It has been suggested by many critics that clothes can change society’s ideas of sex, gender and the roles of men and women. Rouse (1989) suggests that fashion and clothing do not reflect already established ideals of gender identity. However some critics propose that fashion and clothing follows strict basic ideas of masculinity and femininity. This essay plans to investigate the different ideas that critics have produced on fashion and identity, and see if Rouse’s idea of clothing being ‘part of the process’ can be applied to examples of conventional and inverted fashion. It also plans to look at the argument that by not conforming to gendered clothes of a person’s sex, that person has really escaped their gender identity.

It has been suggested that fashion is composed of 3 elements; the principle of conspicuous waste, the principle of conspicuous leisure and the principle of up to datedness where waste does not serve human life (Veblen 1992). This idea supports the Marxist idea that fashion only appears when society is so well organised that it produces more than the minimum needed to survive thus this surplus is suggested to show itself in the form of fashion where clothing is concerned.

(Braudel 1981) can be seen to support Rouse’s theory by his own idea that fashion began by noblemen, squires and the bourgeoisie wearing tunics ‘so tight that they revealed what modesty bids us to hide.’ The reason for doing this can be seen as a show of male masculinity thus creating an unconscious link between this way of dressing and their power in society as men and as the Elite ruling class. (Wilson 1985) suggests that it began in the 14th Century with the changing of a series of styles that was determined by the Royal court right up until the 18th Century.

The idea that women’s fashion in the 19th Century demonstrates the wearer’s ‘abstinence from productive employment’ supports the idea that fashion helps and is part of the process of creating an identify. This can be seen by the fact women wore bonnets, long skirts long hair that prevented and restricted their movement to a minimum, thus the idea that they were dependant on men was strengthened and their position in society.