Queer Youth in Halifax, Canada: Exploring the Connections Between Dress, Agency and Self-perception
Date
2025-09
Authors
Gopakumar, Bharghavi
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Mount Saint Vincent University
Abstract
Dress has long served as a visual representation of an individual’s identity (Davis, 1992). Dress is defined as the supplements and modifications that are added to the body (Roach-Higgins and Eicher, 1992) and can be distinguished from clothing as it embraces a much wider range of items, including cosmetic use, perfume use, tattoos and body paint (Eicher & Evenson, 2015). Dress is a tool that is used for more than a utilitarian purpose, it is a visual language which conveys areas of an individual’s identity, resistance and belonging (Roach- Higgins and Eicher, 1985). How a person dresses conveys their cultural background, values and socio-economic class which in turn affects our self-perception and social dynamics (Kwon, 1994). Dress is also a form of art, mostly visual art, although it is not exclusive to it. A founding figure in fashion theory, Roland Barthes (1977) argues that dress is “in the fullest sense, a ‘social model’, a more or less standardized picture of expected collective behaviour; and it is essentially at this level that it has meaning” (pg 13). Additionally, Barthes (1990) expressed in his work that clothing must be considered “above all, as an object of appearance” and emphasizes that dress is fundamentally a social phenomenon (Barthes 1990 p. 245, emphasis original in 1967).