thought that maybe this could be one of the reasons why Katelyn said that dressing up is reflected as a social act.
Further in the lecture she explained that dressing is a social act where we create and express identity and this is communicated by aesthetic taste, beauty or sex appeal, wealth, status or belonging to a certain social group, religion, ceremony or ritual etc. and this further explained that why do we dress up in a certain manner and how different communities dress up differently.
With clothes catering to different sets of people in the society with different needs, fast fashion was formed, and this became a problematic factor not only to the society but also to the environment. Fast fashion means cheap clothing which is affordable to the masses as these clothing’s are not very expensive, people tend to underutilize them, and they are thrown away, which creates a lot of unwanted waste. I myself know so many people that shop clothes from primark and just wear it once in a social environment and then never wear it again as it has been seen by the masses and it cannot be repeated again, and that is because they fear of being judged to repeat their clothing. I learnt about this when I moved to London to study. Back in India I would say most of us over utilize clothes, by first wearing them ourselves till the time aren’t worn out and then they are passed to our house helps or those in need or else they are used as a cloth to clean floor or platforms.
Katelyn quoted Daniel Miller who stated that “people dress in ways also to spread joy, care, and safety, to express anxiety and caution.” She explained that safety could be interpreted as the need to be dry, warm or comfortable. Which made me understand that not all dress up to cater the needs or the expectations of the society, they dress up to cater the needs of themselves and their comforts.
REFRENCES
Hughes, Michael, and Carolyn J. Kroehler (2008) Sociology: The Core. 8th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill.
Toth-Fejel, K. (2020) ‘Sustainability and Society’ [Lecture]. Better Lives, London College of Fashion, 19 February.