The Classic Trend of White Shirts in Indonesia

Abstract

The white shirts are one of the basic types of clothing for men, which have become a classic fashion trend and are recognized in almost all parts of the world. White shirts have a long history in Western clothing. Changes in this clothing usually lie in the type of collar and sleeves as the inner for suits as men’s formal wear. White shirts were originally worn by elite consumers rather than the middle class. The middle-class people rarely wore white shirts because a special washing treatment was needed for white shirts. In addition, since shirts were used for work, they were used repeatedly as many times as possible. In Indonesia, the use of shirts or clothing similar to shirts was discovered in the 17th century as the inner layer of a jacket (kalambi) that was influenced by Western clothing. The purpose of this research is to found out the role of white shirts in Indonesia, since as found in Western culture, white shirts in Indonesia have their own history after the colonial period. The method of this research is a historical approach to see how they experience changes related to social identity that distinguishes the wearer from the upper and lower classes and also political identity. Political identity is one of the identities of white shirts especially in the 2010s during President Joko Widodo's administration. The research found that the embedded political identity does not principally change the function of white shirts in Indonesia as they do not always reflect political tendencies. Moreover, like clothing, they are neutral and do not mark the identity of either men or women.