I disagree that clothing is superficial.

Clothing can be a wonderfully deep topic because it intersects with many of the subjects people care about: economics, politics, sociology, material science, history, technology, and such. People also use clothes to express deeply important dimensions of their identity, such as gender, sexuality, and class.

In his 1860 essay “The Painter of Modern Life,” Charles Baudelaire suggested that how people dress reflects the spirit of the age. In that sense, the heavily fragmented, diverse, and often confusing dress landscape we see today reflects our age of liberalism and globalization.

I would like to think I’ve gained an audience partly because I try to show the connection between clothing and what people care about.

I also continue to believe that an interest in clothing is uniquely disrespected for two reasons. First, Westerners in general and Americans in particular have long held a disdain for the subject, seeing it as too mercantile and vain. Second, clothing has historically been coded as a feminine interest, and feminine interests are uniquely looked down upon, much like how textile and fiber arts are relegated to the world of “craft hobbies.”

When someone loudly and vehemently expresses their disdain for this subject, what they’re really trying to communicate is that they’re smarter and more substantive than everyone else. Ironically, this very posturing is a kind of superficiality to present oneself in a certain way — the very thing they criticize about fashion.