FASHION
In the early history, there was no need of describing the existence of a market as the markets at that time were controlled by various social institutions and were governed by a set of non-economic norms and rules. The people, therefore, relied on the unproblematic existence of the markets. (Maddison )[footnoteRef:2] According to Marx, a commodity can be defined as, 'an object outside us, a thing that by its properties satisfies human wants of some sort or another. The nature of such wants, whether, for instance they spring from the stomach or from the fancy, makes no difference'. (Llyod 2008)[footnoteRef:3] [2: Ben Maddison, "Commodification And The Construction Of Mainstream Australian Economic Historiography," JOURNAL OF AUSTRALIAN POLITICAL ECONOMY, 58: 115-138, http://media.wix.com/ugd/b629ee_07cf0f9c87646590559687add60e0726.pdf (accessed July 11, 2013).] [3: Gareth Llyod, "Commodity Fetishism and Domination: The Contributions of Marx, Lukacs, Horkheimer, Adorno and Bourdieu." (unpublished master., Rhodes University, 2008), Rhodes University, http://eprints.ru.ac.za/1270/1/GarethLloyd-MAthesis.pdf.]
The essential characteristics of a commodity include that; it must be in the form of a good or service. In addition to that, it must be of use to the human beings and must satisfy their needs and wants. (Llyod 2008)[footnoteRef:4] [4: Gareth Llyod, "Commodity Fetishism and Domination: The Contributions of Marx, Lukacs, Horkheimer, Adorno and Bourdieu." (unpublished master., Rhodes University, 2008), Rhodes University, http://eprints.ru.ac.za/1270/1/GarethLloyd-MAthesis.pdf.]
But in the 1980s this concept of commodity was disestablished. In this era the concept of commodification and commodity was being applied to those areas of life which were considered to be excluded from these concepts in the earlier eras. (Maddison )[footnoteRef:5] [5: Ben Maddison, "Commodification And The Construction Of Mainstream Australian Economic Historiography," JOURNAL OF AUSTRALIAN POLITICAL ECONOMY, 58: 115-138, http://media.wix.com/ugd/b629ee_07cf0f9c87646590559687add60e0726.pdf (accessed July 11, 2013).]
The center of attention of all the capitalist economies in the era of 1980s was commodification, which can also be defined as the process of rendering every aspect and every part of life as marketable. The act of commodifying each and every aspect of life relates back to Marx's view that the workers who render services for various organizations sell themselves in some real sense. This indicates that people were being commodified even before they were willing to sell themselves in order to advertise products. (Sandel 2012)[footnoteRef:6] [6: Mark Sandel, ed. Denton: Texas Woman's University, 2012. "The Commodification Of Everything." http://readwritenow.wordpress.com/2012/03/21/mark-sandel-the-commodification-of-everything/(accessed July 12, 2013).]
Before the 19th and the 20th century, there was no such thing as a free market economy and the markets were being run and managed by the social institutions of friendship, kinship, society and state. The markets at that time were subjected to norms that were non-economic in nature, such as religious, ethical and legal norms and hence these norms put a limit to what could be bought and sold in the market. And what could be bought by whom. (Fraser 2012)[footnoteRef:7] [7: Nancy Fraser, "Can society be commodities all the way down? Polanyian relections on capitalist crisis," (Paris: The House of Human Sciences (FMSH), 2012)http://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/72/50/60/PDF/FMSH-WP-2012-18_Fraser2.pdf (accessed July 12, 2013).]
But all these principals changed with the invention of the market economy, which established a separate economic system that was not linked with the other institutions of the society and was governed by the market mechanism and not by the social institutions. In this system all the production was directed to be sold on the price setting markets. (Fraser 2012) [footnoteRef:8] [8: Nancy Fraser, "Can society be commodities all the way down? Polanyian relections on capitalist crisis," (Paris: The House of Human Sciences (FMSH), 2012)http://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/72/50/60/PDF/FMSH-WP-2012-18_Fraser2.pdf (accessed July 12, 2013).]
These markets were said to be governed and directed by the forces of demand and supply and they were also known as the self-regulating markets. And in these markets not only the luxury and ordinary goods traded but also the inputs used for production, including human resources and capital were also traded in these markets. Thus the things which were necessary for the production of the commodities were also considered as commodities in the market economy. (Fraser 2012)[footnoteRef:9] [9: Nancy Fraser, "Can society be commodities all the way down? Polanyian relections on capitalist crisis," (Paris: The House of Human Sciences (FMSH), 2012)http://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/72/50/60/PDF/FMSH-WP-2012-18_Fraser2.pdf (accessed July 12, 2013).]
The major problem with this commodity culture was that it was directed towards rapidly commodifying each and every aspect of life, whether its education, knowledge, culture or even the human self or the human body. It argued that everything can be commodified just by changing the nature of the background within which the market operates. This argument, however, neglects the fact that there are certain moral, ethical and civic goods which the market do...
Staircase ramps which are comprised of steep and narrow steps that lead up one face of the pyramid were more in use at that time with evidence found at the Sinki, Meidum, Giza, Abu Ghurob, and Lisht pyramids respectively (Heizer). A third ramp variation was the spiral ramp, found in use during the nineteenth dynasty and was, as its name suggests, comprised of a ramp covering all faces of the
Fashion History of Fashion The history of fashion can be dated back to the development of the fashion industry in different time eras. Fashion was taken and applied in different forms depending on the situation of that era. It has been noted that clothing from the Roman and the Ancient Greek times is more dependent on the mere purpose of clothes rather than the style that was present. As it would be
Fashion in Relation to Commodity Culture of 1980s Fashion Fashion during 1980s seems to be glitzy and bold. Fashion trends were no longer dictated by teenagers; as the baby boom generation continued to become richer and older, they demanded more glamorous, upmarket fashion. Contrary to what inspired 1970s fashion, fashion of 1980s did not allow these non-materialist "hippie" values. Some of the nations such as Australia during the decade focused more on
Being against popular culture is particularly difficult, considering the temptations that society provides people with and the fact that one risks being excluded from a community if he or she does not act in accordance with the convictions respected by the group's members (Aoyagi, 151). Consumerism has been taken to a whole new level in Japan, as 2006 reports have shown that in spite of the fact that the country's
Yet, it was nearly one hundred years later before a seconds hand was finally developed for the swinging pendulum clocks of William Clement. However, as timekeeping was important to astronomers, having an apparatus that could tell time consistently was of some importance. Therefore, Taqi-al-Din, like Burgi, also sought to provide a more consistent and minute reading of time. Taqi-al-Din designed three dials, which showed the hours, degrees and minutes. In
The four illustrations from the earliest decades of the twentieth century illustrate the importance of fashion in the formation of identity just as much as Twiggy's outfit does, and in fact are possibly even more telling given their distance from current styles. Regardless of what people of the time though regarding the sexuality of certain of these gown, all of them give the female figure an incredibly sculpted look, whether
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