The Evolving Role of Class in Choice of Fashion in Postmodern Society

Abstract

Class plays a diminishing role in the criteria by which people choose fashion in today’s society. This means that in most cases, people no longer choose fashion according to their class status, but according to their personal preferences. An essential feature of postmodern society is the deconstruction of symbols and the cultural flow that accompanies this liberation of symbols. This paper analyses the reasons for this characteristic and phenomenon of postmodern society as a way to question the adaptability of Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital to the times and to propose the idea of the separation of fashion and class. Then, although postmodern society still contains the characteristic of stratifying people according to meaningless symbols, the role of the media cannot be ignored at a time when the internet is prevalent. By analyzing Juris’s theory of the aggregation of media, this paper further elaborates that people's fashion choices in today's society tend to be more individualistic.