Fitting in - Unit 9

C2 Proficiency · Multiple Matching · Based on C2 Proficiency exam text

You are going to read an introduction to a book about clothes and fashion. For questions 1–10, choose from the sections (A-C). The sections may be chosen more than once.

As we prepare to meet our world we perform a very natural act: getting dressed. This may mean only adding a pair of sandals or freshening a grass girdle. Or it may mean the ceremonious robing of a monarch. For most of us, it means the exchange of nightwear for day clothes. Although nakedness does still exist in some isolated areas, there appears to be no society that is entirely composed of totally unadorned human beings. The desire to add to the original natural state is so prevalent in our species that we must assume it has become an innate trait. When did it begin? It certainly precedes history. Bodily covering was probably the first shelter and the human skin the earliest canvas. We can see that with his arms and hands free to function, man must have soon discovered that his anatomical structure could accommodate a wide variety of physical self-adornment. His shoulders could support a mantle to protect him from the elements. To stand out above others and indicate his superior position, he found his head an excellent foundation for adding stature and distinction. Intertwined with these motivating factors and underlying them was the human instinct for creative expression - the need for an outlet for the aesthetic spirit.

Changes in needs and outlooks often blur the purpose of what originally gave articles of human adornment a raison d'être. Some vestiges are relegated to tradition; others undergo a mutation. The sheltering mantle, for example, can become a magnificent but cumbersome robe of state. Ancient symbols, lost or forgotten, become objects of display for the shape of the wearer's wealth. Man is a gregarious animal. And although innovations and changes may be initiated by individuals, the inspiration that triggers them is the product of the innovator's environment, and their acceptance or rejection is determined by his society. Nothing seems to reflect social and cultural patterns as the manner in which individuals within a society alter their outward appearance.

Fashion can be a powerful force. Societies define themselves by a set of rules, and most people, consciously or subconsciously, do their best to conform. The nonconformists, those who do not wish to join in this game, must be prepared to challenge kinship and go it alone or suffer the consequences. Their actions are hardly capricious. Their roots are in the evolution of a society which, although composed of individuals, develops an identity of its own and an instinct for self-preservation. A homogeneity in dress is a manifestly visible unifier of a social group. Because this is so, a dress code properly understood can give us an insight not only into the structure of a social organization but also into its ethics, its aesthetics, its fears, hopes and goals. Today our clothes continue to reflect our anxieties and how we try to allay them. Our society is rapidly becoming global. The worldwide rage for jeans is an example of this new order and the wholesale movement to break down past barriers. 'Fashion is the mirror of history,' King Louis XIV of France observed. But if one were to transpose a fashion from one age into another era, it would be unlikely to make sense. For example, could an Amazonian Indian or a Roman rationalize a hoop skirt, a starched ruff, or a powdered wig? Yet scrutinised through the specialist's lens, such items of dress can help chart the course of social mores, dress codes, the march of science and the progress of technology. This would explain why the genealogy of clothes attracts the rapt attention of the psychologist, sociologist, anthropologist and art historian, each posing the same question: Why do people wear what they wear? Why, indeed, have human beings chosen to transform themselves so astonishingly? For the sake of the flesh or the spirit? For themselves and their own inquisitive nature or for the beholders? What has driven them? Ambition? Conformity? There is and can be no single adequate response.

Fitting in

A Social Phenomenon: What is Fashion?

adopting non-mainstream fashion risks the possibility of social disapproval?

the point that fashion cannot be taken out of its historical context?

a temporal link between wearing clothes and painting the body?

how certain clothes eventually become recognised as merely of historical interest?

someone might dress in a particular way in order not to attract attention?

how clothes could be used to assert social standing?

a fashion item which reflects a trend in society?

clothes being put on in a very elaborate manner?

satisfying one's own curiosity as a possible motive for dressing in unusual ways?

an explanation for the way in which dress codes originate?

Which section mentions

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