"No one is focusing on the semiotics of fashion in a disaster, but there’s an important function, when people are desperate for some kind of infrastructure, in someone wearing a white coat or some kind of quasiuniform.”
Valerie Steele, Director of the Museum at FIT, weighed in on the function of clothing and uniform as an amino acid of the social protein. The crisis in Haiti, a country with little regard for the officiality of uniform (or any kind of substantial social superstructure), has shed light on this one of many vital functions fashion plays in our world.
In the same vein, don't you always feel better when you're surrounded by people who are well dressed? It implies an attention to detail, an indicator of consciousness that lends order to our world.
So don't knock fashion, it will save us all.
