Cultural Capital - Topic of the day 7/1/24
In sociology, cultural capital is the accumulation of knowledge, behaviors, and skills that a person can tap into to demonstrate one's cultural competence and social status. How does fashion exemplify this?
40 Replies
This is swag
Cultural capital is extremely important. Take, for example, the burgeoning trend of "old money", an aesthetic pursued by those wishing to signal affluence and success, doomed to crumble when one engages with them in a conversation lasting longer than 4 minutes.
Fashion feels like one of, if not the biggest social signifiers of cultural capital
Old money would be a good example of someone trying to fake their way into cultural capital ngl
Logos are interesting too bc said capital involves the knowledge of what logos are in/not in but also shifts based on aesthetics/culture
inb4 w david marx
I think there's just a lot of interesting things to examine from this lens so I hope this thread doesn't end up being a shit post 🙈
Totally agree with u. I was being a shit but imo old money dressin is a great example of where fashion falls short of adequately demonstrating cultural capital.
It's not just the quarter zips, it's who ur wearing the quarter zips around, too
old money discourse part 2 :monkaS:
Old money discourse is overbeat but still a good example
Agreed. I'd like to propose an alternate example of dressing to establish cultural capital: Run DMC.
They changed how rappers dress so completely that we now take it for granted.
I would argue they established a rapport with their audience, while still being stylish and aspirational
I think thats kind of the kicker. It used to be, but commodity capitalism has made most clothes attainable enough for them to not be a marker of upper class anymore
it still is lmao
Cultural capital is more context dependent than just signaling your place in the class hierarchy
I think style of dress is definitely a form of cultural capital. I think fashion as we think of it on MFA (i.e. displaying competence in dressing) confers almost zero cultural capital in the sense of social mobility or power. Look at the average terrible fit from academics, politicians, etc.
You can dress to signify in- or out- status in all kinds of different groups
Fair point
yeah
you are right
But it can really be cloth-deep. I'd argue most groups value authenticity over dressing the part, so while it may get you in the door it's not going to really cement anyone's status in a group
Especially now that a lot of ways of dressing can be hyper commodified, as you mentioned
I think clothing can be used to signify competence in other subcultures. For example, going to a punk show vs a hip hop show would require different aesthetics to fit in. Or to know what to wear to a bday party or meeting a new group of friends. An art gallery opening vs a day in court etc
Bourdieu is not a red wine 🚬 🚬 🚬
jk but culture is often used to transform financial advantage into societal or even moral high ground. It's often socially accepted to show disgust for "poor taste". But even though it would be considered crass to show disgust for poor people directly, judgement around culture and fashion often masks prejudices against them.
This is a good point and i think really speaks to the tangible effects of dressing well. We all know the “if your lawyer shows up to court like this you’re gonna lose” meme but it points to a very real benefit of perceived competence that people assign to you when you are dressed well
I think like Sal said it's also something than can be cloth-deep. If ur missing the other pieces of cultural capital outside of dressing, your clothes matter less & less.
Which is why undercover cops dress Like That, or why Drake
Yah absolutely, id argue though that it can get you pretty far often since most interactions you have with other people on a daily basis do not go further than skin deep
I mean 99% of menswear (and clothing in general) "rules" come directly from cultural capital anyway
just walk around any college campus when people are searching for internships and observe how many men have both buttons on their blazer done
This is where being fashion aware starts getting diminishing returns imo because it requires whoever you are trying to impress to also understand the nuance. If you are swagged out in your best suit and being mindful of all the details for a finance interview, i dunno how much difference it would make when the person you are impressing upon doesnt understand the nuance either
outside of the professional (suits being required either explicitly or implicitly for certain jobs, politics, court, etc) like char outlined theres plenty of other subgroups you can signal cultural capital with
forsure, like anything it varies, certain professions will also inherently notice it more than others
eg an engineer is not likely to care, finance likely will
theres also elements of unconscious bias though from seeing people wearing well fitting suits "correctly" in media
and the fact you will unconsciously compare them to that image, you might not realize what they are fucking up, but you will realize it doesn't look good
it's also about what those groups value, too. That suit might look like ass to the average derek guy reader, but that doesn't really matter because it isn't for them.
see: 90% of politicians
where the suit is simply a symbol of the role more than fashion related, but deviating from that symbol can have a ton of consequence (remember the 20 million articles about john fetterman dressing like shit)
or the infamous tan suit
I have a so much cultural capital with the internet fashion gamer chat i swear bro look at my waywt highlights
^me interviewing for Jpress
This is a great take
"Poor taste" had to be flipped into an aesthetic and reclaimed as camp by the gay community as a survival tactic because too often that prejudice translated directly to violence
One of the things C. J. Pascoe notes in Dude, You're a Fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School is that masculine ideals teenagers enforce/aspire to are different based on race.
In particular, black teenage boys see dressing well and dancing well as an important part of being a 'real man' because of role models in music, whereas white teenage boys are more likely to see dressing well and dancing as gay shit (in a derogatory sense)
& that makes me think about how there's a lot of contexts for men where anti-fashion and being 'badly dressed' is in fact culturally competent.
It's always important not to over-dress for an occasion; but over-dressing is trivial to do given the low level of emphasis on style from most men.
i think you just cracked the case as to why i struggle to dress down my dress shirts
Dressing down dress shirts is really hard.
Dressing up casual shirts feels much easier
I have two very nice armani dress shirts I thrifted that I basically never wear bc they feel too formal for pretty much everything except a suit.
this reminds me of something unrelated to clothes but related to insectionality
it's like a big meme in the asian american community that we're always ravings but i actually did see a paper talking about how raving provides a proximity to whiteness for AAs that have to negotiate the perpetual foreigner stereotype
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/279250024_Searching_for_a_Cultural_Home_Asian_American_Youth_in_the_EDM_Festival_Scene
I dress down my white dress shirt really often, to the point it felt like a crutch for a bit
I think the key is that you have to do something far enough away from usual for it to be read intentionally
I actually find dressing down a dress shirt easier than using an oxford lmao
Genuinely agree, oxfords have a lot of specific connotation at this point and trying to skirt ivy with them is playing with fire
You get pulled right in
Well, guess its a :skillissue: then
well
maybe i can think of something
I thinks it’s just a difference of direction
Agree with bishop
I don't see dress shirts being very useful in your style