random thought on the non-aesthetic determinants of fashion

There were a few random blog postings and reports on the nature of Islamic decrees on the apparel of women (and the presumptive demands of a younger majority in a country like Iran). Since I myself have no intention of expressing opinions on the aesthetics of high fashion, as in what supposedly looks "good" or "fashionable", I shall confine myself to deliberations over the cultural and individual determinations, the sort of war between the two where individuals actually select what to adorn their bodies with in the company of others.

Firstly, we have a cultural expectation. There are some cognitive advantages to this in that we are able with furtive glances to decide the character, occupation, or some other vital attribute. The difficulty is that such attributes are really only those which another person wishes to share (which could be very confusing on its own if a person decided to appear as a doctor in a moment of medical crisis, but was not actually licensed to practice medicine). Piled upon this problem is the nature of perceptions. We are left to determine what we think another person would think or presume upon looking at our clothing selections (or, in some versions, lack thereof). This is a difficult consideration, if not impossible, given the variations of people, and their various expectations of what we would/should/could/have to wear.

Bound up in all of that messy illogical consideration is a mild to severe gender gap problem. For example, it is possible as a male to generate attention or condemnation on our attire. But it tends to require several deviations more away from some credible norm before such attention is roughly comparable to that created by a woman's choice of attire. As in a particularly nice suit worthy of its own commentary, a Hawaiian shirt at a business meeting, or whatever it is that is considered "flaming homosexual" attire that month. Yet there is such a general requirement of conformity upon male attire that it pretty much all looks the same anyway. The subtle variations between casual and business casual are lost upon me. They draw commentary only where the distinction somehow impunes a person's character with a perception of un-professionalism. This sort of commentary is in fact never made in direct statements of a sort like "go buy better clothes". It's more like "you don't fit in here". By contrast, it seems that with all the attention that is lauded fairly or not upon a woman's attire, she has much greater flexibility on how to actually accede to the cultural norms (at least in a society like this one where she doesn't have to cover her entire body with cloth). There is not a strong repulsion to women wearing men's clothing for professional purposes (though there is of course, some commentary to this effect). But there is a strong repulsion to cross-dressing. I find it difficult to make sense of this, a paradox of sorts. Women have more attention paid to clothing choices, but effectively have more options. Men have no attention but have few options.

I say this issue with "few options" not for the idea that men should seek to wear women's fashion or to adopt the level of scrutiny involved, but really that it seems like it's reasonably harmless manner of self-expression to select YOUR OWN fashionable demands rather than to conform to some strict social norm. For some reason it's more socially acceptable to get a tattoo than to buy a "loud" shirt (whatever that means). Clothing is to me a tremendous pain in the ass. I tend to leave it up to various holidays throughout the year to replenish my wardrobe, without a great deal of thought as to what it is composed of (beyond trying to avoid advertising for anyone or anything). And thus it would seem that the image that would create is illegible or incoherent. It's certainly not one that I feel compelled to put any serious thought into. I'm not sure what expression that conveys to the general public, when I have cause to bump into the public. But the notion that someone else should tell me what I have to wear to satisfy their demands of what I should look like is tremendously repellent.

I have no idea how to square that paradox either. That I should care that much about a problem I don't actually give a damn about. But in terms of something like Islamic hijab, I have some thoughts. It doesn't look like it's actually something that was to be the responsibility of the woman to cover herself by a holy writ, but rather the man to respect her privacy. The fiqhs and hadith on specific clothing requirements came about later. I don't necessarily object to the idea of dressing "modestly". This came up in an article with an Islamic feminist (or something like that), whose consideration was that a khimar was not religiously needed, but that women running around half-naked shouldn't necessarily be the ideal either. I might agree with her point to some extent, in that women doing so when men are dressed formally can be viewed with skepticism. But realistically, the problem is again that men are not respectful, and do not express themselves using clothing (or lack thereof), and so there is a perception of inequality. Women should be free to arrive at a gathering wearing very little, be totally covered, or somewhere in between and have just as little commentary upon these features as any accompanying men would for similar variations.

The ideal state would be where any person is free to craft their attire in the manner they see fit, and that they accede to social circumstances or woeful mis-perceptions of their character only out of politeness, decency, or mutual respect and not out of some required and enforceable notion of what is acceptable dress. To be honest, I'm not really sure what the difference between Iranian or Saudi hajib rules and US fashion magazines are on the surface as both attempt to determine a code of dress and conduct for women (with very limited expressions of appropriate male clothing). The distinction seems to be more the level of social or political repression that is suffered for deviation from that rule and not the actual nature of the rules themselves.