NCERT Class 9 Solutions: Clothing: A Social History (India and the Contemporary World-I) Chapter 8 – Part 1

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NCERT Class 9 History Chapter 8: Clothing a Social History

Q-1. Explain the reasons for the changes in clothing patterns and materials in the eighteenth century.

Answer:

Clothing Patterns of Men and Women After 18th Century
  • Before 18th century democratic revolutions and development of huge industrial and capitalist market in Europe people of the world reflected their culture and region through diverse and colorful clothing.
  • With colonization (in 18th and early 19th century) almost whole the world had been exposed to the European style of clothing. Additionally colonial powers were industrialized and forced their cloth on the citizens of the countries under their rule. With this the raw material at cheap rates was imported into the industrial nations and finished cloths were dumped into the economies of ruled nations by the colonial powers. Poor nations were forced to buy this cloth. Slowly and gradually the local styles and handicrafts vanished.
  • Further post colonization, spread of democratic ideals and the growth of an industrial societies, clothing style of peoples were completely changed. With factories producing cheaper clothes of few varieties, local varieties and styles were further marginalized.
  • Moreover, people started to follow styles and materials from other cultures and locations and the Western dress styles for men were taken worldwide.

Q-2. What were the sumptuary laws in France?

Answer:

  • The France population had to strictly follow the sumptuary laws from 1294 to the French Revolution in 1789.
  • With this law the lifestyle of lower and so called socially inferior classes was controlled by restricting them from wearing certain clothing, ornaments, or garments. They were also restricted in the type of cloths common people could buy.
  • Typically, the rarest furs were reserved for royal families, lesser furs for nobles, and inferior furs for commoners. An English proclamation of 1559 stipulated: “None shall wear in his apparel any cloth of gold, silver, or tinsel; satin, silk, or cloth mixed with gold or silver, nor any sables; except earls and all of superior degrees.”

In general, the sumptuary laws also regulated the clothing, ornamentation, food, drink, and other forms of luxury like hunting, imposing a hierarchy of consumption.

Clothig Based on Region under the Sumptuary Laws