Dress history, as a specialized subject in historical research, is the study of manners of dress through time. This encompasses study centered in contextual historical grounding, which can include or stem from types or styles of clothing distinctive of a certain period in history, change in modes of sartorial expression, or the study of a specific garment or garment type. Through dress historical analysis of the visual and symbolic attributes of clothing, social customs of a particular time period and place can be better understood. Approaches to dress historical research employ wide-ranging, cross-disciplinary academic methods of analysis. Research may be informed by
anthropology,
sociology,
gender studies, economic, design, and political histories, may be
qualitative and/or
quantitative in nature, and may also employ object-based research and
material culture analysis. By using an inclusive and expansive range of different approaches and drawing on an extensive variety of sources, the subject of dress history highlights how the parameters within which dress historians conduct their research is less bound by traditional forms of recognized historical practice. Many dress historians have worked from these documentary sources rather than examining clothing itself; the process of detailed examination of a piece of clothing to describe and interpret its function, construction, and condition has only been introduced relatively recently. interpreting forms of dressing of a certain period may facilitate comprehension of the social, political, economic, and cultural contexts of a period of time and a particular place. == See also ==