Clothing, Beauty, and Inequality

Abstract This chapter explores how tastes in clothing manifest and perpetuate appearance-based inequalities, specifically focusing on women’s ordinary, everyday clothing practices rather than their involvement in the fashion scene. It outlines the tension between macro-based structural explanations for shaping practices and those emphasising increased individual involvement and diversity within the realm of clothing. While the former emphasises social class and patriarchy as processes underpinning women’s clothing practices, the latter conceptualises contemporary clothing as a domain providing individuals with the capacity to manage their appearances. The chapter will discuss the limitations of each approach and propose an embodiment framework that provides a more nuanced understanding of women’s agency while demonstrating how class and gender intersect to create appearance-based hierarchies in social interactions. The conceptual framework will be applied to a case study of Turkish women’s clothing practices and their notions of “good looks”, unpacking how class processes generate embodied femininities with varying social value.