Page 110 - Cultural Studies A Practical Introduction

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Consumer Culture and

Fashion Studies

I have argued that our identity is both something in us – a cluster of feel-
ings, ideas, assumptions, perceptions, and values – as well as something
that happens to us as we live in the world. The world tells us who we are
by assigning us roles at certain points in life – son or daughter, brother or
friend, husband or wife, father or mother, manager or employee. Each of
those roles imprints a new version of an identity on us, a new set of rules
and expectations for thought, feeling, and behavior. Within each of those
roles, we construct variable kinds of identity based on our capacities, our
talents, and our experience. And our identities determine how we think
about the world and how we act in it. Between that inner self and that outer
world are language, bodily action or gesture, and dress and adornment.
Our inner identity expresses itself through each one of those avenues of
public representation.
Clothing expresses who you are in symbolic form that is also functional.
To say it is “ symbolic ” is to say that it presents to the world a visual image
of a quality of your inner being, and one possible quality might be your
desire to be part of a social group or to identity with a cultural ideal you
admire and desire to adopt for yourself. To say it is “ functional ” means
that it has a practical purpose or use in relation to the world in which you
live. When I go to my office to work as a university administrator, I have

a choice between dressing formally – suit, tie, and dress shoes – or infor-
mally – no tie, sweater instead of suit, and casual shoes. I opt for the latter
style more often than not because I favor comfort over formality, and I
think a lot of rules regarding formality of dress in work situations are not
justifiable. They belong to an older, more traditional world, and I tend to

be someone who challenges and changes old rules. My identity is that of