ABSTRACT
According to the Old Testament, in the myth of creation, Adam was originally naked and thought nothing of it. For Mircea Eliade, modern man and woman have the illusion that they have escaped the sacred dimensions of life; what has happened, he argues, is that rites and myths have become camouflaged and are not easily available to human consciousness. Moshe Meiselman argues that in Jewish thought the body is considered holy. The Jews see the body as beautiful, but this is not as important as its holiness. The Jews, clothed the body lest its physical beauty interfere with man's spiritual goals and his quest for the divine. This chapter discusses the mythic aspects of fashion with a look at some American culture heroes who are identified with specific kinds of clothes. By culture heroes the author means certain figures or "ideal types" that have played a central role in American history—the Puritan, the Pioneer, and the Plutocrat.
