Symbolism with Clothing in Today’s Culture

Is symbolism on today’s clothing really that big of a deal? Well it could be if you aren’t sure exactly what the symbols on the clothing actually mean? Years ago, I purchased a sweater for my wife that I thought was rather cool. One day someone asked her if she was German. She wasn’t really sure why they would ask a question and neither was I. Then they proceeded to explain that the stripes on the shirt were that of the flag for Germany. I looked it up and there it was. Needless to say that didn’t stop her from wearing the sweater, but it did get you to think about the hidden meaning behind clothing.

I have wore more than my share of plaid shirts and tartan designs of which were representative of different families of different cultures I rarely cared much of anything about. At the moment it was fashion, and that was more important to me than whatever hidden symbolism was to be found in clothing. Back then people were quick to state which designs could be found on what clothing, and what it really meant; I’m not so sure that those warnings ever stopped anyone from doing anything.

Today the designs are more aggressive and confrontational and aren’t as subtle as they once were, or are they? I remember when cheap sport shirts with designs of a dragon were all the rage. Not so sure if anyone knew what the dragons meant. That phase did not last long because Fubu changed the tide with their Platinum line which featured the Fat Albert characters on it. Today we have a clothing line from a tattoo designer that is essentially, skulls and hearts with the occasional American eagle. Ed Hardy comes to us via Christian Aduigier who has nothing but strange designs with the skulls; granted the quality is good, but you have to wonder why the designs have not graduated beyond the creative use of skulls.

In fact it would seem as though without the skulls, snakes, eagles and hearts that Christian Aduigier, and affiliated labels like Ed Hardy, would never exist. Try going to a store that sells Ed Hardy and try finding a shirt that isn’t a variation on the themes mentioned above. In fact try walking into an urbanwear store period that sells to today’s youth and you are hard pressed to find anything without this exact same look. None of them do it as well as Christian Aduigier or Ed Hardy do; but it would seem as if none of them have their own look either.

The point of all this is that when something is absorbed into the mainstream and taken for granted as much as skulls have been it tends to loose whatever meaning it has, positive or negative, and then people need to look towards something else. For example skulls have always been a representation of death, so essentially if you are wearing skulls you are commenting on your views about death, seriously. You then have to ask yourself what is it about death that you are trying to say by wearing the skull; it should be conversation started but it probably is not because in this day and age the person right next to you is probably wearing a skull as well. If children and toddlers are wearing skulls, are they already dead? If the elderly wears a skull are they ready to die? These are unanswered questions one must assume when looking at the usage of a skull as fashion rhetoric.

Other cultures recognize this, why are skulls not seen in their proper context in America? Mexicans have a Day of the Dead, in which they use sugar skulls. I realize that it is a strange commentary on popular culture but I have to wonder if people even think about this at all with respect to skulls. When skulls were just a facet of other sub cultures; for example a biker has a tattoo of a skull and it helps him cheat death, then it actually meant something. Yet now when we say that what was reserved to communicate the idea of death is what is needed for us to be fashionable and the height of what life has to offer one has to wonder if we even realize that we have it twisted. I could understand a drug dealer wearing a skull, because it is perfect articulation of the death he has to go through in order to profit from what is essentially a product of death, that makes a lot of sense to me. But when a nerd, a kid that wants to watch Disney movies, or someone else unassuming is wearing the skull thinking that it is fashionable it is like “what are you doing? We live in strange times; a lot of you do not believe in anything that the skulls, or whatever else compliments it on your shirt, is communicating but in essence in wearing the garment you are sort of saying that you do which is odd, but to each their own …