From "Traditional" to "Mass Fashion System" Dress Among Men in a Turkish Village

Abstract

The dress forms for men of Çömlekçi, a village in southwestern Turkey, have been changing throughout the twentieth century, and occur in three stages. Following the Turkish republican revolution after World War 1, the European-style suit was widely adopted by rural men. Although adoption of these garments seemed to signal westernization and secularization of rural society, the dress forms were appropriated by the traditional culture and became readily identifiable as traditional village dress. This mode of dress was retained with little change until the second transitional stage began in the 1960s. This change was a result of improved communications, increased interaction with the money economy, and increased availability of consumer goods. These economic changes permitted the introduction of commercially produced clothing, with the final stage of full conversion to a mass fashion system of dress for the men of Çömlekçi occurring by the 1990s.