Introduction to costume history: ORIGINS

1. Introduction to costume history: ORIGINS

2. THE ORIGINS OF DRESS:
•The earliest evidence of textile fabrics dates from about 27.000 years ago.
•The oldest actual textile yet discovered by archaeologists dates from about 7000 B.C.
•Other remains of woven fabric from Turkey dates from 8500 years ago. These fabrics were
made with rather complex fabric making techniques.
•It is also concluded that the weaving of fabrics had begun much before this age. If cloth
was woven it was probably made into articles of dress.

3. MOTIVATIONS AND REASONS FOR THE WEARING OF CLOTHING:
•For protection.
•For decoration.
•Worn out of modesty.
•To denote status.
Decoration is generally acknowledged to be primary motivation. Status as well as
modesty as a reason becomes attached to clothing after sometime it came into
use. Protection from elements is important and can be achieved through various
ways and people at different geographic areas have different responses.
Good luck amulets and charms are worn in different cultures.
Decoration as a primary motive for clothing is compelling. Clothing also provided
protection from supernatural dangers. Although, using dress as a protection
against the elements and evil spirits is not universal, decoration of the human
body is.

4. LIMITATIONS TO THE DESIGN OF GARMENTS.
• Movement for the wearer, except for some ceremonial purposes when
costumes are needed.
• To be able to carry the weight of the garment.
• To be able to perform certain kind of duties. Affluent people and to the
contrary their servants dress differently.
• Construction of the garment in the initial stages when skin was used as a
raw material for making clothes. Later with the onset of the knowledge of
spinning and weaving the fabrics the techniques changed.

5. • Different kind of fabrics has different kinds of qualities which the mankind
slowly came to be aware of and exploited.
• People in isolated regions where forced to use the local material but later
on with the advent of trade, materials came into the access of people.
• Draped garments versus the tailored garments have different limitations.
• With the passing on of centuries and the development of technology and
industrialisation; mechanisation came into the production of clothes too.
Mass production and ready to wear are the results of these changes.

8. FUNCTIONS OF DRESS IN THE SOCIAL CONTEXT
• Designation of gender differences.
• Designation of age.
• Designation of status.
• Identification of group membership.
• Ceremonial use of clothing.
• Enhancement of sexual attractiveness.

9. CLOTHING AS A MEANS OF SOCIAL COMMUNICAION
• Dress serves as a mean of social communication and is a silent language.
• It tells us about the social stratification, the way the genders wear dress in
certain communities or the religious leaders.
CROSS CULTURAL INFLUENCES
• Influences from the different continents on each other through history.
• With explorers, traders, soldiers, tourists and immigrants travelling to
unknown regions of the world the cross cultural influence happen.

10. THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT
• The impact of the “politics” on the way people wear clothes. A charismatic
political leader or a government putting laws on how people wear dress is
common influencing factor in various stages of history.
• Political conflict is another common theme in history.
• Economic events and trade is another factor which needs to be studied
through history.
• Production and acquisition of textiles and apparels.
• Technology.
• Media of communication.

13. CLOTHING AS AN ART FORM: the relationship between
costume of a particular era and the developments in the fine
and applied arts.
• Artists or designers of a given period all experience many of
the same influences and thus different art forms from the
particular era tend to look similar.
Decorative motifs, scale, form, colour and
proportion, and the feeling evoked by the work of art are some
the features which can tend to be similar.
THIS IS TRUE OF CLOTHING and the similarity
between dressing, architecture, furnishings, and other visual
arts of a particular time.

14. Designers are supposed to be contributing innovatively with
new designs keeping in mind cultural zeitgeist which the
people want.
It is also a medium of expression. The way garment is
designed and constructed differs in different times
throughout history in terms of colours, texture, proportions,
scale and fabrics. Another point of interest or theme in
costume comes out of the fact the – revival of interest in
earlier styles.

19. A tribe, viewed historically or developmentally, consists of a social
group existing before the development of, or outside of, states.
Many anthropologists use the term tribal society to refer to societies
organized largely on the basis of kinship, especially corporate descent
groups.
Some theorists hold that tribes represent a stage in social evolution
intermediate between bands and states. Other theorists argue that tribes
developed after, and must be understood in terms of their relationship to,
states.

20. Considerable debate takes place over how best to characterize
tribes. This partly stems from perceived differences between
pre-state tribes and contemporary tribes. In the popular
imagination, tribes reflect a way of life that predates, and is
more "natural", than that in modern states.
Tribes also privilege primordial social ties, are clearly bounded,
homogeneous, parochial, and stable.
Thus, many believed that tribes organize links between families
(including clans and lineages), and provide them with a social
and ideological basis for solidarity that is in some way more
limited than that of an "ethnic group" or of a "nation".
Anthropological research has challenged all of these notions.

21. Anthropologists presented a system of classification for societies in
all human cultures based on the evolution of social inequality and the
role of the state.
This system of classification contains four categories:
• Gatherer-hunter bands, which are generally egalitarian.
• Tribal societies in which there are some limited instances of
social rank and prestige (see Chiefdom).
• Stratified tribal societies led by chieftains.
• Civilizations, with complex social hierarchies and organized,
institutional governments.