History of costumes

Costume of each period should be viewed within the context of the period.
Clothes and clothing are synonymous and are used to mean wearing apparel, but also respects the
personal appearance that can be changed such as grooming.
Style is the predominant form of dress of any given period or culture. Styles may persist for very
long or short period of times.
Fashion is synonymous with style after the latter part of the medieval period but implies styles of
relatively short duration.
Costume is the style of a dress peculiar to a nation a class or a period.
Origins of dress
There is no clear historic evidence to show the origin of dress. Existing books and pictorial
records have huge gaps left unfilled, and surviving garment evidence is found only from last two
centuries.
The earliest pictorial evidence of dress is found in prehistoric cave paintings from the old stone
age or early Paleolithic period 30000 years ago. From the little evidence that is available it can
be deducted that people clothed themselves using draped skirts, trousers and cape like garments
probably all of which were made from skins.
Archaeologists have found supporting evidence from this period: needles for sewing, bone
scrapers for preparing skins, and bone devices that were probably used for fastening clothing.
The earliest record of textiles fabrics dates from around 27000 years ago and consists of
imprints of woven material on clay pots.
The oldest actual textile discovered by the archaeologists dates from about 7000 BC. It’s a white
fabric tentatively identified as linen. There are remains of woven fabrics from turkey that are
from 8500 years ago. The weaving techniques used were very complicated so it can be assumed
that the craft of weaving started much before that.
What causes people to dress their bodies in a certain way? What explanation exist for people to
dress their bodies?
A way of finding some answers is by looking at what we see today and projecting it backwards.
Origin and motives
Michael de Montaigne

As plants trees animals all that lives are by nature equipped with sufficient covering to protect
them against injury of weather, And therefore almost all are covered either with hides or else
with shells or with horny callus or bark
So we were but like those who with artificial light extinguish the light of day, we have
extinguished our proper means with borrowed means. He states that the naked state is the natural
state of humans and undressed humans like most animals did not need protection the effects of
physical environment. However, human lost this protection once they started wearing clothes. He
proposes custom as the main reason for clothing a body. His work is an early attempt to find an
explanation within the cultural perspective
Sylvia Hortense bliss the significance of clothes
Why humans wear clothes. Her explanation spans anthropology and psycho analysis. Bliss
introduces the idea of humans as incomplete or unfinished beings as compared to the rest of
nature. She suggests that dress embodies and reflects unconscious and subconscious ideals and
ideas. According to her history of dress is humans striving for the perfect human costume. This
will be fitting natural and characteristic as the exterior of fur and feathers for animals and birds.
While Darwin interpreted a change in clothing as an evolutionary process, she suggests that
change in clothing suggests a collective mental out look
It may be that the ancient Britons painted their bodies with earthly pigmentation check the
cooling effects of evaporation from the skin, the Andaman islanders plastered themselves with
mud in order to resist attack from insects,Eskimo wore fur covered garments to protect
themselves from cold, gourd or sling if South Americans protect them from probable injuries,
petal decorated belle of kafir belle is a means of attraction, so vanity, aesthetic feeling the desire
for distinction and motive of comfort play their part.
Though there are isolated examples of hairy men today, it’s quite possible that the early men
were covered with hair. But man by nature is a naked animal. Unlike other creatures that display
fur feathers thickened and colored hides scales various armors and integuments, man alone is left
with an incomplete exterior.
Albert E crawley
He categorizes what he sees as the prevalent hypotheses into three distinctive groups: the
decorative element, the idea of concealment as related to modest and sexual attraction and the
need for protection.
He says dress is a means for extending the body’s capabilities and for allowing social display- an
extension of the passive area of the person, a second skin. He uses the evolutionary model in his
theories. Dress comes from people adapting to their environment, he believes dress should be
treated in the same ways as the weapons machines and tools. evolution and uses of religious and
social significance of dress as a guide to include the psychological evolution of dress. He sees
dress both as an expression and extension of personality, and in this sense then explains how the
dress extends the capabilities of the body. Dress marks various biological and social grades in
life such as age gender and status. Dress is a social form, a social habit, and becomes a direct
affirmation of the personality and state, expressing family, social movement and changing social
roles, and government. He also extends the concept of dress as protection to include psychic and
psychological protection of dress used as an amulet, as protection from evil, the evil eye, and evil
spirits
Dress increases the static resisting power of the surface of the body just as tools increase the
dynamic capacity of the limbs.it is an extension of the passive area of the person just as the tool
is of the active mechanism of the arm. It is the second skin as the other hand is the second hand.
Alfred R. Radcliffe Brown
He limits the discussions on origin and motives of dressing a body to the narrow view of the
dress as a personal ornament. He does not use the term dress or clothing in his discussions but
discusses modifications made to the body, along with supplements such as necklaces. His focus
is dress. His hypothesis is that personal ornament is a means by which the society acts upon
modifies and regulates the sense of self in an individual.
He talks about two reasons for personal ornament-protection and display
All ornaments mark the relationship of the individual to the society and to the forces of nature.
When dressing the person uses dress to mark and even highlight a position in the society.
Making the person visible either permanently or temporarily. He believes that dress also provides
metaphysical as well as physical protection.
To further explain this the sense of self is closely associated with the perception of one’s own
body. The moral and social commitments in a man is dependent upon the development of self-
consciousness, of the sense of self.
Eg: there are three methods of ornamenting the body in andamans.1scarification – according to
them improves personal appearance and makes the boy or girl grow strong.2 painting – patterned
white clay serves to make both the painted individual and those who see him feel his social value
3 ornaments – All ornaments mark the relationship of the individual in some way or the other to
the society.
Thus all these manifest the existence of some special relationship between the individual and the
society.

Ruth benedict
She explains contemporary theories of clothing the body as originating from ideas of magic and
protection as protection against rigors of climate or as a means of sexual attraction. She makes
one major distinction between the dress of the earlier civilizations and the modern dress. Earlier
dress was differentiated geographically. Contemporary dress is differentiated in time, claiming
that the rise of fashion is a system of change that developed during renaissance. He says the swift
succession of styles will maintain itself as a fixed characteristic of dress as a culture trait in our
civilization. In short fashion as change in styles is not just a fixed characteristic of dress but also
a cultural trait
George Van Ness Deaborn
He attributes a physiological psychology of clothing and applied psychology of clothing. He says
one’s clothes are one of the important things that intervenes between the individual’s personality
and the environment and you understand that life itself in a sense is a reaction to the
environment. He shows how clothes impact the functions of the physical body such as breathing,
sweating, heart rate, movement of limbs and even digestive action.
G Stanley Hall
He focused his observations on children. His main concern is psychological. His focus is on how
human beings develop the physical self-consciousness. Hall contends that dress and ornaments
are used to attract the attention of the child to its own body. In short clothes consciousness
facilitates body consciousness. According to him one of the primary purposes of clothing is to
get children on the correct developmental path. It has a moral impact on children in that a change
in dress can change a child’s attitude and behaviors. thus how you dress a child is critical to the
development of self.