Fashion: When clothing becomes a message – the hidden symbolism of what we wear

Source: The philosophy of clothing: When matter dresses the spirit

All visible things are emblems; what thou seest is not there on its own account; strictly taken, is not there at all: Matter exists only spiritually, and to represent some Idea, and body it forth.

Hence Clothes, as despicable as we think them, are so unspeakably significant. Clothes, from the King's mantle downwards, are emblematic, not of want only, but of a manifold cunning Victory over Want.

On the other hand, all Emblematic things are properly Clothes, thought-woven or hand-woven: must not the Imagination weave Garments, visible Bodies, wherein the else invisible creations and inspirations of our Reason are, like Spirits, revealed...

(Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus, Book I, Chapter VI, translation)

Explanation: From idea to reality: Why the spirit needs a garment

The spiritual realm is invisible: ideas, emotions, divinity, and the soul cannot be seen, and therefore spirit needs a "body"—that is, for an idea to exist in this world, it must clothe itself in matter. Matter is the "garment" of the spirit, and that is how symbolism, embodied through clothing, is born.

Perspective: A call to action wrapped in cloth: Carlyle's view of clothing as personal expression

Carlyle, a nineteenth-century Englishman, was one of the most influential figures in modern individualist thought. One of Carlyle's claims is that the garment wrapped around the body is not merely a symbolic expression of an idea, but a call to action. Clothing is in fact a call to action—to realize the individual's ideas and beliefs, and through dress, which is itself symbolic, to create a world. Carlyle expresses this in his essay On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History: "All sorts of Heroes are intrinsically of the same material; they differ from one another only according to the way human beings received them and the particular forms they put on." Clothing brings the person to expression.

Going Deeper: The shoelace you must not change: Jewish identity through the lens of fashion

The sages of Israel ruled that if foreign rulers decree that Jews must change even the color of a shoelace, one should choose death over changing it (Sanhedrin 74b). While the Gemara cites the shoelace to teach that even a seemingly trivial custom carries value, it is no coincidence that the example comes from the world of fashion. Even the color of a shoelace carries symbolic weight, and imitating a foreign fashion erases personal identity in favor of a generic, entirely non-Jewish one. Even a shoelace makes the person. And pictured: a fashionable creature.

Culture: The language of colors: What our clothes say about us without words

Why is a bride's dress white, while police uniforms are very dark? Why is blue the color of work clothes ("blue collar"), and a red outfit an attractor? Various studies have shown that in people's eyes, brown clothes are unattractive and dull, while black clothing projects authority and power, and pink conveys pleasantness and beauty, but hints at low intelligence. Blue projects seriousness, and the white of a bridal gown naturally symbolizes purity, as do our clothes for Shabbat and holidays. Military uniforms are dyed olive green, both as camouflage in nature and as a spiritual and physical integration into the land for which we fight. Man is a tree of the field.