subject: Clothes Talk! [print this page] If you notice any TV commercial you can identify the model wearing colours of the brand. Here the model is communicating the brand essence through clothes which comes under the integrated marketing communication which is the communication of a single idea in all things related to the brand. Even the characters in drama and performing arts wear clothes which describe the entire situation in which the character is in.
So our old thinking that clothes are for warmth and protection is totally incomplete unless and until we truly believe that clothes reflect what we are trying to communicate. This is the purpose of uniforms too. Even the when we wear national clothes on national holidays we try to make a statement that we are passionate patriots.
The clothes that you wear for work are different from the clothes that you will wear at your friend's wedding or a funeral. The ghosts that appear from the past in the movies wear clothes according to their original time period. Clothes tell you what time of the day it is, what time of the year it is, and even stuff like your nationality, your religion, and your occupation.
In some cultures the person who belonged to one social stratum had to wear a particular type of clothes. During the Spanish Inquisition the Muslims and the Jews had to wear a symbol to have identified. Even during the Holocaust the Jews were discriminated as they had to wear "religion on their sleeves".
Clothes by all means increase your esteem in the society unless you are a prisoner. In the Man's 'Fall from Grace' the thing the first thing that Man lost was clothes and he had to hide himself in the leaves of the trees and bushes to hide his nakedness. It is also seen that of you are poor then you have no clothes. In the olden days the robes which went trailing behind a man told how rich a man was.
Things have been changing in the 21st century. We are moving towards a society which no longer values individuality and has no respect for culture. Culture and holding to your roots in matter of clothes is met with a backlash. You'll find examples by looking around you won't have to go very far.
