No Country
I believe in the
power of clothing. The power to shape a people's identity, the power to change
behavioural patterns, the power to communicate in silence. I believe that
clothes, as light as they are, carry the weight of an individual's self image
and anation's collective ideology of life and living.
Clothes have
always had a voice. Just as the colour blue could say 'soft and calm' and
yellow could say 'happy and playful', so can a skirt say 'lady' and a formal
jacket say 'smart'. When a person's thought goes into what they wear, they are
thinking about what they want the world to perceive them as on that day, at
that time. A red dress instead of a green one, boots instead of stilletos...
If our choice of
clothing can express so much more than we can say at any given time, doens't it
follow that the people who provide these choices have a lot of control on how
we express ourselves? Here's an example:
On a particular
day, a young lady is feeling excited. She just gets some really good news and
she wants to celebrate. She thinks immediately about what she wants to doto
enjoy herself and what she will wear to equally match the feeling and the
chosen celebration event. The image she has of how she wants to look is one of
a girl she saw on T.V; happy, just like she feels right now, wearing a blue
flowery dress, high heeled sandals and curly hair. Now, she may not connect
what she is browing her closet for, (Something similar to the blue dress on
T.V)to the girl on T.V consciously, but that is exactly what is happening.
She had to make a
choice to wear something that would show the world what she could not possibly
tell everyone, and her choice was a blue flowery dress or something close to
that because that's what she had seen. That's what she thought would express
her feelings adequately.
Who is in control
here? The young Lady? Or whoever made that blue dress and put it on T.V, in a
happy commercial so that whoever was feeling like the girl on T.V would
automatically want a flowery dress?
Let us break it
down even further. How is it that a blue flowery dress ends up on T.V as a
happy person's choice of clothing? Here's why: Because someone somewhere
knows of a flowery field that he or she
goes to, whenever he/she feels blue. This place always has a calming, happy
effect on him/her. He/she gets inspired to designa dress that captures the
feeling this place gives so he/she can share it with the world, and Voila! The
dress is born.
Now, Imagine that
100,000 of this flowery field inspired dress has been produced and shipped
around the world. Don't you think that what has been shipped around the world
is not just a dress, but a place? A flowery field in country X? And whoever
gets this dress, gets a piece of country X? If country X has 1,000 clothing
designers that are inspired by 1,000 other characteristics of their country X,
and they all produce 100,000 of their different 1,000 designs and ship around
the world, does that not mean that a representation of country X is around the
world?
So, if the people
of country Y love all of country X's clothing, buy and wear country X's
clothing and this then makes up 80% of country Y's clothing industry, doesný
this mean that country X is preferred to country Y by the inhabitants of
country Y? Doesn't it mean that country Y's choice of expression is being
controlled, not intentionally, by Country X? Doesn't it mean that country Y's
20% will also be influenced by country X's 80% in country Y? Doesn't this mean
that there is, in fact, no country Y?
But the blue
flowery dress is beautiful. It is functional. It is available, affordable and
it makes that young lady happy. And if all she has to do is wear country X to
feel this way, country X it is!
So what's the
problem?
Country X has
obliterated country Y's identity. Even the 20% of country 's clothing isn't
really country Y's> And a country without an identity is no country.
Countries are
meant to co-exist, to enjoy each other's difference and uniqueness. When I
travel to a foreign country, I want to see how they are, what they do, what
they love and many times, they dress how they are. They wear who they are. They
can wear a blue flowery dress that i bring to them from my country Y, but it
doesn't become their go-to happy dress.It could be worn when they feel like
looking Y-ish, but it doesn't become their way. And if they love it so much,
what it stands for, what it expresses, then they are inspired by it and they
take that dress and make it theirs, make it how they are, functional to their
society and applicable to their way of life. I believe that fashion carries a
weigh; that is is more than a covering, especially in a country like our.
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