Mankind and fashion
The history of clothing is not as old as mankind. The first human beings living on our planet were naked – and started looking for something to wear just in order to protect their body. They needed shelter from cold, wind and rain – and therefore used animal skins and furs to keep warm and dry. It took them dozens of thousands of years to find out how to turn plant fibres into cloth, but nevertheless man had already used the time for catching interest how to dress up.
Even Stone Age people were already trying to make more of the mere necessity and to look as attractive as possible. It might seem ridiculuos to us – living in the 21th century – that the „primitive“ beings were thinking in terms like „beautifully dressed“ or „fashionable“. Perhaps they just used the opportunities offered by clothing to bring out or emphasize their positive physical attributes. That was pretty important because we all know that the more attractive a human being the bigger the chance to find a partner for reproduction.
Unfortunately we do not know in how far males used to be interested in fashion in these times – or maybe they didn´t bother at all. But it seems logical that it was more a female business as women were considered to be the beautiful sex. A man´s identity was more represented by powerful and dominant performance – so it was up to the women to attract the guys. They did so not only by wearing suitable clothes, but also by embellishing their appearance with jewellery and make-up.
Certainly fashion was luxury in these times – and people did their best to make it affordable. No question that they couldn´t make it to change their „style“ every season, and surely enough they had neither time nor a splendid „budget“ to help themselves to several different outfits – but maybe they enjoyed fashion as much as we do now.