Discipline and Expression: Historical Divergence, Driving Forces, and Future Trends of Dress Codes in China and the West
Abstract
Clothing is one of the most primitive and complicated symbolic systems in human civilization. In addition to being an adornment for the body and a manifestation of personal preference, it is also a medium for expressing ethnic culture and social ideas. In this article, Author will attempt to compare and discuss the different development paths of dress codes in the East and West, explore the current challenges and prospects. This paper combines comparative historical analysis and politics of the body, analyzes the process of the development of dress code from antiquity to modernity to present, as well as the current impact of globalization and Internet technology. Within the background of Confucian ethics, in China, with the politically dominant “ritual propriety” model, clothing was regarded as a means to control the body and keep social order. After the Renaissance and Industrial Revolution, under the influence of economy, technology, social movement, etc., in the West, clothing has been turned into an expression and declaration of personal identity, and an “individual driven” paradigm has been born. Meanwhile, contemporary dress codes in the East and West are also challenged by the traditional logic brought by digital technology and new fashion concepts.
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