In print | Published April 23, 2009

One hundred and twenty days from now I will be getting on a plane for a semester abroad in Copenhagen, Denmark. Even with one final week of classes and finals to get through, I can’t help but constantly think about the distant future. As petty as it sounds, packing for four months living in Europe seems almost as stressful as finishing some of my final papers. I may be exaggerating here, but the concerns are real — when one is abroad, should one make an effort to blend in with the natives, or stick to one’s own sartorial milieu?

The distinctions that dress can draw between different societies, countries and peoples are certainly a counter to those who naysay the importance of fashion. Nothing is more visible than such visual signifiers. When browsing through street fashion blogs like Face Hunter and The Sartorialist that travel around the world, it’s surprising how easy it is to predict what cities the pictures come from.
Perhaps unintentionally, there are wholly noticeable differences between those hailing from London, Paris, New York City and Los Angeles. Perhaps it’s due to something as simple as differences in the weather, but maybe there is something at the core of every city that causes such differences. It’s a little disconcerting to think that simply by moving to a different city, one can change into an unrecognizable person due to changes in dress.

I was struck especially by a couple of posts that The Sartorialist made a while ago about women who had moved to the Big Apple. Within a year, their styles had completely changed so that they looked distinctively like New Yorkers. When one was interviewed about how her style had changed so much, her explanation was that it was a combination of greater accessibility to more sophisticated and fashion-forward clothing and greater exposure to “fashionable” people and various styles. There was also inspiration drawn from the city itself. In a way, the self-perpetuating nature of fashion seems to be one way in which the city itself is alive, and even so it is always changing.
In Copenhagen, there is apparently an unwritten rule that women who dress like secretaries, and who actually aren’t secretaries, are unavailable and in serious relationships. Even though there is no handbook for style, it’s interesting how the way we dress gets coded into everyday societal meaning. On a utilitarian level, a pair of pants is a pair of pants. But given context, pants became an empowering emblem of the feminist movement, a visible manifestation of the changes taking place in society.

This and countless other examples throughout history — the banning of armbands during the Vietnam War, the rising hemlines of dresses during the roaring ’20s, the ubiquitous flannel of the grunge era — show that it is impossible to visualize a society without taking note of fashion. It’s impossible to get dressed in the morning, no matter how some may try, and not have our choices say something about who we are. Clothing may not be definitive, but it’s one more way to judge and be judged. So though it’s a little scary to thin , we may need the fashion industry a whole lot more than it needs us.

But rather than this being a pessimistic view, I still believe that this means style, even if influenced by the society around us, is one of the most salient forms of expression we have. As I sit here writing my last column of the year, I can’t help but ponder how my sense of style has changed to reflect the changes in my life. Whether they have been ups or downs, I’ve still enjoyed writing and blogging about these stages. So adieu (or should I say farvel?) for now, and perhaps I will be back in future times, home from abroad with some new perspective.

Ming is a sophomore. You can reach her at mcai1@swarthmore.edu.

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