(2/2019) People will go to ridiculous lengths to find warmth these days. The fashion state-ment of my oversized duvet winter coat stakes a claim to the far length we will take to ensure a shield of protection from winters’ bite. With curiosity comes the natural progression and modernization that has impacted humanity’s approach to finding comfort in the cold: from the Stone Age, and after Christ, into the 1800s through 1879, the year the first coat was invented, and through current day fashion state-ments.

3001 BC

The Stone Age: a small time frame known as the Neolithic Period, and the resurrect-ing era of Stone Hedge. This time period presents a colony of hunters and gatherers that operated in union with nature, without heating machinery and without fashion and clothing for warmth and protection. Rather, this culture led their lives by deco-rating their bodies with ochre and paint - relying on the natural environment among them - for the necessities of life, including dressing and adorning the body. God’s providence and Mother Nature’s blessing offered enclave huts as homes where so-cieties established shelter and retreated to building fires, hunting hides and utilizing animal fur for warmth; the later resource is not as socially appropriate to a modern world that is cautious of our carbon footprint.

To track the influence fashion and clothing has held over society throughout history, the BBC published author Melissa Hogenboom’s argument for the purpose of cloth-ing in society. She concludes, "We did not invent clothes simply to stay warm… when it got too cold to show off painted bodies, early humans were forced to cover up." She reflects on the University of Sydney’s Ian Gilligan’s theory on the relationship between body painting and clothing expression. Hogenboom reiterates Gilligan’s reasoning: "decorative function gets transferred onto clothing… once that happened, humans needed clothing for that social purpose as well as any thermal purpose." The hunters and gatherers that lived in the Stone Age were not only beautiful crea-tors that left us with one of the Seven Wonders of the World, Stone Hedge, but also left traces of the first methods to keeping warm.

476 AD

As humanity became more civilized, the necessity for clothing and fashion emerged into an integral part of human existence, not just expression. The Medieval Period acknowledges a society that fully engaged with wardrobe. Cloaks, tunics, mittens, and even boots made of leather became a uniform for civilization. Wool was a fa-vored fabric and linen materialized into undergarments and lined outerwear to in-sulate heat.

"Stone hearth fires" and amateur chimneys, much later progressing to the use of coal-heat and the invention of supplemented heated air circulation in the home and public gatherings such as churches, were critical. However, the developments of these secondary tools were still a work in progress. Writer Sandra Alvarez shares in the blog post "Surviving Winter in the Middle Ages," that wool outer garments were heavily relied upon. "Indoor heating wasn’t exactly great, so many people wore their outer garments inside to keep warm…sweating would reduce the warmth of wool, so medieval people often removed layers when they perspired and then reapplied them when they cooled down." Wool became a primary resource for keeping warm. While in relationship with fashion design it elevated a societal regard for clothing and its place in society.

1700s - 1800s

As America established its liberty in the 18th Century, history shares stories illumi-nating a reliance on clothing – a wardrobe of coats and cloaks offering support to a modernizing society building a culture amidst cold weather seasons in a barren land. As homes built fireplaces and chimneys, the women of the household worked together to sew and utilize scrap material for quilts, a true throw blanket for addi-tional comfort in fierce winters. Before the invention of the sewing machine, dated to 1970, "Mothers taught daughters how to card wool and coax soft fibers from the hard stems of flax; how to spin fibers into threads; how to stitch and mend the heavy coats and hooded cloaks that soon must ward off the biting winds. Cloth scraps and worn-out clothing found new life in quilts and coverlets. Finer stuff went into quilted petticoats to keep a lady warm (David Robinson, "Coping with Cold"). Such beginnings created culture. As fashion materials carried monetary value, society re-garded particular goods as a gauge for social status.

Fabric sourcing was a family affair. Caring for herds of sheep, carding, and weaving wool engaged each member of the household. As fabric experimentation started to unravel — linen, cotton and silk — clothing designs began to fashion. A variety of coats for men reflected social status and long skirts and capes for women were all lined with wool to support warmth (Jane Wheeler, "Clothing of the 1830s"). The progression from animal fur to fiber-based materials transpired.

1973 – 2000s

Simultaneously, a design termed "an overcoat" was first introduced in this time pe-riod and marked the start of contemporary culture. The men’s full-length garment, brushing the knees of a gentleman wearing the item, is a particular piece of fashion formalized as a style accompanied by a top hat and loafers, typically outfitting a man in a suit for work, and also, in some instances, a symbol of military personnel. As the style carried through decades as a mark of a well-dressed gentleman, the item of clothing became less concerned with a piece of fashion that was functionally in-tended to keep a person warm, and became more concerned as a mark of fashion history.

The puffer coat, a design of current fashion that resembles the looks of a sleeping bag, is another style that has left an impression on fashion. "The Skyliner," originat-ing in the year 1936 by male designer Eddie Bauer, was said to have been "created out of personal necessity after Bauer nearly lost his life to hypothermia whilst on a fishing trip in mid-winter" (Shonagh Marshall, A Brief History of the Puffer Jacket). Today, the puffer jacket is available for both men and women, creating buzz on the runways of fashion week, and from my personal experience, found disrupting daily life by comments to how cozy and warm the style appears.

The history of the method to keeping warm shows evolution in how society has cre-ated socially acceptable methods to achieving warmth and comfort. From animal skins to silk, the militant overcoat to today’s ever so popular puffer jacket - fashion has developed resources to a common human dilemma: securing warmth. Has prac-ticality always been at the essence of the objective? Maybe fashion never really compromised practicality for sex appeal, or have we as a society become stimulated, and sold by the wackiest concepts to the point of sell-out trends? My personal deci-sion to purchase my sleeping bag puffer jacket derived from a need for protection from the cold and stylistic interest. After all has been said and done, in the end it’s a wonder to whether history is sharing a story on how fashion is slowing taking cul-ture to a vegan and cruelty free perspective for everyday living.