Clothing

Abstract

Clothing refers to skins or garments made from the manipulation of fibers or threads (i.e., woven, knitted, sprang, etc.), which cover the body in some manner. Adornment is another relevant term and refers to the temporary ornamentation of the body for a given occasion or event. It thus calls attention primarily to aesthetic qualities. The terms clothing and adornment almost inevitably introduce personal or social values. Hence, recently, scholars have opted for the broader term dress. Clothing is more specific than dress, which includes not only bodily coverings, but also jewelry, cosmetics, hairstyles, tattoos, or other manipulations of the bodily surface such as scarification. Dress is both noun and verb, or, put differently, both product and process. Dress as a noun is what is done to the body, and dress as a verb is how it is done. This article includes studies that address all three areas. The study of clothing has developed considerably in a number of disciplines. For historians, it began as a history of costume but has since evolved to include insights from social scientific fields such as anthropology and sociology. The latter two areas as well as other disciplines now boast a significant number of theoretical approaches to clothing and dress, examining them in light of identity (gender, religious, ethnic, cultural, political), power, embodiment, and how it functions as a communicator of subjective and social values, including notions of the self. Beyond its importance as a material artifact, dress has also been recognized as a reflection of mentifacts (values and beliefs that shape culture) and sociofacts (institutions and norms that direct human behavior). Moreover, the study of fashion and its significance for the study of contemporary culture, especially in light of Western commoditization, has emerged as a major area of interdisciplinary research. In Classics, analysis of dress has also witnessed a considerable upsurge in the last decade and deems it important for the study of societies, such as ancient Rome, in which “the gaze” is so important. Given the highly ideological nature of much of the ancient writing about clothing, archaeological studies and examinations of artistic remains are requisite. Such work must also remember, however, that art can be rhetorical, just as texts are. Of fundamental importance is the observation that items of clothing and ornamentation held tremendous material value in the ancient world, whether it is the Ancient Near East or the Greco-Roman context, and thus their economic, technological, trade, and social dimensions must be highlighted. The study of clothing in the Bible, ancient Judaism, and early Christianity is in its early stages. In biblical literature, symbolic and literal references to clothing, and dress in general, abound. Items of clothing take on legal, ritual, technical, and theological meanings in some biblical texts, while in others they serve as literary markers or motifs that underscore larger shifts within various narratives. In the New Testament and other early Christian literature, clothing imagery continues to convey theological and political meanings; it can function as a means of vilifying characters by associating them with luxurious dress, and it can assist in creating and maintaining identity.