Petty, perhaps, but I'm interested in what you guys think about wearing items of either clothing, jewellery or anything else that means something but you're not wearing it for that meaning.

For example, as previously posted, wearing a cross for no religious reasons (although that thread was canned, I have no idea why ^^).

I'm trying to make this a wider debate, not including religious items. So many people you see wearing Ché Guevera t-shirts when they clearly don't know who he was, sometimes I see even people wearing t-shirts of Chairman Mao.

Ché Guevera would have definitely been against people making so much capitalist money off of his image, especially seeing as most people don't even know who he was.

Also, you see many people with religious tattoos and jewellery when they don't know what it stands for - people wear Satanic symbols around their necks or Chinese religious symbols tattooed onto their backs.

So my question to you: Do you think it's okay to be ignorant about what you're wearing and what it means, and that eventually its meaning will change (like Ché Guevera's image) and that wearing these items isn't harming anybody (there isn't a fashion police or anything) or do you think that people should stop wearing and approving symbols which they probably wouldn't wear if they knew its meaning?

(Also, help me find a nice gold cross with a rose wrapped round it to put on my chain, they're a bitch to find.

Sure you can use it without knowing the reason. After all it's just clothing and props.
And the Che Guevara image is mighty sexy. I don't blame them.

Quote from Wtf

Sure you can use it without knowing the reason. After all it's just clothing and props.
And the Che Guevara image is mighty sexy. I don't blame them.

But it means something completely different to what people think it means - you're promoting something which you don't know you're approving.

Is ignorance a good excuse?

As much as you may deny it, clothing has a big impact on people's lives. Maybe not the message they contain but everyone changes what they wear based on what's fashionable.

"Fashion is so grotesque that they must change it every six months."

The impact of fashion is a good way to get a message across, but many people do not know what message they are implying when they wear certain clothes. Is this thier own fault or the clothes distributors'?

Wearing clothes is a form of expressing opinions/thoughts/ideas ...

I don't really think it matters so much. If it's their opinion it looks nice, then it's ok. It's none of anybody's fault.

Quote from Mantha

Wearing clothes is a form of expressing opinions/thoughts/ideas ...

I don't really think it matters so much. If it's their opinion it looks nice, then it's ok. It's none of anybody's fault.

But they could unintentionally be showing a message they they have no idea about, something religious or political.

Clothes have as much meaning as you give it to them ...

You are not promoting anything, you are wearing clothes and you might have a different vision on it.
Some people see him like an idol and use his clothes, some use it for fashion, like the Warhol images of Marilyn Monroe.

And fashion is restricted. What you wear and consider fashionable is because the distributors can't give themselves the luxury of making new clothes and selling them every 6 months.
It's all about fashion. Few things are actually used daily where the people who wears it, really knows the meaning.
Like the cross, many people use it and know what it stands for.

I want to get a swastika necklace and when someone says I'm a nazi, I'll say it's a religious symbol.

And I support the opinion of clothing does not necessarily entail promotion.