Clothing History

Clothing:

Clothing is defined, in its broadest sense, as coverings for the body and limbs as well as coverings for hands (gloves), feet (socks, shoes, sandals and boots) and head (hats, caps). People almost all wear clothes, which is also known as dress, garments, attire, or clothing. People wear clothing for functional and social reasons. Clothing protects the vulnerable nude human body from extreme weather conditions, other elements of our environmental and safety reasons. Every piece of clothing also carries a cultural and social significance. Man is the only known mammal to wear clothes with the exception of human pets clothed by their owners.

People also decorate their bodies with makeup or cosmetics, perfumes and other decorations, but also cut, color and fix hair on the head, face, and bodies (see hairstyle), and sometimes also mark their skin (by tattoos, Scarification, and piercing) . All these decorations contribute to the overall effect and message of clothing, but do not constitute clothing.

Articles rather than worn (such as purses, canes and umbrellas) are normally counted as fashion accessories rather than clothes. Jewelry and eyeglasses are usually counted as accessories as well, but in common speech these items are described as being worn rather than carried.

21st Century Clothing:

Western fashion has, to some extent, become international fashion, as Western media and styles penetrate all parts of the world. Very few places in the world remain where people do not wear items of cheap, mass-produced Western clothing. Even people in poor countries can afford used clothing from richer Western countries. 

However, people may wear ethnic or national dress on special occasions or if carrying out certain roles and professions. For example, they adopted most Japanese women, western style dress for daily wear, but will still wear silk kimonos on special occasions. Elements of Western dress may also appear worn or accessorized in distinctive non-Western ways. A Tongan man may combine a used T-shirt with a Tongan wrapped skirt, or tupenu.

History:

According to archaeologists and anthropologists, the earliest clothing probably consisted of fur, leather, leaves or grass, draped, wrapped or tied around the body for protection against the elements. Knowledge of these garments still Inferential, since clothing materials deteriorate quickly compared to stone, bone, Shell and metal artifacts. Archaeologists have found very early sewing needles of bone and ivory from about 30,000 BC, found near Kostenki, Russia, in 1988.

Ralf Kittler, Manfred Kayser and Mark Stone King, anthropologists at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, have conducted a genetic analysis of human body lice that indicates that they originated about 107,000 years ago. Since most humans have very sparse body hair, body lice require clothing to survive, so it suggests a surprisingly recent date for the invention of clothing. Invention may have coincided with the spread of modern Homo sapiens from the warm climate of Africa, believed to have begun between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago. But another group of researchers used similar genetic methods to estimate that body lice arose about 540,000 years ago. For now, unsolved date of origin of clothing.

Some human cultures, as the various peoples of the Arctic Circle, until recently made their clothing entirely of furs and skins, cutting clothing to fit and decorating lavishly. 

Other cultures have supplemented or replaced leather and skins with cloth: woven, or twined from various animal and vegetable fibers. See weaving, knitting, and twining. 

Although modern consumers take clothing for granted that the substances that go into clothing is not easy. One sign of this is that the textile industry was the first to be mechanized during the Industrial Revolution, before the invention of the power loom, textile production was a tedious and laborious process. Therefore, methods were developed to make the most efficient use of textiles.

One approach simply involves draping the cloth. Many people were, and still wear, garments consisting of rectangles fabric wrapped to fit - for example, dhoti for men and sari for women in the Indian subcontinent, the Scottish kilt or the Javanese sarong. The clothes may simply be tied up, as is the case in the first two clothing or pins or belts hold clothes in place, as is the case for the latter two. The precious cloth is uncut, and people in different sizes or the same person in different sizes can wear the garment.

Another approach involves cutting and sewing of clothes, but with every bit of the cloth rectangle in the construction of clothes. The tailor may cut triangular pieces from one corner of the cloth, and then add them elsewhere as gussets. Traditional European patterns for men's shirts and women's jackets take this approach.

Modern European fashion cloth offers much more prodigally, typically cutting in such a way as to leave various odd-shaped cloth back. Industrial Sewing operations sell these as waste; home sewers may turn them into quilts.

For thousands of years, people have spent building clothes, they have created an astonishing range of styles, many of which we can reconstruct from surviving garments, photos, paintings, mosaics, etc., as well as from written descriptions. Costume history 0serves as a source of inspiration to current fashion designers, as well as a topic of professional interest to the customer premises to plays, movies, television, and historical reenactment.