Dress as a Cultural Sub-system: A Unifying Metatheory for Clothing and Textiles

Abstract

Dress as a cultural sub-system, based on technological, social structural, and ideological components, is proposed as a unifying metatheory for the academic discipline of clothing and textiles. This culturally based model, intended as a paradigm in which both new and existing psychological, sociological, economic, and other theories operate, is holistic since it incorporates the individual, the group, and the cultural system as critical units of analysis in an understanding of the pan-human phenomenon of dress. As a cultural sub-system, dress is a dynamic, interacting system, unbounded by time and space, that articulates directly with the larger cultural system in which dress operates. This metatheory unifies the breadth of concerns in clothing and textiles and clarifies the symbiotic relationship of the sub-fields to one another. It also provides a framework for a more critical review of implications of the discipline's theoretical and applied value.