
This whole concept on body practice and images got me thinking about social norms and practices. Clothes are such a large part of our life, Robin is always saying we are dressing is "drag" which is pretty true. If we all didn't care we would probably just wear what is the most comfortable, unfortunately a lot of our care and wear tight uncomfortable and on occasion. Clothes are the signifiers and the signified would be how that is perceived like the social rank of the person, financial status and kind of tells you about the person to some extent.
Take clothing in vogue for example, the magazine itself is expensive, the models are all ridiculously skinny and the clothes are all super expensive. Not to mention kind of ridiculous, would someone really just wear a blue bra (maybe... prostitution and stripping aside)? If clothing is "external signs which adorn the body (like decorations..." as Bourdieu claims and it "signifys social position" why are wealthy "fashion" magazines promoting unrealistic clothing lines...? This is in a magazine and it argues culture just like everyone magazine; it's saying look here, look at these women who are perfect and they are hardly wearing anything, obviously if you want to be like them you need to BUY THESE CLOTHES! Cultural rhetoric at its best. Or at least that's how I interpret it.
I agree that media portrays the wrong image that wearing barely anything or wearing something out of the normal means being wealthy. If one to wear the things they saw in the magazines, they would either be called a slut or simply considered weird. It is also true that the clothes we wear on a everyday basis is not what we would wear to be comfortable. It is what we wear to impress others as well as ourselves, to make ourselves be someone we want to be and to show our rank in society. If we didn't care so much to impress, we would all be wearing sweatpants and t-shirts everyday, everywhere. Our culture is so obsessed with clothes, it determines the status of the person and the image they portray of themselves.
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