WHAT WE WEAR, WHAT WEARS US
OOTD
Most of us have, at some point, hoped not to run into an acquaintance while trudging to the corner store in ragged clothes, or felt our slouched shoulders straighten with confidence the day we stepped out in a sharp designer suit. The naked me, the me in cheap clothes, the me in fine clothes — all of these are still me. So why is it that inside different garments, I keep becoming a person with a different identity, a different status? If I were the only human being left in this world, I would, in truth, have no reason to think twice about what I wear. Which means: the purpose of wearing clothes, once function is set aside, is bound up with the Social Gaze — and this, in turn, becomes the grammar of hierarchy that defines an individual's place in society. Perhaps hierarchy, in the end, is a gaze that falls not on the person at all, but on the material draped over them.