Globalization of clothing
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The ubiquitous white wedding with its formulaic white bridal gown is considered the norm in many countries that is to be worn on your wedding day. To some, not having that exquisite white bridal gown means that your wedding is somewhat incomplete. This is an undeniable fact. The link that I have provided links to a website which promotes wedding gowns, while I was looking through it, it occurred to me that these wedding gowns are in fact similar, most of them are white and share many other similarities. The main one being that they are gowns which are styled in a very westernized manner. Seldom do we see traditional wedding costumes when we visit these sites or go to bridal shops. I am not saying that they do not exists, they do but due to globalization, there is now a common and conventional way of thinking of how a wedding gown should look like, that is the white westernized bridal gown, despite the race or religion of the person who is going to be wearing it on her wedding day. The white conventional wedding gowns are apparels which are basically worn in the western countries but with globalization catching in, they have become popular in oriental countries as well.
So just how much have globalization change the way in which we dress? My article is globalization and its effects on clothing. I started of with the example of the wedding gowns as I feel that it is a good example to show how globalization has in fact change the way in which we dress.
Brides and grooms wear different kinds of clothing in different parts of India. In the South, grooms either wear the traditional veshti (dhoti) and kurta or three-piece suits while those in the north wear a sherwani with a churidar pyjama or a bandha gala suit. Most brides wear saris, usually in shades of red, pink or mustard but in different ways. On the other hand, a Gujarati bride will wear a saree in Gujarati style usually in red, white and gold; a Coorgie in their particular style and a Bengali usually white or onion pink with red and gold border in their own style and so on. As for the Chinese ethnic wedding attire, the brides wear a series of vividly colored brocade Qi Pau (Chinese jacket) and Cheongsams, which are very slim fitting gowns with two slits up each side of the skirt. As for the grooms, they wear Da Gua, a front-closing tunic. For the Africans, the brides wear a headpiece called a 'gele', a loose fitting wrap skirt called an 'iro', a shawl called a 'iborum' and a short loose blouse called a 'buba' ,all fashioned out of matching fabric. The groom wears a pair of slacks called 'sokoto', a shirt called a 'bubba', a long flowing pullover type jacket called an 'agbada' and a rounded box-hat called a 'fila'.
We can then question ourselves. How many times have we been to a wedding where we see the brides and grooms wearing their ethnic and traditional wedding attires, one in which symbolizes their culture and ethnicity? Personally, I have never been to a Chinese wedding, be it one of relative or a friend in which both the bride and groom are wearing their ethnic wedding attire as described in the previous paragraph. As for the bride, the white bridal gown is the norm and as for her partner, the black suite which is usually accompanied by a tie. Similarly to Malay weddings, there are some Malay weddings which I have been to, in fact quite a few to be exact, however, despite some of brides and grooms still wearing their ethnic wedding attire such as the baju kurung, they are bound to change to the more western way of dressing that is the white wedding gown for the bride and the black suite for the groom usually for the second half of the day. Then again, there are the handful of Malay weddings in which they do not even wear their traditional wedding attire.
The effects of globalization on clothing can be seen in other forms of clothing too besides the wedding attire. There are several forms of clothing like the white bridal gown which are “universal” such as the man’s business suite, with colored tie and buttoned shirt in a sense that they are worn everywhere, in numerous countries around the globe, however, variations have appeared in countries that are cautious about adopting global popular culture. For example, Iranian parliamentarians, for example, wear the “Western” suit but forgo the tie, while Saudi diplomats alternate “traditional” Bedouin robes with tailored business suits, depending upon the occasion. As for the women, emergence of women's “power suits” in the 1980s signified another form of global conformity. The white silk scarves, colorful blouses, stylized trouser-suits are now considered as worldwide symbols of modernity, independence and competence. The export of used clothing from Western countries to developing nations has accelerated the adoption of Western-style dress by people of all socioeconomic levels around the world.
There are also instances in which certain forms or ways of clothing have underwent transformation and changed due to globalization. For example, Chinese fashion underwent sweeping change after the death in 1976 of Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong and the resultant economic liberalization. Following this period of time, western suits and causal wear became the norm. The previously androgynous grey or blue Mao suit disappeared in the 1980s and in the 1990s, these Mao suits were later being sold in Hong Kong and Shanghai boutiques high-priced nostalgia wear, saturated with postmodern irony. In the case of world fashion, it can be seen that at the start of the twenty-first century, the preferred garments of both sexes from around the world tend to be the all too common jeans, sweatshirts, T-shirts, and sneakers. These clothing signify youth, modernity and an eagerness to belong to the newly globalized capitalist world and are also international icons of American culture.
There has indeed been much change in the way that people dress now as compared to the past. It is undeniable that in the process of this change, there are certain disadvantages. For example, in the case of the wedding gowns, I mentioned how people tend to loose their ethnicity and culture as the way they dress tend to be more westernized, similarly to the way that we dress nowadays. In the past, even during the time when our grandparents were young, for the Malays, the women would usually use the baju kurung as their everyday attire and it was regarded as the norm back then. However, as we can see this is clearly not the case in present day society. However, there are advantages too, due to globalization, people tend to move around the world more as it becomes increasingly convenient to do so, thus there have been certain cases in which new designs have been made for example through the fusion of ethnic clothing of various cultures or the fusion of modernized clothing with ethnic ones. Back to the wedding attire, a good example would be the wedding attire that Mexican brides wear, mantilla veils and either a slim dress with a bolero jacket or a Flamenco-style dress with a layer of ruffles at the hem. This is a combination of the traditional wedding attire, however, they made the dresses that the brides wear more modernized which looks more similar to the conventional wedding gowns, at the same time while still maintaining part of their ethnic wedding attire. In my opinion, more of such designs should be made so that while people want to wear more modernized clothing, they still retain part of traditional clothing so as to remember their ethnicity and culture.
Signing off,
Warda
Cultural expert
Future Perfect; Cultural Expert
4:59 PM
