Think about it anthropologically. Clothing has probably been used as a signifier of meaning from the time we evolved to capacity to recognize that kind of thing. In other words, we probably started using clothes to indicate our belonging to social groups once those groups started existing.
Yeah, I realize that part. Like, if you look at tribal societies, then there are different items of clothing and accessories for the different sexes, different age groups, married and unmarried people and so on. Also different outfits for different positions in the pecking line. Some of that even exists in nature i.e. with animals, I believe - like a boy-deer has antlers and a girl-deer doesn't have them or has smaller ones. (I'm not that good with animal names, sorry.) And since boy-deers fight, the one who is the best at fighting and survives and who grows to be the oldest one has the biggest antlers.
I'll try and explain what I meant: When I was little, a T-Shirt was only ever a T-Shirt for me. Maybe I liked one better than the other because it was red and not blue or because it had a picture of a doggy on it or whatever. But that was it. Now I believe in the theory that the development one single human being goes through is at least in parts equivalent to the evolution of mankind.
(I'm not so sure about the biological parts because I'm not a biologist, but what I've heard is that until a certain stage, you cannot tell a human foetus from a monkey foetus. Similarly, a baby human and a baby monkey have about the same skills (roughly speaking). But this also extends to the intellectual realm - like arts: A younger child draws similar to these drawings in the cave, while an older child discovers perspective, like artists discovered the principle of perspective later on. The same applies to oral tradition or literature and lots of other things.)
So I believe it happens not only for the single individual but also for society as a whole that a shirt is not just a shirt anymore. I believe that in a tribal society, all clothes are made with the same diligence and from the same materials. I could be wrong, but that's the premise I'm assuming. This is obviously not the case anymore. I'm assuming it happened rather early that different materials were used for different receivers, like silk for richer people and cotton for the poorer ones or whatever. Is that the beginning of what is happening today? However, I believe that today we're more able to choose between different labels and belonging to different social groups. What I don't know is when it seems that societies become more democratic and people become "more equal" in terms of possibilities, at least in the Western world, why different social groups are that big a deal anymore.
Anyhoo, these days a shirt is not just a shirt anymore. It suddenly matters if you bought it at H&M or at, I don't know, Prada. Why does this matter? Is it all about showing how much money you are able and willing to spend on a shirt? More expensive is maybe seen as "better" by the mainstream, but there are also subversive movements whose members dress really cheap to make a point. And I'm wondering when people lost that "innocence" (can't think of a better word). Was a chieftain of a group Neanderthals really considered to be "better" than his tribe-mates? I have the impression that in today's society wealth seems to be associated with superiority. If I remember my history class right, wasn't that the idea of the Calvinists that God rewards those who are hard-working? And being favoured by God is obviously a sign of superiority.
So is it all rooted in capitalism? Also, what exactly do you mean by that term and when would you say it started, ruyi?
(Sorry, I don't know if I'm making much sense anymore.)
