Utility Chic: Where Fashion and Uniform Meet

This chapter considers military and civil uniforms and asks why they are key reference points in fashion design and media. By tracing the social significance of regulation dress, the discussion highlights distinctions made between the functional uniforms worn in institutional contexts and their appropriation by fashion. These complex interactions between uniform and fashion, military and work uniform are the focus of this discussion, which explores the ongoing dialogue between uniform and fashion; what inspiration fashion finds in uniform and whether it represents power and authority or promises utopia. In the fashion image, the uniform became shorthand for power, whether social, institutional, or sexual. As this discussion shows, the systematised logic of uniform has made utility chic a staple theme in fashion design and media, inspiring both conformity and resistance to the body disciplines demanded in private and public life.