The Role and Representation of Women
The Role and Representation of Women: How they are Expressed Through Fashion
Fashion, style and trends have always been a hugely important part of women’s lives, being a major creative outlet for women throughout the ages. But these trends are much more than just picking out something to wear each day from a cupboard of clothes: fashion is a way of expressing the role of women in society and how important and independent they are, and although style changes appear to be rapid and trivial, there is a lot of thought that goes into what women are going to wear next and how it is going to reflect their individual status as a woman in a her own era.
To illustrate this, I have looked at two particular periods in history: Ancient Egypt and World War One, to see how women’s fashion was determined by circumstances and by women’s role in society.
In ancient Egypt, the main intentions of women’s clothing were practical ones: keeping the wearer cool and comfortable in the hot climate. The women of ancient Egypt are usually depicted as wearing a straight caftan/shift, which was fundamentally a simple rectangular piece of material folded once and sewn down the edge to make a tube dress. This was most commonly worn just below the breasts, with thick straps that covered the breast in most cases (although in ancient Egyptian times an exposed breast was not at all considered immodest, and there were periods of style that had the dresses with thinner straps, revealing the breasts). The length of the dress was a mark of a woman’s social class, and the longer the dress, the higher up in society you were, as you could afford the extra material. As the styles evolved, another dress was created, made out of two pieces of cloth tied together leaving a small gap for the head. The bottom corners of this new robe were knotted at the front of the dress. Men could also wear this robe; however it would be tied differently to a woman’s. Many women also wore a pleated cape or a long,
Fashion, style and trends have always been a hugely important part of women’s lives, being a major creative outlet for women throughout the ages. But these trends are much more than just picking out something to wear each day from a cupboard of clothes: fashion is a way of expressing the role of women in society and how important and independent they are, and although style changes appear to be rapid and trivial, there is a lot of thought that goes into what women are going to wear next and how it is going to reflect their individual status as a woman in a her own era.
To illustrate this, I have looked at two particular periods in history: Ancient Egypt and World War One, to see how women’s fashion was determined by circumstances and by women’s role in society.
In ancient Egypt, the main intentions of women’s clothing were practical ones: keeping the wearer cool and comfortable in the hot climate. The women of ancient Egypt are usually depicted as wearing a straight caftan/shift, which was fundamentally a simple rectangular piece of material folded once and sewn down the edge to make a tube dress. This was most commonly worn just below the breasts, with thick straps that covered the breast in most cases (although in ancient Egyptian times an exposed breast was not at all considered immodest, and there were periods of style that had the dresses with thinner straps, revealing the breasts). The length of the dress was a mark of a woman’s social class, and the longer the dress, the higher up in society you were, as you could afford the extra material. As the styles evolved, another dress was created, made out of two pieces of cloth tied together leaving a small gap for the head. The bottom corners of this new robe were knotted at the front of the dress. Men could also wear this robe; however it would be tied differently to a woman’s. Many women also wore a pleated cape or a long,