page_title: Human uses of birds
section_title: Clothing and fashion
hierarchical_section_title: Human uses of birds / Economic uses / Clothing and fashion
caption_attribution_description: Português: Índios da etnia Bororo-Boe na cerimônia de encerramento da nona edição dos Jogos dos Povos Indígenas (Olinda PE)
context_page_description: Human uses of birds have, for thousands of years, included both economic uses such as food, and symbolic uses such as art, music, and religion.
  In terms of economic uses, birds have been hunted for food since Palaeolithic times. They have been captured and bred as poultry to provide meat and eggs since at least the time of ancient Egypt. Some species have been used, too, to help locate or to catch food, as with cormorant fishing and the use of honeyguides. Feathers have long been used for bedding, as well as for quill pens and for fletching arrows.
  Today, many species face habitat loss and other threats caused by humans; bird conservation groups work to protect birds and to influence governments to do so.
  Birds have appeared in the mythologies and religions of many cultures since ancient Sumer. For example, the dove was the symbol of the ancient Mesopotamian goddess Inanna, the Canaanite mother goddess Asherah, and the Greek goddess Aphrodite. Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom, had a little owl as her symbol, and, in ancient India, the peacock represented Mother Earth.
context_section_description: Feathers have been important and colourful items of clothing and fashion from before the birth of civilisation. Elaborate, brightly coloured headdresses containing feathers are worn by indigenous peoples of the Americas such as the Bororo of the Mato Grosso. In Polynesia, sega ula lory bird feathers were major trade items, used to decorate high quality mats in Samoa and Tonga.
  In Western culture, feathers are used in boas and decorating elaborate hats and other items of ladies' clothing. Feathers in fashion were a status symbol well into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Belle Epoque draped its clothing in feathers as ornaments. Ostrich plumes were a luxury commodity in Europe for centuries, leading to serious harm to wild ostrich populations, and subsequent establishment of ostrich farms. Classical 1930s Hollywood films used feathers in abundance, arguably as a metaphor for female sexuality. For example, in the 1935 musical Top Hat, Ginger Rogers danced "Cheek to Cheek" covered in white plumes that emphasised her movements. Late twentieth century designers such as Yves Saint Laurent and Alexander McQueen used feathers to make fashion statements.
caption: Bororo men wearing brightly-coloured feathered headdresses
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