Perceived class mobility and veiled stratification of contemporary fashion: A comparison with proletariat and bourgeois class structure in the nineteenth century

Abstract

Abstract It is important to bear in mind as to what extent this distinction exists, or whether we can confidently say it does not exist at all. As a matter of fact, we find that with higher income, individuals spend more of their capital income on clothing. There is still an intangible class division and stratification on the street, even though it is representative. Therefore, it is important to examine the historical role played by clothing as a symbol or a form of self-expression within the social hierarchy, and to identify its antithetic aspects during post-industrial Britain and France, and from the twentieth century to present day. In this article, the principal plan is to outline the contrast between the past and the present examining two antithetic aspects of clothing within the social structure for those periods; the first era is post-Industrial Revolution in Britain and France. The intention is to explain the intensive opposition between the bourgeois, which represents the upper class, and the proletariat, which is the lower class in the mid-eighteenth century to the end of nineteenth century. The second period is the twentieth century to the present and democracy and equilibrium in fashion will be examined. Finally, class mobility through ether existing hierarchy or reduced representation (i.e. ambivalence to Democracy in fashion) as the main debate of multifaceted stratification in fashion will be elaborated and the class boundaries are increasingly blurred, yet whether we accept it or not, class distinctions still exist.