Mass-produced clothing blurs class signals in urban dress
Evidence
Many factors have contributed to this state of affairs. As mentioned in Chapter Three, the mass production of clothing has blurred the overt expression of buying power. The trained eye can probably easily distinguish between a
400 original and a30 copy, but most of us have rather illiterate eyes. The general westernization of clothing is another factor-for example, the Russian traveler in Constantinople (Istanbul) today is likely to be wearing a business suit. — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 446
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
- XREF: Extends Simmel’s fashion theory — mass production democratizes style, eroding the class-signaling function of dress.
Related
- Mass-produced and westernized clothing has blurred visible class and origin cues (similarity 0.91)
- Cheap mass-produced clothing enabled the modern city’s masked heterogeneity. (similarity 0.84)
- Mass-produced imitation clothing destroyed the visual class-order of public space (similarity 0.84)
- Fashion arose to reconcile individual identity with mass-produced industrial aesthetics (similarity 0.82)
- Uniform mass-market dress lets young students deny that class differences exist (similarity 0.81)
- Fashion as consumption culture emerged only with mass production (similarity 0.81)
- Globalized dress styles erase reliable costume-based identity signals in cities (similarity 0.78)