How Clothing Originated?

Related Theories
Next to food and shelter, cloth is the most
significant fundamental necessity for mankind.
Cloth and Clothing are related in the sense that
cloth refers to the “fabric or textile”, while
clothing refers to the “visible means of covering
the body”. Clothing is “any tangible material
used to cover and decorate the human body”
(Sproles & Burns). Clothing is not only a
passive protective cover to protect the skin, but
it additionally regulates and modifies the body
heat (Ross). Clothing is, thus, “an assemblage
of modifications of the body or supplements to
the body” (Roach-Higgins & Eicher).
The wearing of clothing is exclusively a
human characteristic and is a feature of most
human societies. It is not known when
humans began wearing clothes, though
Anthropologists believe that animal skins and
vegetation were adapted into coverings as
protection from cold, heat and rain,
especially as humans migrated to new
climates; alternatively, covering may have
been invented first for other purposes, such
as decoration, cult, or prestige, and later
found to be practical as well.
Clothing has a profound impact on the
development of human society. Since
prehistoric times, people in various societies
have been addicted to clothing. Since ancient
times, people have used various types of
fabrics to cover, keep warm, decorate
personal items, and even display personal
wealth (Heidari & Ravindranath). The main
factors influencing the utilization rate of fiber
used in clothing are its spinning ability, its
expectations for performance for clothing
use, and the cost or economy of production.
With the passage of time, they gradually
evolved to use complex objects such as plants
and animals to make fabrics, which led to the
development of clothing. Copper, iron, and
glass were used as ornaments for the
decoration of the body in an effort to establish
a person’s identity, before they became
important to technology. The theories and
motivations for adopting clothing from ancient
times are very advanced, such as decoration,
modesty, and protection. Various clothing
scholars like Flugel (1930), Kefgen & Touchie-
Specht (1986), Roach-Higgins & Eicher (1992),
Ross (2008), pointed out four major theories
about the origin of clothing.
The first theory to explain the origin of clothes
is of modesty, which explains that clothes
are worn out of shame to cover up
nakedness.

The second theory may be called the theory of

immodesty and is the opposite of the first
theory. These theory points out the
individuals have worn clothing in order to
attract attention to, rather than to conceal,
the sexual organs.
The third theory explaining the origin of clothes
is related to the protection of body. It
pointed out that the purpose of wearing
clothes is to defend against enemies or to
avoid damage from supernatural forces.

The fourth theory explains that clothes were

adopted as a means of aesthetic
expression. This theory is called the
decoration or the ornamentation theory. The
decoration can take the form of clothing,
lacquering the skin, jewelry, or mutilating
the body in one way or the other.