European Fashion, Consumption Patterns, and Intercommunal Relations in the 19th-Century Ottoman Istanbul

Abstract

This chapter analyzes clothing as a code for reading and understanding the 19th century Ottoman society and as a methodological tool that can break the boundaries between micro- and macro- history, and between the private and the public.The genesis of fashion is in and of itself one of the most striking signs of the radical transformation of society. Social changes and changes in fashion go hand in hand. To reflect on the history of clothing and its transformations means not only to go directly to the heart of the social and cultural history of the Ottoman Empire but also to study the process of the transformation of Ottoman society from another point of view, different from the most commonly-envisaged administrative and political perspectives.