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Clothing

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Everyday life

   Clothing is defined, in its broadest sense, as coverings for the torso
   and limbs as well as coverings for the hands ( gloves), feet ( socks,
   shoes, sandals, boots) and head ( hats, caps). Humans nearly
   universally wear clothing, which is also known as dress, garments,
   attire, or apparel. People wear clothing for functional as well as for
   social reasons. Clothing protects the vulnerable nude human body from
   the extremes of weather, other features of our environment, and for
   safety reasons. But every article of clothing also carries a cultural
   and social meaning.

   People also decorate their bodies with makeup or cosmetics, perfume,
   and other ornamentation; they also cut, dye, and arrange the hair of
   their heads, faces, and bodies (see hairstyle), and sometimes also mark
   their skin (by tattoos, scarifications, and piercings). All these
   decorations contribute to the overall effect and message of clothing,
   but do not constitute clothing per se.

   Articles carried rather than worn (such as purses, canes, and
   umbrellas) are normally counted as fashion accessories rather than as
   clothing. Jewelry and eyeglasses are usually counted as accessories as
   well, even though in common speech these items are described as being
   worn rather than carried.

Clothing as functional technology

   The practical function of clothing is to protect the human body from
   dangers in the environment: weather (strong sunlight, extreme heat or
   cold, and precipitation, for example), insects, noxious chemicals,
   weapons, and contact with abrasive substances, and other hazards.
   Clothing can protect against many things that might injure the naked
   human body. In some cases clothing protects the environment from the
   clothing wearer as well (example: medical scrubs).

   Humans have shown extreme inventiveness in devising clothing solutions
   to practical problems and the distinction between clothing and other
   protective equipment is not always clear-cut. See, among others: air
   conditioned clothing, armor, diving suit, swimsuit, bee-keeper's
   costume, motorcycle leathers, high-visibility clothing, and protective
   clothing.

Clothing as social message

   Social messages sent by clothing, accessories, and decorations can
   involve social status, occupation, ethnic and religious affiliation,
   marital status and sexual availability, etc. Humans must know the code
   in order to recognise the message transmitted. If different groups read
   the same item of clothing or decoration with different meanings, the
   wearer may provoke unanticipated responses.

Social status

   In many societies, people of high rank reserve special items of
   clothing or decoration for themselves as symbols of their social
   status. In ancient times, only Roman senators could wear garments dyed
   with Tyrian purple; only high-ranking Hawaiian chiefs could wear
   feather cloaks and palaoa or carved whale teeth. In China before the
   establishment of the republic, only the emperor could wear yellow. In
   many cases throughout history, there have been elaborate systems of
   sumptuary laws regulating who could wear what. In other societies
   (including most modern societies), no laws prohibit lower-status people
   wearing high status garments, but the high cost of status garments
   effectively limits purchase and display. In current Western society,
   only the rich can afford haute couture. The threat of social ostracism
   may also limit garment choice.

Occupation

   Military, police, and firefighters usually wear uniforms, as do workers
   in many industries. School-children often wear school uniforms, while
   college and university students sometimes wear academic dress. Members
   of religious orders may wear uniforms known as habits. Sometimes a
   single item of clothing or a single accessory can declare one's
   occupation or rank within a profession — for example, the high toque or
   chef's hat worn by a chief cook.

Ethnic, political, and religious affiliation

   In many regions of the world, national costumes and styles in clothing
   and ornament declare membership in a certain village, caste, religion,
   etc. A Scotsman declares his clan with his tartan. A Sikh may display
   his religious affiliation by wearing a turban and other traditional
   clothing. A French peasant woman may identify her village with her cap
   or coif.

   Clothes can also proclaim dissent from cultural norms and mainstream
   beliefs, as well as personal independence. In 19th-century Europe,
   artists and writers lived la vie de Bohème and dressed to shock: George
   Sand in men's clothing, female emancipationists in bloomers, male
   artists in velvet waistcoats and gaudy neckcloths. Bohemians, beatniks,
   hippies, Goths, punks and Skinheads have continued the (
   counter-cultural) tradition in the 20th-century West. Now that haute
   couture plagiarises street fashion within a year or so, street fashion
   may have lost some of its power to shock, but it still motivates
   millions trying to look hip and cool.

Marital status

   Hindu women, once married, wear sindoor, a red powder, in the parting
   of their hair; if widowed, they abandon sindoor and jewelry and wear
   simple white clothing. Men and women of the Western world may wear
   wedding rings to indicate their marital status. See also Visual markers
   of marital status.

Sexual availability

   Some clothing indicates the modesty of the wearer. For example, many
   Muslim women wear a head or body covering (see hijab, burqa or bourqa,
   chador and abaya) that proclaims their status as respectable women.
   Other clothing may indicate flirtatious intent. For example, a Western
   woman might wear extreme stiletto heels, close-fitting and
   body-revealing black or red clothing, exaggerated make-up, flashy
   jewelry and perfume to show sexual availability. What constitutes
   modesty and allurement varies radically from culture to culture, within
   different contexts in the same culture, and over time as different
   fashions rise and fall. Moreover, a person may choose to display a
   mixed message. For example, a Saudi Arabian woman may wear an abaya to
   proclaim her respectability, but choose an abaya of luxurious material
   cut close to the body and then accessorize with high heels and a
   fashionable purse. All the details proclaim sexual desirability,
   despite the ostensible message of respectability.

Clothing fetishes

   Because clothing and adornment have such frequent links with sexual
   display, humans may develop clothing fetishes. They may strongly prefer
   to have sexual relations with other humans wearing clothing and
   accessories they consider arousing or sexy. In Western culture, such
   fetishes may include extremely high heels, lace, leather, or military
   clothing. Other cultures have different fetishes. The men of Heian
   Japan lusted after women with floor-sweeping hair and layers of silk
   robes. Fetishes vary as much as fashion. Sometimes the clothing itself
   becomes the object of fetish, such as in case with used girl panties in
   Japan.

Religious habits and special religious clothing

   Religious clothing might be considered a special case of occupational
   clothing. Sometimes it is worn only during the performance of religious
   ceremonies. However, it may also be worn everyday as a marker for
   special religious status.

   For example, Jains wear unstitched cloth pieces when performing
   religious ceremonies. The unstitched cloth signifies unified and
   complete devotion to the task at hand, with no digression.

   The cleanliness of religious dresses in Eastern Religions like
   Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism is of paramount importance, which
   indicates purity.

Sport and activity

   Most sports and physical activities are practised wearing special
   clothing, for practical, comfort or safety reasons. Common sportswear
   garments include shorts, T-shirts, polo shirts, tracksuits, and
   trainers. Specialised garments include wet suits (for swimming, diving
   or surfing) and salopettes (for skiing).

Clothing materials

   Common clothing materials include:
     * Cloth, typically made of cotton, flax, wool, hemp, ramie, silk,
       lyocell, or synthetic fibers
     * Down for down-filled parkas
     * Fur
     * Leather

   Less-common clothing materials include:
     * Jute
     * Rubber
     * PVC
     * Recycled PET
     * Tyvek
     * Rayon
     * Hemp
     * Recycled or Recovered Cotton
     * Soy
     * Bamboo
     * Other Natural Fibers

   Reinforcing materials such as wood, bone, plastic and metal may be used
   in fasteners or to stiffen garments.

Clothing maintenance

   Clothing, once manufactured, suffers assault both from within and from
   without. The human body inside sheds skin cells and body oils, and
   exudes sweat, urine, and feces. From the outside, sun damage, damp,
   abrasion, dirt, and other indignities afflict the garment. Fleas and
   lice take up residence in clothing seams. Well-worn clothing, if not
   cleaned and refurbished, will smell, itch, look scruffy, and lose
   functionality (as when buttons fall off and zippers fail).

   In some cases, people simply wear an item of clothing until it falls
   apart. Cleaning leather presents difficulties; one cannot wash bark
   cloth (tapa) without dissolving it. Owners may patch tears and rips,
   and brush off surface dirt, but old leather and bark clothing will
   always look old.

   But most clothing consists of cloth, and most cloth can be laundered
   and mended ( patching, darning, but compare felt).

Laundry, ironing, storage

   Humans have developed many specialized methods for laundering, ranging
   from the earliest "pound clothes against rocks in running stream" to
   the latest in electronic washing machines and dry cleaning (dissolving
   dirt in solvents other than water).

   Many kinds of clothing are designed to be ironed before they are worn
   to remove wrinkles. Most modern formal and semi-formal clothing is in
   this category (for example, dress shirts and suits). Ironed clothes are
   believed to look clean, fresh, and neat. However, much contemporary
   casual clothing is made of knit materials that do not readily wrinkle
   and so do not have to be ironed. Some clothing is permanent press,
   meaning that it has been treated with a synthetic coating (such as
   polytetrafluoroethylene) that suppresses wrinkles and creates a smooth
   appearance without ironing.

   Once clothes have been laundered and possibly ironed, they are usually
   hung up on clothes hangers or folded, to keep them fresh until they are
   worn. Clothes are folded to allow them to be stored compactly, to
   prevent creasing, to preserve creases or to present them in a more
   pleasing manner, for instance when they are put on sale in stores.

   Many kinds of clothes are folded before they are put in a suitcases as
   preparation for travel. Other clothes, such as suits, may be hung up in
   special garment bags, or rolled rather than folded. Many people use
   their clothing as packing material around fragile items that might
   otherwise break in transit.

Mending

   In past times, mending was an art. A meticulous tailor or seamstress
   could mend rips with thread raveled from hems and seam edges so
   skillfully that the darn was practically invisible. When the raw
   material — cloth — was worth more than labor, it made sense to expend
   labor in saving it. Today clothing is considered a consumable item.
   Mass-manufactured clothing is less expensive than the time it would
   take to repair it. Many people prefer to buy a new piece of clothing
   rather than to spend their time mending old clothes. But the thrifty
   still replace zippers and buttons and sew up ripped hems.

The life cycle of clothing

   Used, no-longer-wearable clothing was once desirable raw material for
   quilts, rag rugs, bandages, and many other household uses. It could
   also be recycled into paper. Now it is usually thrown away. Used but
   still wearable clothing can be sold at consignment shops, flea markets,
   online auction, or just donated to charity. Charities usually skim the
   best of the clothing to sell in their own thrift stores and sell the
   rest to merchants, who bale it up and ship it to poor Third World
   countries, where vendors bid for the bales and then make what profit
   they can selling used clothing.

Early 21st-century clothing styles

   Western fashion has to a certain extent become international fashion,
   as Western media and styles penetrate all parts of the world. Very few
   parts of the world remain where people do not wear items of cheap,
   mass-produced Western clothing. Even people in poor countries can
   afford used clothing from richer Western countries.

   However, people may wear ethnic or national dress on special occasions
   or if carrying out certain roles or occupations. For example, most
   Japanese women have adopted Western-style dress for daily wear, but
   will still wear silk kimonos on special occasions. Items of Western
   dress may also appear worn or accessorized in distinctive, non-Western
   ways. A Tongan man may combine a used T-shirt with a Tongan wrapped
   skirt, or tupenu.

   Western fashion, too, does not function monolithically. It comes in
   many varieties, from expensive haute couture to thrift store grunge.

Mainstream Western or international styles

     * International standard business attire — global in influence, just
       as business functions globally.
     * Haute couture
     * Casual

Regional styles

     * Clothing of Europe and Russia
     * Clothing in the Americas
          + South American fashion
          + United States mainstream fashion

          For example: " Catalogue" fashion, regional styles such as
          preppy or Western wear.

     *
          + United States alternative fashion

          These fashions are often associated with fans of various musical
          styles.

     * Clothing in Asia
     * Clothing in Africa
     * Clothing in Oceania

Origin and history of clothing

   A Neanderthal clothed in fur
   Enlarge
   A Neanderthal clothed in fur

   According to archaeologists and anthropologists, the earliest clothing
   probably consisted of fur, leather, leaves or grass, draped, wrapped or
   tied about the body for protection from the elements. Knowledge of such
   clothing remains inferential, since clothing materials deteriorate
   quickly compared to stone, bone, shell and metal artifacts.
   Archeologists have identified very early sewing needles of bone and
   ivory from about 30,000 BC, found near Kostenki, Russia, in 1988.

   Ralf Kittler, Manfred Kayser and Mark Stoneking, anthropologists at the
   Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, have conducted a
   genetic analysis of human body lice that indicates that they originated
   about 107,000 years ago. Since most humans have very sparse body hair,
   body lice require clothing to survive, so this suggests a surprisingly
   recent date for the invention of clothing. Its invention may have
   coincided with the spread of modern Homo sapiens from the warm climate
   of Africa, thought to have begun between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago.
   However, a second group of researchers used similar genetic methods to
   estimate that body lice originated about 540,000 years ago (Reed et al.
   2004. PLoS Biology 2(11): e340). For now, the date of the origin of
   clothing remains unresolved.

   Some human cultures, such as the various peoples of the Arctic Circle,
   until recently made their clothing entirely of furs and skins, cutting
   clothing to fit and decorating lavishly.

   Other cultures have supplemented or replaced leather and skins with
   cloth: woven, knitted, or twined from various animal and vegetable
   fibres. See weaving, knitting, and twining.

   Although modern consumers take clothing for granted, making the fabrics
   that go into clothing is not easy. One sign of this is that the textile
   industry was the first to be mechanized during the Industrial
   Revolution; before the invention of the powered loom, textile
   production was a tedious and labor-intensive process. Therefore,
   methods were developed for making most efficient use of textiles.

   One approach simply involves draping the cloth. Many peoples wore, and
   still wear, garments consisting of rectangles of cloth wrapped to fit —
   for example, the dhoti for men and the saree for women in the Indian
   Sub-continent, the Scottish kilt or the Javanese sarong. The clothes
   may simply be tied up, as is the case of the first two garments; or
   pins or belts hold the garments in place, as in the case of the latter
   two. The precious cloth remains uncut, and people of various sizes or
   the same person at different sizes can wear the garment.

   Another approach involves cutting and sewing the cloth, but using every
   bit of the cloth rectangle in constructing the clothing. The tailor may
   cut triangular pieces from one corner of the cloth, and then add them
   elsewhere as gussets. Traditional European patterns for men's shirts
   and women's chemises take this approach.

   Modern European fashion treats cloth much more prodigally, typically
   cutting in such a way as to leave various odd-shaped cloth remnants.
   Industrial sewing operations sell these as waste; home sewers may turn
   them into quilts.

   In the thousands of years that humans have spent constructing clothing,
   they have created an astonishing array of styles, many of which we can
   reconstruct from surviving garments, photos, paintings, mosaics, etc.,
   as well as from written descriptions. Costume history serves as a
   source of inspiration to current fashion designers, as well as a topic
   of professional interest to costumers constructing for plays, films,
   television, and historical reenactment.

Future trends

   As technologies change, so will clothing. Many people, including
   futurologists have extrapolated current trends and made the following
   predictions:
     * Man-made fibers such as nylon, polyester, terylene, terycot, lycra,
       and Gore-Tex already account for much of the clothing market. Many
       more types of fibers will certainly be developed, possibly using
       nanotechnology. For example, military uniforms may stiffen when hit
       by bullets, filter out poisonous chemicals, and treat wounds.

     * "Smart" clothing will incorporate electronics. Clothing may
       incorporate wearable computers, flexible wearable displays
       (possibly leading to fully animated clothing and some forms of
       invisibility cloaks), medical sensors, etc.

     * Present-day ready-to-wear technologies will presumably give way to
       computer-aided custom manufacturing. Low power laser beams will
       measure the customer; computers will draw up a custom pattern and
       execute it in the customer's choice of cloth as well as choice of
       desirable fit.

Clothing industry

   The clothing industry is concentrated outside of western Europe and
   America, and garment workers often have to labor under poor conditions.
   Coalitions of NGO's, designers (Katharine Hamnett, American Apparel,
   Veja, Edun,...) and trade unions like the Clean clothes campaign (CCC)
   seek to improve these conditions as much as possible by sponsoring
   awareness-raising events, which draw the attention of both the media
   and the general public to the workers' conditions.

   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clothing"
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   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
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