Figure 1.--Climate in the form of seasonality continues to influence fashion. There are many cold and warm weather garments. The popularity and style of these garments change over time. Long stockings used to be widely worn in the United States and Europe, but have now entirely disappeared. Here we see Swiss school children wearing long stockings at a Zurich Kindergarten in 1948.

Climate is an importat factor affecting clothing. One major impact on clothing is utlity. While clothing has been influenced by other factors such as fashion, the first major influence nust have been utility, especially protection from cold weather. Humonoids first appeared in the ropical and sub-tropical regions of Africa. The first prot-clothing was almost certainly humans making use of the hides of scavaged or prey animals that they could not consume. This development of course is lost in time. Man's inginuity gradualy began fashion more sophisticated protective garments. The clothing helped humans deal with seasonal changes and to eventually move out of Africa. This migration appears to have been brought on by climate change. Thus protective clothing enabeled humans to populate nearly every corner of the globe. While utility certainly was the origin of clothing, fashion from a very early phase of human development appeared as factor affecting clothing. As human society became increasingly sophisticated, fashion influences have become increasingly important. Climate continues, however, to be an important factor. We have seasonal discussions on many HBC pages. Some garments are highly seasonal. Others used to be, but because of life style issues are no longer so. We will gradually link our many seasonal pages here. A new development with a fuller understanding of the potential health hsazzards of ultra-violet radiation in sunlight is sun-safe clothing.

Created: 7:37 PM 6/1/2010
Last updated: 7:37 PM 6/1/2010