From Reality to Virtuality: The Transformation of the Relationship Between Body and Clothing in the Digital Age

The relationship between the body and clothing has always been a crucial entry point for understanding socio-cultural shifts and the evolution of fashion. Clothing fashion has always been closely linked to changing concepts of the body, which have been transformed in different eras under the influence of social, political, economic, and technological factors. With the ongoing evolution of the virtual world, this relationship is undergoing a profound shift, extending from physical contexts into virtual realms. Firstly, this article analyses and summarizes the transmutation of the relationship between the body and clothing from the classical to modern times, highlighting how the clothed body has evolved from a passive surface inscribed by social norms in the classical period to an expression of self-consciousness in the modern period. Subsequently, the article shifts its focus to the virtual world, exploring it as a “field for virtual body and identity practices,” and examining how the emergence of the virtual body introduces novel modes of bodily presentation. This reshapes the relationship between the body and clothing, endowing bodily dressing practices with new significance. This article proposes a fresh perspective on understanding the body-clothing relationship in the digital age through four aspects: digital dressing of virtual bodies, multiple presentations, data connection, and generative transformation. It thereby reveals the entirely new possibilities opened up by the relationship between the virtual body and digital clothing.