fashion is a more valuble part of society than it often gets credit for. one shouldn't feel frustrated with oneself for participating in it when it's one of the most universal forms of expression - not everyone picks up a pen or paintbrush, but everyone picks out an outfit. i feel like i'm being unclear. like, you can get a sense of some of the underlying currents that shaped, say, the latter half of the nineteenth century by:
a) reading a Henry James novel
b) looking at a painting by Ingres
c) studying a dress from that era
but while all three do convey the wealth, opulence, shallowness, and constrictive, austere social climate of the upper class in wester europe and american, only the dress is purely a symptom of that culture, and not concerned with ulterior motives such as a message or deeper meaning or anything else your english teacher tells you to look for. which i think is the value of following fashion, and to some extent, participating in it. it's comparatively shallow, but also a valuble barometer of culture.
-lee
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