On protective fashion From practical needs to symbolic resources

We turn to amulets for luck, and with equal esoteric hope, we turn to our clothes, expecting them to solve our problems. We leave to the garments in our wardrobe the almighty job of answering our questions, making our lives and ourselves better, and standing up for our looks and beliefs. And like we have asked those charms for luck, we’ve also asked them, and our clothes, for protection. Pragmatic thinking would solidify protection as the sole purpose of dress, a coherent idea when revising history and identifying that all our ancestors ever required of their clothing was protection from weather conditions and external threats – the idea of wearable, protective objects preceded their conception as clothing. But when the defensive needs were fulfilled, came adornment and the birth of luxury. «There are numerous instances where clothing transcended its original utilitarian and protective functionalities to become a fashion» explains fashion historian and author Cassidy Zachary. She points out sunglasses, “aka, the first eyewear used to reduce exposure to the sun’s damaging rays,” as an example of how time and the human tendency to decorate have transformed the purpose of garments.

«It can be liberating when they choose their clothing according to their taste and not social obligations - adds Perera - and learning what fits better for them, gradually stepping out of the boxes they were put in, improves their character and behavior.» We’ve seen in contexts outside the runways, like in politics, how clothes shouldn't be taken for granted. Garments carry an important iconicity of their own, «fashion has a social power, and the messages that the industry sends influence how we perceive ourselves when we look in the mirror,» says Perera. With the same sensibility that permeates our current social climate, in which we require justice, authenticity, and explanations of everything that surrounds us, we should demand our garments, beyond protecting us, to represent us in every layer. Protection wear made its way into mainstream fashion as a symbolic resource to interpret the zeitgeist and explain a broader, less idealized reality outside the glittering world of fashion. In a call to social consciousness, designers recurred to literacy in their collections, using military vests to address war and biohazard suits to speak about climate change. Regardless of the separation grade that exists between us and the actual issues, we willingly adopted the qualities of these garments and adapted them to our everyday reality, perhaps not to face biohazard threats, but to fight our battles.