For centuries there were as many clothing items as there were social
classes. Every social condition had its garment and there was no
embarrassment in making an outfit into a veritable sign, since the gap
between the classes was itself considered to be natural. So, on the one
hand, clothing was subject to an entirely conventional code, but on the
other, this code referred to a natural order, or even better to a divine
order. To change clothes was to change both one’s being and one’s
social class, since they were part and parcel of the same thing. So we
see in marivaux’s plays, for example, the game of love getting caught in
mix-ups over identities, in the possible permutations of social standing
and in the swapping of clothes. There was at this time a true grammar of
clothing, something that was not simply a question of taste, and which
one could not transgress without affecting the deeper organization of
the world: how many plots and intrigues in our classical literature rely on
the clearly signalled characteristics of clothing!
We know that in the aftermath of the French revolution men’s clothing
changed drastically, not only in its form (which came essentially from the
Quaker model), but also in its spirit: the idea of democracy produced a
form of clothing which was, in theory, uniform, no longer subject to the
stated requirements of appearances but to those of work and equality.
modern clothing (for our men’s clothing is largely that of the nineteenth
century) is, in theory, both practical and dignified: it has to be adaptable
to any work situation (provided that it is not manual work); and with its
austere, or at least sober, form, it must signal that moral cant which
characterized the bourgeoisie of the last century.
Chapter 6
Dandyism and Fashion
1