محبوبه الهی

Numerous documents emphasize on the importance of clothing to cover defects in body organs and to enhance beauty. In order to understand the social and cultural functions of clothes and its role in giving identity to the members of society, clothes in different societies can be analyzed as a set of linguistic signs embodied in the type, shape and cover, reflecting values hidden in the Iranian thought system. Iranian clothing reflects the identity that originates in Iranian culture. At the same time, paying attention to semantic indicators is important. Examining the link between clothing and meaning in the studied time period--the ancient period and Zoroastrianism--is one of the cases that represent the association of clothing with humans as a guide or a warning in the path of life.

Although the current research relies on historical investigations, a historical study cannot fully express the nature of phenomena in the context of time and, thus, it is not very useful. Transhistorical approaches are formed from examining elements and signs, which add or integrate various elements related to different historical periods and styles to a specific context. Art works, visual sources, and written sources are studied under the analysis of historical clothes, and along that all religious, moral, cultural connections are evaluated and analyzed. As a rule, the examination of the written and visual sources represents those patterns that shape the structure of Iranian clothing in the ancient period while showing the relationship between the appearance of clothing and meanings. Finally, as a witness and example, one can refer to the followers of Zoroastrianism, who construct a trans-historical connections with their culture and daily life that led to the formation of symbols, signs, and of course certain clothes—including Sedra and Koshti--which represented their values, beliefs, and cultural principles. The method of collecting information in this research was library study. The review and analysis of written and visual sources proved the patterns that formed the structure of Iranian clothing in the ancient period as well as the relationship between the appearance of clothing and concepts and meanings.

The historical heritage of Iranian clothing refers to the cultural and identity roots and represents the lifestyle, thinking, customs, and rituals that are symbolic and represent special aesthetic effects, norms, beliefs, and convictions. It shows dignity and beauty, cleanliness, thoughtfulness, flexibility, and excellence; at the same time, it narrates the beliefs that are alive in the depth of Iranian clothing. Examining the cover of ancient Iran shows strength, culture, tact, attention to ethnic and regional culture, purity and chastity, and attention to beauty with a mixture with religion, history, and identity. Iranian clothing carries many symbols that express the relationship between human being and his living environment. Clothing in Iranian culture is a display of superiority. The examples presented in this article indicate adherence to humane and sublime values of Iran. In Avesta and the related texts of ancient Iran, clothing is mentioned for various reasons. Historical texts related to ancient and later periods have described Iranians as a well-dressed, graceful nation. Iranians adhere to their cultural characteristics and beliefs through their clothing; stone carvings and dressed figures left over from the past are the narrator of this story. Thus, to know the implications of clothing in Iran, one must go through history.

Iranian clothing with all its features alone is a rich cultural carrier. Since clothing can be designed as an artistic text, its evaluation and exploration can be realized through the study of historical development, artistic viewpoints, and the use of artistic concepts. In this way, visual and written sources were illuminating the connections between clothing and people’s identities. They have introduced clothing as an identity-building phenomenon. The heritage of Iran's clothing history is indebted to the thoughts, religious and spiritual values, values as well as dignity, social status, decency, and chastity. The cultural essence of clothing includes both the material and the spiritual aspects of clothing, where the movement towards excellence, connection with nature, modesty, shame, and social status can be seen in it.

Clothing forms a kind of a communication network between people through the usage of signs and symbols. Sometimes the symbolic values of the societies find their way into clothing and apparel. These values play a big role in maintaining the cultural elements of people. The basic role of clothing might have been for protection reasons only but later on, according to the development of social and cultural activities, it found a new symbolic role. The dress mostly is a representative of social identity of its wearer. To understand the sociological role of clothing, in making part of the identity of the people, one must understand its values. Also should be aware of the fact that, same as language differences, clothing also is a way to identify various cultures from each other; therefore it is as vital for a culture, as the linguistic aspects. Local customs of each area can play the same role, therefore as changing people's language has vast impacts on vanishing their identity, changing the clothing can have same impact on identity aspects. In this Paper, we will investigate the national, regional and personal values of clothing; and will also provide examples of Iranian people's awareness about this issue in the history. Studying the impacts of clothing on identity is another important issue that we will try to address and also we will try to find the answer to the question that are the effective parameters on identity, the same parameters that have direct impact on clothing or not.

Each entity in the universe is a symbol, containing a meaning which must be sought in its own circle of existence or maybe even out of it. The source of every symbol is either nature or a derivative of it, in one way or another. In carpet designing process, a deep and rich sensation is expressed using pure and abstract objects and shapes. Fish too, is a symbol of this kind which will be considered in this paper. This symbol can be observed in various parts of Iran embodied in different shapes and forms which means it has definitely been affected by geographical, artistic and cultural parameters of every specific area.