How do social and cultural forces affect what people wear?

Fashion is forever changing, influenced by what is happening in society. It follows but

also breaks social rules and etiquette. What you wear is influenced by values, social

attitudes, socioeconomic and life status. Ultimately clothes communicate how you

want to appear to others in society and highlight the characteristics of those who

wear them. The only reason that fashion trends exist is because people constantly

feel the need to fit in and blend with the crowd. From a very young age we feel like

we have to wear what is in fashion in order for us to be accepted socially; therefore it

is fair to say that social and cultural forces have a strong and direct link to what

everyone wears.

Fashion evokes various reactions from different groups of people and can raise

concerns; it is a product of culture and reflects the predictions and concerns of

society. We see this in the pioneering designs of Chanel, who provided practical and

comfortable clothing to the modern woman in a world where women’s clothing was

very impractical and restrictive. It is also seen in the designs of Marc Jacobs who

responds to current issues and contemporary culture; inspired by art, music and

everything around him, Jacobs is influenced by what surrounds him.

Chanel was trying to change the world of women’s fashion in a changing society.

With the involvement of many women in the war effort between 1914 and 1918, the

opportunity of work and independence led to modern, working women wanting

their clothes to reflect their new-found freedom and emancipation, allowing them to
lead the busy and active life that they wanted to. Chanel despised the fashionable

clothes at the time with their many layers, corsets and intricate detailing with greatly

restricted movement. This catered for ladies of leisure who had a chambermaid to

help them dress and no need to be active. These clothes of course were of no use to

the modern, working woman.

Chanel is known to have said ‘I gave women’s bodies their freedom back; their

bodies sweated under all the showcase clothes, under their corsets, their underwear

and padding’. Chanel insisted that new, functional clothes were needed to enable

women to move, work and live in comfortably. They were appropriate for every

occasion and function and were devoid of any unnecessary decoration and

trimmings. No pockets were made to be decorative and too small to use, every

button had a use and skirts were shortened to make walking easier.

Chanel herself already wore men’s clothing that she had tailored to fit her own body.

This she found to be elegant, but most of all comforting. She also went on to tailor

ties, boaters, pea jackets, pyjamas and trousers to suit her own needs.

Ignoring everything that was fashionable at the time, Chanel began to design

practical and comfortable clothing that could be worn as a second skin. First and

foremost designing the clothes for her own active lifestyle and only ever designing

clothes that she would wear herself. Unlike designers who designed for the ‘perfect

woman’s figure’ she created each garment for herself and her own use, she tested it

on herself before making the garments to sell to others.

‘Fewer creations have had greater influence on fashion than the Chanel suit’. The

epitome of elegance, the suit was made with strict lines, and a cut that allowed ease
of movement. For Chanel, luxury lay not in the decorative details but in invisible

perfection – the cut and the finish. The jackets had lapels or shawl collars, closed

edge to edge, and were fitted with pockets as big as the pockets found on men’s

garments and had full or pleated skirts to enable the wearer to move and walk with

ease.

Chanel was very successful when she reinvented the ‘little black dress’; many other

designers had produced it but without the same success that she did. However, no

one before her had turned the ‘little black dress’ into a concept, nor had they made a

dress that was appropriate for day wear, cocktail wear and evening wear. Chanel’s

aim was to ‘rid women’s fashion of pointless frills and frou-frou’. She was appalled by

the loud and gaudy colours that women wore, and made it her mission to put them

all in little black dresses. The classic little black dress that she designed was a simple,

black sheath dress with a rounded neckline, long, close-fitting sleeves, and a skirt just

below the knees with lines that hugged the body. Pure, simple and elegant with no

decoration whatsoever. The dress was soon nicknamed ‘the modern women’s

uniform’ and the ‘Ford dress’ comparing it to the famous standardised car. Although

it was fiercely criticised when it was first released, it soon caught on and became the

key piece in most women’s wardrobe and still is today. This goes to show that

although society was a first completely against the design, it quickly became popular

and social forces changed and accepted it, making it acceptable to own and wear.

Marc Jacobs and Chanel are similar in the way that they responded to what was

happening around them. However what Chanel did, was to change the way that
women dressed completely, including their underwear by not using corsetry and

designing for the woman’s natural body.

Jacobs responded to the changes in the world of art and music, making clothes

responding to political issues and making statements.

We see this in the 1992 ‘grunge’ collection for Perry Ellis, which featured chiffon

dresses paired with beanie hats, flannel shirts over converse and Doc Martin boots.

This reflected what he was seeing around him in all of the streets and nightclubs and

responded to the anti-fashion movement in the early 1990s. He managed to make an

anti-fashion, grunge collection that was beautiful and upbeat – making it the

opposite of what it was meant to be, fashionable. This shows that Jacobs was directly

influenced by the society around him, therefore meaning that although he was the

one that designed the clothes, it was still society that decided what he would design.

This means that social forces do affect what everyone wears.

“It was a moment when people questioned what was beautiful’ Jacobs says. ‘I always

find beauty in things that are odd and imperfect – they are much more interesting.

There is more freedom in the idea of what glamour is and what beauty is and what is

right and what is wrong. It’s a different world – all those old clichéd definitions have

morphed into something less definable’. However, taking it onto the catwalk resulted

in him being fired from the label for making the luxury sportswear look cheap.

Up until then, grunge had not been portrayed on the catwalk to that extreme and so

it has come to be regarded as one of the most influential collections in fashion

history.
Marc Jacobs has also used his designs to make political statements about gay

marriage, and has produced a range of T-shirt designs depicting a lesbian couple and

their child with the caption ‘I pay my taxes, I want my rights’. This is an example of

how fashion can be used to protest issues and help work towards flaws in society

being corrected. It gives people a chance to do their part and feel like they are

involved in something and that they have a voice. Not only can social and cultural

forces affect what people wear; but also what people wear can change society and

can fight for equality in our society. This was also a concept made popular by

Katherine Hamnett in the 1980s. Again this shows that the designs she made reflect

society and culture but it also shows that the people in it change society. The T-shirt

was used as an aid to help change society and demonstrate that gay people don’t

have equal rights

Although they are from different times with different societies surrounding them,

both Coco Chanel and Marc Jacobs have had a big influence over the fashion world.

Both are pioneers in recognising the changes in what is socially acceptable and

design accordingly.

It is a never-ending circle with a perpetually changing society, created by the people

that live within it. Our own actions and decisions change the world around us and

designers simply take inspiration from it and design accordingly. So in a way I feel

that we all influence the clothes that we wear because we participate in the ever-

evolving society. We decide how our society and culture changes, and the artists,

musicians and designers follow it, documenting how it changes in many different

forms.
Chanel responded to what was happening around her and used it to her advantage

and made things to be the way that she wanted them to be; changing the world so

that it was socially acceptable for women to wear what was comfortable and

practical to them, allowing them to live a fuller and more active life.

Marc Jacobs saw grunge fashion emerging first hand and made it accessible to all and

helped society to embrace a new style of dressing. He also created statement T-shirts

that directly affected society and aimed at helping change.

Ultimately social and cultural forces are controlled by the people that live within

society, meaning that in an indirect way, we all on the whole chose what we will

wear.
Chanel chiné tweed suit in beige, 1958.

Classic black dress from 1926,

reconstructed by Karl Lagerfield.

2009.
Marc Jacobs ‘Grunge’ for

Perry Ellis. 1992.

Human Rights campaign T-

shirt by Marc Jacobs. 2012.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Mackrell, Alice. (1992). Coco Chanel. London: B.T. Batsford Ltd.

Foley, Bridget. (2004). Marc Jacobs. New York: Assouline.

Bott, Daniele. (2007). Chanel: collections and creations. New York: Thames & Hudson.

Di Trocchio, Paola. (2008). Black in Fashion: Mourining to Night. Melbourne: ngv.

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http://mkopas.net/courses/soc287/2012/08/06/954/

http://process.arts.ac.uk/sites/default/files/zoi-arvanitidou.pdf

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interview.html

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www.interviewmagazine.com/fashion/marc-jacobs-1/ #_

Stephanie Hirschmiller. (2013). Telegraph.

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