Britney Spears Breaks Sartorial Rule

Britney Spears shaving her head may have been just a moment of celebrity madness, but it was such an enormous sartorial gaff that youquestion whether the sumptuary laws should be brought back!

Sumptuary law was introduced in the 12th century to regulate whatpeople wore. If you broke a sumptuary law, in those days it could cost you your fortune. The laws were a way to regulatethe different classes and tell them what they could wear, ensuring that the nobility and higher ranks were seen in the finest attire. If you were a Lord and your tunic sat above your hip, then you could be fined 20 shillings. If you were a knight and your shoes had a point more than two inches long, then you could be fined 6 pence. These laws were seriously enforced and created visual identity beyond simply the military uniform.

The world of celebrity has its own sartorial rules and in fact you could look upon them as nobility of sorts, wearing the finest attire and latest fashions. Fashions were originally another way of maintaining class structure. If the styles were in constantchange, then you had to have a certain level of income to keep up with them.

Since the 12th century, style and fashion has gone through enormous changes and some fashions have been about rebellion and required you actually broke sartorial rules. Jeans for example in the 50's were seen as rebellious. From the miners and cowboys, to the artistes in the 30's/40's, jeans became the uniform of the bikers in the 50's and it was seen as daring or an act of rebellion to wear them. Now jeans are beyond class or your type of work, and have become a 'classic', with the only distinction now being the designer label and the price tag.

The left movement or the 'hippies', the 'punk' movement, and 'grunge' all required breaking rules – going barefoot, puttingextraordinary colour in your hair, or wearing clothes that looked like they needed repair. But, creating a new fashion or making afashion gaff can be a close call. Britney's new hair style orlack of is clearly not a new trend. Unlike Sinead O'Connor,the Irish singer, who sported the most pretty of shaving in the 1990's, Britney has cut off her celebrity and music-queen status in a few simple strokes of a pair of shears.

Clothing is a reflection of our emotional state and can reveal our secrets or our unconscious thoughts. What we are not sayingverbally, we can say visually through the choice of our clothing.Britney is obviously trying to tell us something about her emotional state; I just hope that her team around her listen harder. The problem is can you recover from such a style gaff? Once the image has been set in your mind, it is hard to change it.

Gestalt psychology demonstrates this theory of how a set image can be held in our mind and how our mind tries to make sense of that image. The famous picture of the old woman, young woman is a classic example. The picture has both views of the woman, but your mind tends to only see one view until you look for a long time or someone points it out, and then you suddenly see the other view in the picture. It can be such a shock as you can't believe your eyes could deceive you in such a way.

©2007 Sarah Whittaker  [www.thewardrobeshrink.com].
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Sarah Whittaker has been featured in numerous newspapers and magazines worldwide, and writes The Wardrobe Shrink Newsletter full of the latest fashion trends, celebrity style and honest image advice.

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