Considering fashion an essential of comfort or protection from sun and cold is not true. On the contrary, fashion itself has compulsory political and social meanings.
Following the inspiring work of the philosophers of the past centuries, fashion has been associated with the growth of capitalist society. In the eighteenth century, fashion spread beyond the aristocracy due to the growing power of the middle class and its wish to copy the aristocracy and distinguish itself from the lower classes.
According to a renowned philosopher's Theory of the Leisure Class, fashionable womens fancy costumes are a sign of women's leisure that reflect the economic power of their fathers and husbands.
The basic and most important function of fashion is to indicate one's status or class. But it is clear from several examples in the past centuries that fashion of women's fancy dresses is not limited to middle or upper-class women.
In The Fancy Dress Store UK women's diaries, it is found that the fashion of women's fancy dresses was observed and participated by working-class UK women and other household women perhaps, were not able to hire a tailor that designed and styled their women's fancy dresses but middle-class women became the counterparts of working-women by making their fancy dresses, often with cheap fabrics but in styles as same as women's fashion magazines displayed the latest fashionable women's fancy dresses. In such a way, fashion was used to represent or hide one's social status or class and promote social mobility.
Women’s Sexuality In Women’s Dresses
Aside from class, women's fashion is considered to be associated with issues of sexuality. In the past centuries, fashion was assumed to be a part of that social system in which women were oppressed. For instance, Victorian women's long fancy dresses were interpreted as proof of women's sexuality and heightened discomfort with the woman's body. Similarly, a women's dress named "corest" is often linked with women keeping them confined and passive.
Recently, many scholars and experts in the women's fashion and clothing industry raised questions about the past assumptions associated with women's dresses. They reject the idea that any kind of fancy womens clothing is universally considered erotic, comfortable and natural. They elaborated on how both tight-fitting and shapeless fancy womens clothing have all been considered as reflecting rather than concealing the women's sexuality.
In addition to this, another women's clothing expert and scholar challenged the stereotype of Victorian women's fashionable dresses as inherently prudish because expression of eroticism was a compulsory feature of Victorian women's clothes in which naked toe, low neckline and tight-waist were all the symbols of sexuality in women's dresses.
Economic Theory Of Fashionable Women's fancy Dresses
Generally, women are competing with one another for fashionable status by wearing fancy dresses and costumes according to the economic theory of women's fashion. Many interpretations have started to explore how women's fashion of fancy dresses serves to connect a woman with other people. For instance, popular newspapers and magazines frequently show intimate relations of women with other ones.
In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, it is seen as most women plan to go shopping together wearing the latest and fashionable womens fancy costumes to get pleasure and pass their free time after completing their household and office tasks and these facts proposed that the fashion of women's apparel can be proven to become a vital component of women's shared culture.
Conclusion
Fashion of Womens Fancy Dresses does not appreciate inherent aesthetics but sometimes it advises the ultimate obedience to a superficial standard of beauty. Fashion has been portrayed for a long period against literature.