VALUES, WELLBEING & DIGITAL ENTERTAINMENT: THE ENDURING POWER OF DRESS CODES

June 25, 2021 Geraldine Wharry

VALUES CHWNG GUM image credit Kristin Sigus

From the sumptuary laws of Medieval and Renaissance Europe, to our present day understanding of ‘power dressing’, dress codes have been created to promote or preserve authority, status and respect. More recently, this ‘code’ has also come to mean a way of “deciphering”(1) our identity and what we communicate through our clothing.

Dress codes are hugely complex; influenced by a plethora of factors, including gender, class, ethnicity, race and politics; and are also dynamic.

Essay by Susan Muncey - Writer, Trend Forecaster & Slow Fashion Retailer

During my own lifetime, arguably easier-to-negotiate ‘active’ or written dress codes have been increasingly flouted as part of a cult of individualism, whilst at the same time evolving into a ‘passive’ or unspoken sartorial language of ‘fitting in’ with a tribe.

The dress codes likely to emerge from our post-COVID, climate-challenged, digital world will be different from anything we have experienced before, even developing their own form of agency as part of a totally new approach to how we value, use and wear clothing.

Having been a pioneer of the recycled and second hand wardrobe, I am optimistic that a global re-education programme will result in us all dressing in a way that is more ethical and conscious of the environment.

When I started work in the City in the early 1980s, there were not many options for business clothing. Formal styles were the norm, even for secretaries, and a corporate dress code was written into contracts of employment. At that time ‘appropriate’ office clothing was largely manufactured in the UK, and was well made. Labels like Cojana, Daks, Simpson Piccadilly, Aquascutum, Burberry and Jaeger were office staples.

For those of us who were creative, there was always the option to make our own office clothing. I regularly purchased fabric from Liberty and used Vogue ‘easy’ patterns to create looks by designers like Bill Blass and Ungaro, although my creations never looked quite the same as the illustrations on the packet. In those days it was considered an insult if someone asked whether your clothing was homemade: as if you couldn’t afford to dress properly.

From the mid-1980s, the US import of ‘power dressing’ affected clothing styles, and boxy suiting increasingly came from Europe, including brands such as Escada, Max Mara and Armani. It was common to have just two or three business suits, and there was no emphasis on constantly finding something new. Accessories were usually by Gucci, Ferragamo or Celine: shoes and bags that, with repairs, were made to last.

The 1990s brought more comfortable, less structured grunge fashions and the start of something called ‘organic’ clothing using natural fabrics and looser, bias-cut styles. By the time I opened my boutique - Fashion Gallery - in 1997, my wardrobe consisted of flippy-hemmed petticoat dresses and recycled wool cardigans from Voyage: clothes that would have been completely inappropriate in a business environment.

In the late nineties and early noughties, I sold vintage, recycled and hand-dyed clothing by the likes of Christa Davis alongside emerging brands, including one-off pieces of embellished knitwear by Julien Macdonald, and was sole stockist for the debut collection of avant-garde Polish designer, Arkadius (2), and the hand painted bricolage creations of Karim Bonnet’s Impasse de la Defense (3).

This bucked the trend in the era of a nascent Internet; Nick Robertson had just set up ASOS, and the ‘luxury branded goods’ market was taking off on a trajectory not unlike fast fashion. It wasn’t long before I felt the need to escape from an industry whose direction I didn’t feel comfortable with, preferring to wear vintage clothes purchased at fairs and flea markets, before eventually resurfacing with a slow fashion website.

Fast-forward to 2021, and my view is that future dress codes are less likely to stipulate what should be worn by whom, but will focus on individual, corporate and community VALUES. Based on a combination of global goals, digital platforms and micro-initiatives, the new power dressing will be second hand, homemade, or up-cycled, and will communicate the level of our social and environmental responsibility.

As people reflect on time spent in lockdown, they will increasingly value the things that matter to them – their health, the health of the planet, the art of making and things that are, once again, handmade. Meantime, as governments strive to reduce polluting emissions, plastic and microfibre waste (much of it emanating from clothing manufacture), major industry players are collaborating with academics and media influencers to promote a new, more sustainable approach to fashion. The Centre for Sustainable Fashion has set up Fashion Values (4), in collaboration with Kering, IBM and Vogue Business, and other educational initiatives include Slow Factory (5).

Whilst environmentally responsible practices related to textile production are the focus of organisations like Canopy (6), the concept of clothing and accessories manufacture as a form of social enterprise is gaining ground, with supranational coordination by groups such as the corporate sponsored Ethical Fashion Initiative (7). Activist platforms like Fashion Revolution (8) encourage consumers to ask ‘who made my clothes’ and offer a ‘transparency index’ rating fashion brands and retailers, whilst showcasing makers who responsibly produce and source materials for their designs.

But, will the adoption of sustainability goals by luxury brands result in conscious clothing becoming a new form of conspicuous consumption, exclusive to a wealthy elite?

A decade ago, a UN International Trade Centre social responsibility project by Vivienne Westwood and Yoox.com collaborated with workers in Kenya to improve their skill set. Large shoppers were created from recycled desert tents and bag panels beaded by the Maasai, using traditional skills in a contemporary way. Bags were crocheted from recycled plastic bags, brass pipes and electrical wires, and dhow sails were recycled into men’s shirts, whilst sustainable leathers sourced in Ethiopia. All for a fashion show in Paris.

As the negative associations of ‘preloved’ clothing fade away with the growing popularity of second hand resale platforms, “the future of sustainable fashion should look a little like my family’s basement,” argues Sydney Clarke (10). “When we treat sustainability as a luxury commodity, instead of a cultural practice, we make it less accessible.

Visible displays of sustainability — and the moralistic high horse that comes with them” have become a status symbol. Clarke believes the industry is sending out a cynical message that: “If you can’t afford to be sustainable, you are inconsiderate, even immoral.” Meantime, cash starved consumers, with no other option than cheaply priced fast fashion, are not only disempowered but also perpetuate a non-circular economy.

Yet, how far are we from downloading our clothes (11), or having machines that recycle our old clothes into new ones? Sustainable dress will increasingly mix craft with tech. Future dress codes may relate to which materials are permitted for clothing and accessories.

For instance you may be allowed to ‘grow your own’ clothes from a specified range of responsible bio-materials such as plant fibres or recycled food waste. Or to use a limited range of recyclable materials to create your own 3-D printed designs. It may become obligatory that garments be manufactured this way.

We may eventually see ESG and transparency ratings micro-chipped into all clothing, or recorded on QR codes (12), or the blockchain (13). Looking further into the future, will individuals have their own environmental rating, according to how much waste they create, the recyclability, or amount of energy generated by their clothing? And will our social and responsibility rating become another opportunity for data appropriation and misuse by governments and corporations? The COVID pandemic has immured us in a digital world of excessive regulation and officialdom, with scant regard to the potential for data harvesting.

Who will ultimately benefit from the power of dressing sustainably?

In addition, let’s not forget it’s only just over a century since Western women were finally released from whalebone corsets. Up until recently, long established dress codes (14) have caused us discomfort, whilst wellness through clothing has related to our freedom and comfort. Unsurprisingly, the casual clothing and athleisurewear markets have benefited from our ability to dress down during lockdown, yet many of us still wear underwired bras.

Clothing is being gradually subsumed into the burgeoning WELLBEING industry. How what we wear affects our physical, social, mental, spiritual and emotional health, and how therapeutic, or adaptive it is will be key to a personally prescriptive formula for optimum holistic health.

Dress will improve our mood, assist with disability, cure disease, prevent germs, and help us to feel comfortable in extreme temperatures. Our clothes and accessories will have the power not just to soothe in the manner of contemporary headphones, or to record our performance like a smart watch, but to also regulate, micro-manage, analyze and upgrade our wellbeing.

Our power (as in status) will come from how intelligent or smart our garments are. Our clothes and accessories will communicate how healthy, happy and safe to approach we are, therefore how attractive we are.

This trend will be facilitated by an increasing ability to customize and personalize clothing through 3-D (15) and, eventually, 4-D design (16). Not forgetting the fast growing arena of virtual fashion, where we can already create our own designs.

Being at home has given people a taste of our future digital world (17). Online gaming has the ability to provide addictive ENTERTAINMENT without our ‘actual’ involvement. Moreover, the desire to constantly have new clothes is less harmful to the planet if those clothes are virtual. Digital garments cost less, and are more inclusive - since questions of of size, colour and design are not an issue. Although environmental concerns about energy usage are a factor to be considered.

According to Forbes (18): “The $159.3 billion (19) esports and gaming market, which was expected to have reached 2.7 billion players by the end of 2020, is turning into fashion’s hottest playground.” Balenciaga released its fall 2021 collection (20) in the form of an immersive online video game titled Afterworld: The Age of Tomorrow. In addition to the ability for in-game purchases, brands, retailers, designers and re-sellers will be attracted to new types of virtual space for storing and hiring out or owning and trading clothes through tokenization (21).

Gaming is set to become the social media of the future as sites such as the Dematerialised (22) start to attract a fashion following beyond the tech-savvy. Virtual stores will start resemble real ones and VR clothes will eventually acquire digital tactility (23), and become available for wear in augmented real life (visible to others through AR glasses).

Buying yet more stuff is increasingly frowned upon, yet dress codes of the future will relate to our digital possessions.

The brands we own, the styles we ‘design’, how much we recycle (even online, via H&M/Nintendo’s Animal Crossing game) (24) and how we express our values through our avatars (or digital twins).

The downside of digital life is that online ‘entertainment’ can be subject to frustrating technical glitches, upgrades, data exploitation, cyber-attacks, hacking and AR identity theft, not to mention control by governments and monopolistic technology corporations. There is a need to ensure ethically aligned design (25) to teach machines our human values and preferences, and to ensure extremists don’t take over machine technology to control populations to their advantage.

Although light-years behind what I anticipate (styling platforms like DREST (26) are just the beginning), I have personal experience of the pitfalls of an over-reliance upon technology. After countless hours spent networking, creating mood boards called ‘sets’, organizing and judging competitions on Polyvore, a corporate take over (27) by Ssense resulted in the site’s content being erased virtually overnight, without the knowledge of most of the community.

Whilst the securitization of our wardrobe may come first, our security and safety both on and offline will ultimately exert more influence over our clothing choices and dress codes, and real life experiences will still take precedence over our online existence.

Anti-surveillance fashion (28) will become the norm, along with specialist protective clothing. In a world of fires, floods and pandemics, Vollebak’s antiviral jacket (29) - made from disease resistant copper - was winner of TIME Best Inventions 2020. Disease preventative garments will also be developed Rosie Broadhead at Kent University is working on probiotic clothing (30) to promote healthy bacteria to benefit the skin, as a counter to the harmful chemicals currently found in fabrics.

In conclusion, dress codes are an expression of our values, which in future will relate to our social and environmental impact, our wellbeing and our digital presence. Hybrid designs will combine elements of each of these, taking patchwork assemblage and vintage clothing into the realms of the virtual, and handcrafting lab-grown biomaterials into digitally responsive garments and accessories. The overall aim will be to optimise our health and that of the planet (31).

Dress codes of the future will not just relate to power, status, identity and communication, but will also be inextricably tied up with mathematical code, algorithms and data. Dress codes may even develop their own form of agency, catapulting the power of digital code and artificial intelligence over human choices of dress and self-expression.

Yet, the overriding power of dress will remain in its ability to entertain. The theatre of fashion and the performative art of dressing up, to be seen and judged by others, will not go away. We will still revel in the opportunity to show off our clothes and, though different in their inspiration and appearance, dress codes will endure.

By Susan Muncey

Susan Muncey is a writer, trend forecaster and slow fashion retailer. In the 1980s and ‘90s she was a power-dressing investment manager in the City, before setting up a cult boutique, and being shortlisted for Drapers Record Top Buyer of the Year Award after just two years in business. She has written extensively on digital immortality, and edited her own magazine, Visuology, offering ‘inspiration and ideas for a sustainable future’. Several decades after her undergraduate degree in geography at Cambridge, Susan studied for a Masters in fashion history and culture at the London College of Fashion, where her research focused on dress codes and power dressing. She is currently completing a memoir related to this topic.

Website: susanmuncey.com