Fashion and folly

When it comes to fashion, I have often wondered, who it was that first set the ball rolling: made the first ‘fashion statement’. Was it God? As shown in the Bible, with his long, wise, white beard and a pristine white gown as he bellowed – “Let there be Light” – into endless void. Beard wagging, gown billowing and a golden girdle fluttering in the gale and the world suddenly being lit up with light! Sigh! What a statement of power, omnipotence and style that must have been!

Any wonder that he shooed Adam and Eve away from the Tree of Knowledge, lest they should discover his secrets. But woe! Eve ‘fell’ to temptation and rose to knowledge; and Adam followed suit. But fabric was still a long way off. God held the controls and he denied his disobedient children any access. Deprived of fabric or any of the resources I Eden, they had to make do with fig leaves. And lo! Even before they knew it, Eve and Adam set fashion rolling.

Fig was probably great for Eden climate, but earth was harsh. There was winter, and summer and other seasons in between. So fig leaves, I think, soon flew out of the window. Animal skin came along – fur and print in place – and sheep skin, and then wool from sheep. Cotton must have entered the scene only when Adam got down to serious field work. Besides, imagine the horrors of wearing a fur coat in the summers!

But cotton grown is not the end of the story. Someone had to figure out and then weave it to perfection. Eve must have done a great job with that; and even perfected it to an art over time. And once she felt she too could divinely proclaim “this be fashion”, she went into the neighbourhood strutting her stuff and made all the other ladies envious. These ladies, as it is in most cases emulated the object of their envy. And so spread trends. Either way, what is of more concern is that she passed the art of ‘fashion’ down to her children; who in turn passed it down to theirs. So much so, that we have pretty good samples doing the rounds now.

But Adam himself could not have disappeared after the cotton was grown. Besides, he would have needed clothes too. And from what we see of men’s clothes today, he must have set some trends himself too. But how? Especially if he had to toil all day at the fields to grow cotton and a lot more besides. Well, after the day’s work, I figure, Adam must have gone for a drink somewhere, or socialized. And since men fall under the envious lot too, trends spread there as well.

The rest, as they say, is history; and a bit of geography too. And history today is in such a stage that we almost find fashions from every human era on display and in use.