{"id":2042,"date":"2020-06-10T13:24:11","date_gmt":"2020-06-10T13:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.itisaras.org\/projectdhaara\/?p=2042"},"modified":"2020-06-10T13:24:14","modified_gmt":"2020-06-10T13:24:14","slug":"stereotyping-clothing-defining-social-intellectual-status-and-modernity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.itisaras.org\/projectdhaara\/2020\/06\/10\/stereotyping-clothing-defining-social-intellectual-status-and-modernity\/","title":{"rendered":"Stereotyping Clothing: Defining Social, Intellectual Status and Modernity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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By Arushi Kapoor<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cUnderlying the present quest for form and pattern is the basic assumption that dress is a systematic means of transmission of information about the wearer.” -M. L. Damhorst<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clothes and fashion are one of the most important markers of one\u2019s identity since\ncenturies. Relationship between one\u2019s social status and attire was an underlying feature\nof a divided society which strived to maintain the demarcations and stop any and all\nattempts towards social mobility and equality. Thus, acquiring a lifestyle which included\nbut was not limited to imitating fashion choices of the upper or modern class.\nEventually this became the most dominant way of improving one\u2019s social standing. This\nphenomenon when expanded beyond a small community could also be applied in terms\nof superior and inferior countries. The most prominent example of people adopting new\n\nfashion choices for the sake of popular approval can be given in the context of elite from\ncolonised countries adopting the ways of colonial powers to ensure the security of their\nprivileged status.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In India, Lala (Raja) Deen Dayal, was appointed as the first Indian official photographer\nby the British government in 1885. In his career, Lala Deen Dayal photographed various\nkinds of subjects, ranging from British officials to Indian princely states\u2019 elite to upper\nmiddle class, whoever was able to afford him or piqued his interest. The most noticeable\naspect upon analysing these photographs is the desperation of Indian elite to maintain\ntheir traditional status while at the same time their struggle to portray themselves as\nmodern on terms defined by the British or, in broad terms, the western world. The\nIndian elite now undertook their official portraits and photographs in western attire,\nespecially for the male of the household, while female were portrayed as the traditional\nperfect Indian women. The families who sent their children abroad to study took pride\nwhile showing them off in their western intellectual fashion sense. Thus, began the\nsocial practice of stereotyping people on basis of their clothes along the new lines of\nmodern, backward, intellectual, city person, village person, etc. While on one hand we\nmoved towards the modern judgement of free and equal society, on the other hand we\ndeveloped the new stereotypes based on dressing sense of a person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This trend of defining and judging a person\u2019s personality and social status has continued\nwell into the contemporary times and has firmly established itself. Mostly people\nsubconsciously form their first impression based on these stereotypes. A few small\ninstances from daily life will be an eye opener while we attempt to analyse the hold of\nthis phenomenon on our minds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A girl in a short dress or jeans would be considered \u2018modern\u2019 by the younger generation\nand be judged by the aunties in a public space. On the other hand is a girl in salwar suit\nwho would be teased as \u2018behanji<\/em>\u2019 by the younger generation while being labelled as a\n\u2018sanskari ladki<\/em>\u2019 (cultured girl) by the elderly. While there is a possibility of the above\nscenario being true, it is also possible that the \u2018modern girl\u2019 is more well-mannered &\nrespectable as compared to the \u2018behanji<\/em>\u2019 or the \u2018modern girl\u2019 comes from a conservative\nfamily struggling to establish her individual identity in a city while the \u2018behanji<\/em>\u2019 is a high\nprofile employee of big corporate company. And thus, in a few seconds, we have already\nestablished an image of the person in front of us which couldn\u2019t be farther from their\nactual personalities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In another instance, a postgraduate college student who was the topper in her\nundergraduate class and is still a top performer enjoyed dressing up and applying\nmake-up. She was advised by her professors not to dress up the way she did as she\nwouldn\u2019t be taken seriously amongst the intellectual class. For a matter of fact, she did\nface reluctance from officials while trying to gain access to the library. On the other side\nof the spectrum, a person in a \u2018homeless\u2019 look with a \u2018jhola<\/em>\u2019 (bag) roaming around an\nacademic campus in flip flops would be considered a highly intellectual person without\n\neven attracting a single contemptuous look while the girl would be a constant subject of\nobjectionable gaze.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Above stated illustrations are only insights into the circumstances people face. We know\nin our hearts this being the reality of the society. As everyone is fighting for a better and\nequal world where people are allowed to follow their hearts and dreams without being\nheld back by society, it is also the time to take precautions before allowing new kinds of\nstereotypes to establish. And clothing, fashion being a crucial determinant of a person\u2019s\npersonality should be most immediately freed from any kind of attached generalisations\nand judgements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cUnderlying the present quest for form and pattern is the basic assumption that dress is a systematic means of transmission of information about the wearer.\u201d
\nM.L Damhorst rightly articulated that a person\u2019s dressing speaks about his or her personality. Or does it really? Lets\u2019 trace this stereotyping history till contemporary “modern\u201d world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2048,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"quote","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1361,1336,1340,380,1344,1358,1334,1177,1355,1339,1341,922,1335,1350,1353,1338,1354,1346,1342,485,1343,1333,1352,1337,1357,1356,1351,1345,1348,1052,362,699,1349,771,1347,1139,1359,1362,1360],"class_list":["post-2042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-quote","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-society","tag-attire","tag-attires","tag-backward","tag-british","tag-british-government","tag-city-person","tag-clothes","tag-colonial","tag-colonial-powers","tag-conservative","tag-elite","tag-equality","tag-fashion","tag-flip-flops","tag-generalisations","tag-intellectual","tag-jeans","tag-judgements","tag-lala-deen-dayal","tag-lifestyle","tag-middle-class","tag-modern","tag-modern-girl","tag-modernity","tag-privileged-status","tag-security","tag-short-dress","tag-social-mobility","tag-social-practice","tag-social-status","tag-society","tag-stereotypes","tag-stereotyping","tag-traditional","tag-trend","tag-upper-class","tag-village-person","tag-vogue","tag-western-world","post_format-post-format-quote"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itisaras.org\/projectdhaara\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itisaras.org\/projectdhaara\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itisaras.org\/projectdhaara\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itisaras.org\/projectdhaara\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itisaras.org\/projectdhaara\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2042"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/www.itisaras.org\/projectdhaara\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2042\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2075,"href":"https:\/\/www.itisaras.org\/projectdhaara\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2042\/revisions\/2075"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itisaras.org\/projectdhaara\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itisaras.org\/projectdhaara\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itisaras.org\/projectdhaara\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itisaras.org\/projectdhaara\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}