Do our clothes protect us enough?
Clothes are first and foremost a functional necessity. Historically, they have enabled humans to live in environments that would otherwise be too harsh, and to travel to the ends of the earth. These factors mostly have to do with weather, but also terrain and changes in vocation and cultural activities.
Somewhere along the line, clothes took on new meaning. Clothing is now associated with choice, not just necessity, along with which comes endless symbolism.
We’ve gotten very good, as humans, at making clothes that provide an environmental barrier. We think more about the social norms associated with clothes now, and take the function for granted. We trust our clothes so much that our focus has shifted more to the choices available and the messages we wish to convey.
What we are learning right now is that there are a lot of environmental conditions that our clothes do not protect us from. In fact, we are quite dangerously exposed. If we still thought of clothes purely as functional necessity, we might feel betrayed by them. Our clothes protect us from so much, but not yet this.
The pressures on our systems have exposed weaknesses in corporate structure and in social structure. The pressure on our person, to physically distance and see each other as contaminants to avoid, has revealed opportunity for evolution in our clothes.
There must something in between this:
and this:
More from our clothes
There are textile technologies with antimicrobial qualities, and much research in the area related to health care and hospital linens. As an advocate for more R&D in the fashion industry, this would be an opportune time for fashion corporations to begin investing in making clothes better, more functional, and more purposeful. Let the fashion industry take the lead in this area. Innovate for the challenges of our time, while making beautiful, saleable products. It might be time for us to ask more from our clothes, and from those of us who make them.
