[whstl]

I don't agree with the statement that clothes can be "by themselves independently are meaningless". Garments carry cultural, historical and symbolic weight even before they're combined. And fashion is hardly mainly about combining outfits.

And fashion is a lot about tradeoffs too. Not just in the production, but also in the day to day wearing and mix-and-matching part.

[necklesspen]

Meaningless in the context of an outfit - not necessarily whether the garment itself may have meaning to someone. You may surely be in possession of a couple of random trinkets of great historic significance but if you just mesh them all together into one outfit you might simply end up with a mess on your hands. A garment may well be the centerpiece of an outfit - but it is ultimately always the combination that is important.

Im sure you've seen examples of this yourself - you can absolutely sport a Ray Ban in good taste and you've almost surely seen someone believe themselves to be fashionable because they are wearing a Ray Ban.

Also, I'm not suggesting fashion as a whole is about combing outfits - merely that being able to combine varying pieces of clothing into a cohesive whole is an expression of good taste.