Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Fashion

According too Simmel, fashion allows for us to express our own personal choices while still following society and its norms. I have seen how on a "level playing ground" fashion is still arranged so that there are differences in groups. For example: There are schools where dress codes are enforced and all the students have to wear the same outfits to school. When all the kids are dressed the same, how is it that they look so different? They still find ways to express themselves so that they don't look like everyone else. What do you think it would take for students to stop trying to dress so differently from one another? Do you think that if we lived in a true Communist society according to Marx that this would be attainable?

10 comments:

  1. This example brings to mind my nieces who where uniforms to school. Each morning as they get ready for school, they are so difficult when it comes to their uniforms. The seven year old refuses to wear pants, even in the winter; it must be a dress or a skirt with tights. My nine year old niece really doesn’t mind how she wears her uniform but she always wants to wear her hair down. Overall, they look so different because of their social groups in school, their environment within their class, and their cultural influences. I really feel that the society we live in today and our aspiration to be individualistic and stand out would never allow students to look the same. Even if we were to live in a communist society today, our social behavior would make it very difficult to conform to this idea.

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  2. I do not think that even if we would be forced to dress like everyone else we would look the same because we as human beings want to be unique and express what we are in the way we dress. I went to school in Juarez until I was 17 years old and over there students have to wear uniforms all the way to the Preparatoria which is High School and even though they have strict guidelines that we had to follow I do not think anyone looked the same. Some girls wanted to have longer skirts and had the most expensive shoes because that is really the only thing that could be different from the others. The "sexy" girls would wear tight blouses and could mention many other examples. To sum up I believe that even if many people are wearing the same clothes they would look very different.

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  3. I think students should be allowed to deviate a bit from the formal uniform requirements, and the main purpose for the uniforms could still be achieved. Uniforms standardize the basic look of the students, maintaining modesty, and reducing the distraction of wild fashions in the learning environment. Uniform costs remain the same for all, relieving the pressure for parents to buy expensive clothes

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  4. I agree with most of you in that it wouldnt be attanable ( society looking the same) Like previously said, Humans find a way to stand out, whether it be in fashion, language, or behavior. If everyone started dressing the same, people are going to definitely find away to look "unique". It might not necessarily be in a fashion statement, it could also be a change in behavior. I agree with Simmel in that as our cosity progresses, we are indeen loosing a sense of individualism, but is loosing individuality such a "negative" thing to happen to society as Simmel describes?"

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  5. I believe that even if we did live in a Communist society students would still try and look different. Teenagers are just trying to appear to be unique and they are not going to achieve that by dressing like everyone else. Being in a communist society wouldn't change how students feel about their need to look different.

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  6. I think that if we lived in a true communist society, this would be attainable in some form. If there were strict rules and guards enforcing the way these school children dressed for example, then this would clearly be attainable. However, you have to consider that just different faces and body types and ethnicities would still make people look quite different from each other. Imagine a heavy set woman like Rosie O' Donnell dressed exactly the same as say Jessica Alba, they would still look very different. Even though their clothes would be exactly the same, the body types and different skin tones would make them differetn.
    Now if we did this in a little city in China, where in my opinion, since I have not visited over there that much or do not relate with Chinese people that much, they are all mostly thin and have relatively the same facial features, if you made all of them dress exactly the same, then perhaps your point would be attainable to it's maximum extent.
    However, why would we ever want to do this, this would certainly kill that which makes us human in my opinion, it would make us no different than robots in movies like "Irobot" where every robot looks and acts the same, no different than clothes, tables, chairs, everything mass produced, we would all be the same, that would be terrible.

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  7. Fashion is a distinction that each individual use in order to seperate themselves from people in society. In reference to the school uniforms although they "follow" a dress code its not the clothes that seperates them from each other but physical apperances as well as accesories. One way be into heave metal therfore adds the spunk of a spiked braclet, the cheerleader may add a bow to her pony tail, and the greaser may grease his hair and wear converse. Each individual is distinct in apperance as well as other factors. I believe that the reason that kids dress so diffrently from each other is because of the "cliques" that society has developed. They feel in order to fit into the popular group which is know for expensive clothes they too must have expensive clothes. Do I believe students will try to stop trying to dress so differently from one another? No, because the way one dresses seperates themselves from the next person and allows them show their art because fashion is art.

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  8. I went to a private school as well where everyone was required to wear a horrific uniform, and if you had long hair you had to have it tightly up and if you had short hair you had to either pin it up or wear a head band. Our school was so strict that even the accessories we wore on our hair also had to be like the uniform. Even though the rules were so strict we always found ways to deviate a little like having bangs or having our accessories specially made (I know sounds kinda lame). Fashion still existed though. I remember that there was specific kind of sock that was considered cool and if your parent’s didn’t buy those socks the "cool" girls with the "cool" would make fun of you. Now days I am against uniforms because I feel that it discourages individualism. Even in a communist society I think people find ways to differentiate themselves from others.

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  9. When students are dressed with the same uniforms, there is also ways you can look different. Their clothes are the same but how alma mentioned, there are also accessories that make you look different. For example the shoes, students are going to be able to identify the lower class kids with the upper class kids just because of their shoes. Children are very intelligent and would find out things that differentiate between social classes. Another example can be their back-packs, jewerly, etc. The way they act and the way they speak can also make them different.

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  10. I believe that school uniforms take the pressure off students because it does lower the cost of cloths. Many of the students think they all will look the same, but there are many variation of wearing a uniform: colored shoelaces, varied skit lengths, change their hair styles and jewelry. Students will find things to make them unique.

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