A feature of all modern human societies is the wearing of clothing or clothes, a category encompassing a wide variety of materials that cover the body.

The primary purpose of clothing is functional, as a protection from the elements. Clothes also enhance safety during hazardous activities such as hunting and cooking by providing a barrier between the skin and the environment. Clothes incidentally also provide a hygienic barrier, keeping toxins away from the body and limiting the transmission of bacteria and viruses.

Clothes also have important social and cultural functions. A uniform, for example, may identify civil authority figures, such as police and army personnel, or it may identify team or group or even political affiliations. In most societies, clothing is an aspect of norms of the society, in relation to standards of modesty, religious practices and social status. Clothing may also function as a form of adornment and an expression of personal taste or style.

Throughout history, many materials have been used for clothes. Materials have ranged from leather and furs to weaved and woven materials, to elaborate and exotic natural and synthetic fabrics.

Articles carried rather than worn (such as purses, canes, and umbrellas) are normally considered fashion accessories rather than clothing, but hats and small dress sweaters can be called either clothing or accessories. Jewelry and eyeglasses are usually considered as accessories , even though in common speech these particular items are described as being worn rather than carried.

Clothing probably originated in the neolithic age. Some recent scientific research estimates that humans have been wearing clothing for as long as 650,000 years.

Clothing is material used to cover parts of the human body for protection against the environment, for comfort and body modesty, and as personal decoration ("fashion"), often reflecting religious, cultural, and social customs. Clothes are individual articles of clothing (although the term is always used in plural form).

Contents

• 1 Sourced
  • 1.1 Décolletage
• 2 External links

Sourced

• Vestis facit virum.
  • English: Clothes make the man.
  • Latin proverb, unidentfied origin
  • Quoted in Halyard, Ned (1849). "The Owners" (in English). Sea Songs, Tales, Etc.. Palmer & Hoby. pp. page 263. Retrieved on 2008-03-13.

• Kleiden machen Leute: nicht Leute von Verstand.
  • English: Clothes make the man, but not the man of sense.
  • German proverb, unidentfied origin
  • Quoted in Weston, Stephen (1824). "Pecularities of the German" (in English). The Englishman Abroad, in Russia, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, and Portugal. Oxford University. pp. page 101. Retrieved on 2008-03-13.