Why Do We Wear Clothes?
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This is But Why, a podcast for curious kids from Vermont Public Radio. I'm Jane Lindholm. On this show, we take questions from kids just like you, and then it's our job to offer you some answers. You can submit your own questions by having an adult help you record yourself. We'll give you more details at the end of the episode.

Have you ever been threading one leg through a pair of pants in the morning and wondered, why do we wear these? Or how did pockets get invented? And why are the pockets designed for girls' clothing sometimes smaller than the pockets designed for boys' clothing? Or what's up with underwear?

If you have wondered those things, well, this is just the episode for you. And if you haven't, stay with us. I think you'll find this pretty interesting. Just wait till you hear how shirts were invented and what they were used for. Hello, my name's Bhakti. I live in Australia, Queensland, Majimba. And my question is, why do we have to wear clothes? And I'm nine.

Hello, my name's Olivia. I'm from Barberton, Ohio and I'm six years old. My question is, why do hoons have to wear clothes? Many people think we started wearing clothing for practical reasons of warmth and protection, basically. My name's Amber Butchart and I'm a dress historian. So I spend my time thinking about clothes in the past and what clothes can teach us about history.

Amber Butchart is going to guide us through a little bit of the history of the clothes we wear and why we wear them as she answers the questions you've sent us, like Bhakti's and Olivia's. We don't have fur like a lot of other animals do. So when modern humans began moving

away from very warm places like continental Africa into colder parts of the world, we need to protect ourselves somehow. We need to wear something to keep us warm if it's very snowy outside or if it's very cold. So this is one answer that we wear clothes for protection.

But while that might explain why we have to wear something to cover our skin from the elements, there are a lot of other answers that help explain the what, the kinds of clothes we wear or don't wear.

And that's the stuff that really interests Amber. Remember she said she's a dress historian? That doesn't mean she studies dresses. She's using dress as a verb. To dress. To dress yourself. Get dressed. Dress up. Dress down. She studies how the clothes we wear are connected to where we live and what kind of culture we grow up in and what time period we're growing up and living in.

I've always loved old clothes. I love shopping for secondhand clothes. I love rummaging and sort of treasure hunting through vintage stores, through markets, all of these places looking for old clothes. Amber's job in a clothing store when she was younger got her started researching some of the old clothes she found interesting. And she liked that so much, she decided to go back to school to study history and fashion.

and now she does TV shows and podcasts and writes books and teaches. So let's look at that question about why humans wear clothes from another angle now. The other answer is to do with ideas around culture and society and really to do with ideas around modesty as well. In this case, modesty means what's considered proper or appropriate, broadly accepted as not being too wild or out there.

A lot of how we dress comes down to what is considered appropriate in our culture. The idea is that these cultural codes built up across time, you know, across millennia and centuries and centuries, ideas that certain parts of our body should be covered up.

And so we tend to see, and I'm sure you can all imagine the areas that I'm talking about, we tend to see particular areas being covered in various different cultures, many different cultures from very, very far back in history.

So we have these sort of social ideas to do with what parts of the body should and shouldn't be on display. But we also have that combined with this need, especially in colder parts of the world, of protection from the elements. That can change over time, right? In some cultures and in some time periods,

you might not expose your shoulders or your, you know, sort of upper neck area. And in some cultures you do, right? And that changes over time and depending on where you live and even what family you're in, what is appropriate or not appropriate for you. Yes, exactly. So ideas around, you know, what people should and shouldn't expose, what parts of their body. These ideas can change hugely. They can change between cultures. They can change across time periods.

Various different points in history, different parts of the body have been believed to be very salacious in areas that should be covered.

salacious kind of means scandalous or too racy. Or alternatively, areas that have not been seen as salacious at all and that can be left uncovered. And today, all kinds of ideas can feed into this. Ideas around, you know, religion, ideas around modesty being related to religion or not. You know, just ideas around what people are comfortable with. This all feeds into...

you know, what parts of our body we cover and what parts of our body we don't. You know, it's interesting too to think about also how old we are changes things. You know, a baby running around with no clothes on might be fine, but when you're five or six or 10 or 20,

then you're going to look differently about running around naked. Definitely, yeah definitely and it's interesting actually we do have some in the past there were some markers of age that we could tell through clothing that we don't have anymore. For example this idea of breeching really up until the sort of early 20th century little boys would always be dressed in dresses. I

up until the age of around about seven. And this age could vary. But if you have a look at paintings from the past, from the 18th century, from the 17th century, if you look at royal families, all of the very young children will be dressed in dresses. But it doesn't necessarily mean that they're all girls. And you're talking specifically there about cultures in Europe? Yes, this is definitely cultures in Europe. And what would happen is that at the age of around seven,

um the boy would be breached we call it breached he'd be put into breaches for the first time uh taken out of dresses and put into breaches and breaches are like pants exactly they're like short what what we would today call short pants i suppose well i certainly wouldn't call them that because i'm english and so i i don't i say trousers but yes exactly they're pants they're pants

And this was quite an important moment in a young boy's life. And it was a moment that was where he was a step closer to being a man, a moment that might mark a period in his life where he would spend more time maybe with his father, with the male members of his family. And it's just a sort of rite of passage that we just don't have anymore and shows how these ideas just shift and are always in flux. Hello, my name is Hope. I live in Virginia, Virginia.

I'm five years old and my question is, when did people invent shirts? Thank you. Well, shirts is a great item to talk about because we think today of shirts as an item...

of outer clothing, something you wear that you will show off to everybody else, you know, that everyone can see. But originally when shirts were developed, it was actually underwear. So this was not items that were meant to be seen on display. And for men especially, shirt was a really important item because it would usually be made of linen, something that's very easy to clean. And so it's an item that's really heavily associated with hygiene.

It's the first thing that you put on next to your skin and it's an item that can soak up your bodily fluids, you know if you get sweaty, anything like this. The linen will soak all of this up and you can very easily change and wash your linen shirt. The shirts at this time also were quite long.

would come down to almost the knees and in fact could, the bottoms of them could be drawn up between the legs so they sort of functioned as underpants as well as if you can imagine that and so certainly it's important that this item is being changed very very regularly

So it's an item that's really closely associated with keeping the body clean. And this is a period as well in the past when people didn't wash as much as we do today. You mean wash their bodies, let alone wash their other clothing. Yes, exactly. Exactly. People did not shower every day in the way that we are maybe used to doing now. So the body is not being kept as clean. So the shirt has a really important function.

Now, one of the earliest examples, I'm not sure if it's exactly a shirt, but it's certainly a linen garment that's very much like a long shirt or a long dress, was found in Egypt.

And it's actually been radiocarbon dated to the late 4th millennium BCE. So it's one of the oldest garments of clothing that has ever been found, like that is, you know, that is woven, that is sort of a whole garment essentially. Well, I'm glad you're kind of talking about underwear because we have some questions about underwear. Hello, my name is Athena and I live in Milan, Italy.

And you kind of explained that a little bit, that it's a part of hygiene, cleanliness. Yeah, exactly. I think that's really very much it.

You know, parts of our bodies, especially as we grow up, as we become older, certain parts of our body will generate more secretions than others. Essentially, you know, we sweat from our armpits, things like this. There is secretions going on, which means that we might want to keep that area clean, clean.

and certainly regularly change the clothing that's being worn around there. That's one thing. But, you know, you mentioned that shirts initially when they were first invented were not supposed to be seen. They were undershirts. And underwear, underpants, are also designed to go under your pants or under your skirt or under whatever you're wearing. So Graham wants to know, why are underpants pretty if they're covered by pants? Yeah.

I am five years old and I live in Potomac, Melbourne. Why are fans pretty if they're covered by pants? Well, this is a good question and I think a lot of people like to wear really pretty underwear because it just makes them feel nice. If you know you're wearing something nice, it doesn't necessarily matter that other people can't see it.

It just makes you feel confident. It makes you feel happy. Maybe if you've got a pair of pants in your favourite colour, it will put you in a good mood when you put them on. So I think that is a reason why people make underpants that look pretty.

pretty rather than just underpants that look ugly. No one wants to get up every day and put on something that looks really dreary and miserable as the first thing you put, you know, against your closest to your body. You want to put on something that's going to immediately make you feel good.

In just a minute, why clothing designed for girls sometimes has pockets that are smaller than the pockets in clothes designed for boys, if they have pockets at all, and why we bother with fashion to begin with. This is But Why, a podcast for curious kids. I'm Jane Lindholm. Today we're tackling questions about clothing and culture with dress historian Amber Butchart.

Two different Mollies sent us these questions. I am six years old. I come from Buffalo, New York. And my question is, why do boys dress differently than girls do? I'm nine years old. I live in Beverly, Massachusetts. And my question is, why are boys allowed to run around in the summer without a shirt on, but girls aren't?

So this really comes down to culture again and how different cultures decide to communicate ideas around gender through clothing. And also comes back to those ideas about modesty and what we can and can't reveal as well.

I think it's unfair that boys are allowed to run around in the summer without a shirt on and girls aren't. It's really not fair and it's a cultural idea that different cultures throughout history have expressed gender through clothing in very different ways. In European culture, European history, the main way we express gender through clothing is with trousers versus skirts.

Historically, this skirts versus trousers divide is something that we see an awful lot. And we even see it on things like bathroom signs still. Rightly or wrongly, this is still something that we see an awful lot. Many people in the fashion industry are trying to change, trying to bring about lots more change.

gender neutral clothing so clothing that can be worn by both boys and girls and that is comfortable and people can move in and run around in and just have fun in work and play in all of these same items essentially well then Megan might be happy to hear that and I am from Massachusetts and I'm five and my question is why are girl pockets smaller than boy pockets

Megan is wondering why girl pockets on clothes are smaller than boy pockets.

This is a really good question and actually the history of pockets is surprisingly interesting. Women's pockets haven't always been this small. If we look back into history, a period in say the 18th century where women were wearing very wide skirts, what you would often find is that pockets would be a separate item. You would have these two pockets on

on a string or something that you would tie around your waist basically. It's almost like carrying two handbags around your waist. And this wouldn't be worn on the outside of your clothing. It would be worn underneath your overskirt. And then you would have slits or gaps in your overskirt so that you could put your hand in to put things in your pockets. So women used to be able to carry around

kinds of stuff in their pockets. This has changed in much more recent years and I think there are a couple of reasons for that. Firstly the way we all shop for clothes now, fast fashion, the whole sort of idea behind fast fashion is that there are fewer details so clothing is cheaper.

So one of the reasons that sometimes women's clothing doesn't have pockets at all is that it's simply more expensive to make clothes with pockets. It's an extra detail, so it takes more fabric and it takes more work for the people who are making your clothes, who are stitching them together. Amber says another reason is that some women's clothes are made to be tighter than men's clothes often are. So if you put anything in a pocket, it creates a lumpy appearance in something that's pretty tight.

Now, this isn't really fair because, of course, girls want to carry stuff in their pockets too. And Amber says designers are getting that message and are starting to make bigger pockets. Now that we've learned a little bit about how clothing has a lot to do with history and culture, not just about staying warm and dry or having certain parts of our bodies covered up, Anya has a question about the big picture. I am eight years old and from Brooklyn, New York. My question is...

Why do we have fashion? I mean, we know now why we wear underpants. We know a little bit about pockets. We know how shirts were invented. But why do we have fashion?

Well, that is a great question. And what it really comes down to is this difference between clothing and fashion, this word fashion. Now, this word doesn't just mean items that you put on your body, doesn't just mean garments. This idea that some things are in fashion and some things are out of fashion.

That's what we're talking about, really, when we say fashion. Now, why do we have this? I think that that goes down really to questions about humanity and the very nature of humanity itself. Whoa, the T-shirts we wear say something about our humanity. That's pretty deep. Totally, totally. I stand by that comment. I really do. Because there are a couple of different arguments as to why we have this system of fashion that

Now, one of them is that it is this means of communication and it is a way of saying, I am like these people and I am not like these people.

For example, a band t-shirt. If I wear a t-shirt with my favourite band on it, I'm signalling to everyone else who likes that band, we have something in common. I'm like you. Whereas if you don't like this band, I'm definitely not like you. So it's a way of not only showing your identity, but showing your allegiances to certain groups of people.

Now, another argument as to why we have fashion, especially historically, not so much now, is all to do with status and display. The more current your fashions are or the more expensive your clothes are, the more money you have and therefore it's likely in the past the more power you have.

So it is all very closely related into these ideas around power, who is ruling who, and really who gets to make decisions that affect all of us. So in the past, the people that were the leaders of fashion, who would influence what other people wore,

were leaders in society, members of royal households, for example, members of court circles, the monarchy, people like that would influence what other people wore. So it's very closely related to ideas around power. Fashion now is maybe a little less about power, but it still can signify wealth or other things.

But what our clothing choices say about us today is different from what the clothing choices of people in the future will be and what they will say about them. These ideas change across time, they change across different cultures. They're not set in stone. These aren't quote-unquote natural, but these are socialised ideas. These are ideas that we get from culture, basically, and these ideas are mutable. They shift, they change.

And is that still true today that the way we dress is telling other people how we see ourselves, what culture we think we belong to? It's telling people something about us just by what we're wearing. Certainly clothing today can communicate a lot of things.

different ideas, can even communicate ideas such as, I am not interested in the way that I dress. You know, you often hear this from people who aren't interested in fashion. They say, well, you know, it doesn't matter to me. I'm not communicating anything. But everybody makes a decision every morning when they get up as to what they're going to put on their body.

And with some people the communication is very, very clear and very definite, especially with some kinds of t-shirts. It's a really simple garment, but it can communicate all kinds of things. You may be wearing a slogan t-shirt, you may be wearing a t-shirt with a political slogan, you may be wearing a band t-shirt that's telling people what your favourite band is. This is a very literal way of communicating something about you and your identity.

What a treat to get a little insight into how clothing ties into so much more than just a way to cover our bodies. Now before we go, I can remember a couple of times when I was a kid being teased because of something I was wearing that I really liked, or something I wasn't wearing that all the other kids my age thought was really cool and I just didn't like. So I asked Amber if she has any advice for those of us who dress a little differently sometimes.

Absolutely. My advice is stick with it. It is those style mavericks that are going to be the designers, the stylists, etc, etc of the future. I remember wearing some outfits when I was a kid or when I was, you know, a teenager and being laughed at for it, being ridiculed. And

And it's not a very nice experience, but I sort of always stuck with it because it was something that for me was very important to me and to how I express myself. And I just think it's hugely important to cultivate your own sense of style. It's important on a personal level.

It's also important on an environmental level. I don't think we should all be blindly following fashion trends and buying stuff all the time. Think about secondhand clothing. Think about these more individual ways of dressing and really cultivate that. It is such a fantastic skill and you have so many career opportunities ahead of you as well. So really stick with it. Don't listen to the haters.

That's Amber Butchart, a dress historian, podcaster, broadcaster, instructor, and author. Thank you so much, Amber. And that's it for this episode. If you have a question about anything, have an adult record it. You should be able to do it on a smartphone. Try to be somewhere quiet and put the phone up pretty close to your mouth, but not so close that you're blowing on it when you talk. Tell us your first name, how old you are, where you live, and what you want us to investigate.

Then have your adult email the file to questions at butwhykids.org. If you don't want to talk or you don't have a smartphone that you can use, it's totally fine to have an adult help you email that question to us. But Why is produced by Melody Beaudet and me, Jane Lindholm, at Vermont Public Radio and distributed by PRX. Our theme music is by Luke Reynolds. We'll be back in two weeks with an all-new episode. Until then, stay curious.

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