Getting Dressed ― Conformity and Imitation in Clothing and Everyday Life

Getting Dressed introduces students to sociological concepts via the everyday decision of what to wear. Everyone has to get dressed. And what we wear creates our identity – how people define us and how we define ourselves. But getting dressed is not based on our individual choices and tastes alone. Rather, the process of getting dressed is shaped and limited by a range of social influences that lead us to imitate what others wear and reduces the range of options that are available for us to wear. From designers’ studios to the stores in the mall to our bedrooms, social constraints limit creativity and shape what we wear and how we express our identities when getting dressed.

Carrie Yodanis is associate professor of Sociology at the University of British Columbia.