Hierarchies of Immateriality and Materiality in Cross-Cultural Clothing

By Bevin Moeller

Introduction

Humans interact with the material world through culture, so an understanding of humans in ecology must include an understanding of cultural mediation of ecological relations. A key question is the ways in which materiality and immateriality relate. Today there is no question that the social circumstances and ecological consequences of the clothing industry are a problematic realm of these issues. Given the lack of top down regulation or economic planning, it is worth investigating the cultural aspects of the role of clothing in order to devise culturally, and thus market, feasible strategies for sustainability (why and how do clothes matter?). While Marxism purports that culture is merely a mechanism to hold in place material inequality, does materiality really matter most when culture is examined through dress? What qualities hierarchically imbue one another regarding immaterial meaning and material form? Examples from several cultures shed light on this question. Observations suggest that except in circumstances where materiality itself is an immaterial value, the values that give clothes their importance do not originate in materiality but are part of a system of abstract symbolism that only takes up materiality to represent itself.

Materiality, Aesthetics and Image, and Immateriality

I define “materiality” as concrete stuff — physical phenomena in the world. I define “immateriality” as values, thoughts, resonances, and abstractions — these are the interpretation of the physical world by culture. In dress, materiality is the cloth itself, while immateriality includes the concept of the cloth, its symbolic resonances and meanings, and associated ideology. In Marxist theory, infrastructure - Marx’s term to capture the concrete economy - determines superstructure - Marx’s term for ideology, etc., but some scholars differ and believe the economy is only one site of symbolic production in society (Ohnuki-Tierney 2002:9). I do not intend to probe the Marxist theory that superstructure is derived from infrastructure, which would require a longue duree examination of the historical formulations of ideology and meaning in juxtaposition with economic development. Nonetheless his theory interests me in relation to the ways materiality and immateriality might interact, which I explore on a more empirical scale to reveal the relation between the concrete, materiality of clothing and associated ideas, symbolism, and concepts.

In thinking about materiality and immateriality, I wondered about image and aesthetics: are they materiality or immateriality? As a solution to this question I propose that image and aesthetics occupy a third space between materiality and immateriality — derived from materiality image and aesthetics are not synonymous with it, nor are they the same as the meanings and resonances they generate ideologically, conceptually, and symbolically. Here it is useful to consider Ohnuki-Tierney’s schematic (1981) in which she traces the process of interpreting phenomena through the human sensory system, naming conceptualized phenomena, associating culturally held symbolic meanings, and then in some cases reconstituting the abstraction into a concrete icon. In such a schema image and aesthetics come before symbolism and iconography, though they connect to them and generate them, and they come after - via the human perception - the raw material of the world itself. There are thus relationships between materiality and aesthetics - e.g. the image of an outfit does or does not reveal information about the raw materials that make up the outfit - and between immateriality and aesthetics - e.g. a tight or loose correspondence between the way a garment looks and the meanings it generates and the symbolisms it evokes.

Data for This Paper

To springboard a discussion, I consider Daniel Miller’s introduction to the volume Clothing as Material Culture, in which he calls for an emphasis on the materiality of clothes. Philomena Keet examines the trend of “vintage” jeans in Japan through a lens of the construction of authenticity: the Japanese construct “vintageness” through production processes in which material variables are extremely important. Lauren Androver discusses chiefly and corporate tshirts at festivals in Ghana, where the global corporate economy and cultural traditions merge. Juanjuan Wu traces fashion in China from the Cultural Revolution to the current period - I draw especially on her chapters, “The Post Mao Fashion Revival,” which includes discussion of clothing during the Mao years, “From Asexual to Unisex,” which traces the appearances and disappearances of femininity, and “Reinvented Identity: The Quipao and Tang-Style Jacket,” which delineates the importance of the customary Chinese dress through the decades. I also draw upon Christine Tsui’s paper about Chinese designers’ invocations of a Chinese “spirit,” and Doris John’s work on Shanghai Tang, a Chinese luxury brand. I also bring in Lucy Norris’s article on cloth recycling in India and my own experiences at a recycled clothing boutique in the U.S. These glimpses of clothing in different regions and contexts are not meant to be exhaustive but to provide examples of the ways immateriality and materiality relate in clothing so as to generate ideas that can be probed in further research.

Introduction: Daniel Miller and Scenarios in These Examples

In his introduction to Clothing as Material Culture, Daniel Miller argues the properties of the material of clothes should be considered as much as the social dimensions of the clothing: “The dissection of clothing into pattern, fibre, fabric, form, and production is not opposed to, but part of, its consideration as an aspect of human and cosmological engagement,” he writes; “The sensual and aesthetic - what cloth feels and looks like - is the source of its capacity to objectify myth, cosmology and also morality, power and values” (1). Miller concludes by saying materiality does not determine the social dimensions (immateriality) of clothing but sets their “propensity” (16) — he believes material qualities create a set of possibilities for resonances. In one example, Miller directionalizes the belittling of women and, he says, black people for liking clothing — he believes they are derided for their interest in clothing because the materiality of clothing is a superficial space (whereas some might argue the other way around: clothing is derided as unimportant because belittled social groups, women and black people, tend to have an interest in it) (3). I explore Miller’s notion through examples in which several scenarios occur relating these elements of dress: 1) materiality particularly determines immateriality or the two are very tightly linked, 2) immateriality hierarchically dominates materiality, or 3) immateriality is confused, with multiple meanings attached to the same materiality, revealing the way immaterial values take up the same materials differently.

Material Determination of Immateriality

The instances when materiality matters most in clothing seem to be those where materiality is given extra attention as, itself, a value. As Keet reveals, Japanese vintage denim is appealing because of its specific material qualities. In their quest for authenticity, vintage denim enthusiasts in Japan prefer jeans made with Japanese denim. Replicas of vintage jeans are considered more authentic than the original vintage ones because their process of production is itself vintage (52) — “vintage” does not refer to the age of a garment but to a specific production process, which continues even when the jeans are owned — the wearers wash and care for their jeans in a specific way to continue to construct their materiality and its resonances. The specific material aspects of the jeans are critically important and tied to their meanings as vintage and authentic — for example, the company D’artisan processes its jeans until they are so soft that if they did any more to them they would disintegrate; they do not have holes, but the bottom hems are ripped; the softness is considered a part of their authenticity (53). Material production of jeans exemplifies the tendency in Japan for authenticity to be constructed through a process of domesticating foreign elements and making them “Japanese” - through this process attention falls upon the material process of production. And yet jeans are unique: they are seen as more material than transient fashions: the emphasis on jeans’ materiality is related to the concept and definition of jeans and is therefore part of their immaterial value.

During the Cultural Revolution in China, clothing became vital in a way particularly about its materiality. As Wu details, the revolution deemed that attention to one’s appearance was a bourgeoise excess, and yet it was vitally important for people to dress a certain way, specifically in drab colors and in certain styles (2). Wu thus asserts that fashion was just as important during the revolution - perhaps it even became more vital - but “it donned a different mask” (2). Revolutionary garb referenced the values of “frugality, simplicity and sobriety” (3). These were indicated by plainness (3). The materiality of the clothes directly conveyed their immaterial values: the specific material qualities of clothing represented the idea of a mass of uniform proletariat people without differences (3). While material clothes are always the form of conveying the values they convey, this relationship was extremely strict during the Mao era because of the cultural value placed on material simplicity. People also wore fake collars, which Wu says “created a trendy image for those with limited means” (4). While to a degree “immaterial,” because fake collars are not functional, the saving of fabric gave rise to this fake collar trend: material mattered most. And in the 1980s when some Chinese clothing brands arose, the brands were preferred for their durability and material qualities, perhaps in congruity with the emphasis on materiality during the revolution (53). Those who wore bellbottoms were sometimes attacked by those who opposed them on the street with scissors, who slashed the unnecessary fabric at the base of the pants (11).

The recycling of cloth in India provides another example of the primacy of the materiality of clothing. Whereas in many nations old clothing goes into landfills, in India not only is recycled clothing imported into the country but women in wealthier households cast off their old saris to various nodes in the economy where they are reused or recycled into other products: the value of the cloth is continually remade and transformed. Lucy Norris begins her chapter by citing the divide between scholars who emphasize the materiality of clothing versus the “ephemerality” of fashion; her chapter shows a realm where materiality lives new immaterial lives, transformed from old clothes to new thread or from old clothes to new clothes or from clothes to pillows (Norris 2005). Materiality is not wasted - its value remains and transforms.

Norris reveals the process she calls harsh by which used cloth is turned into reusable items: signs of the former owner must be stripped. The immaterial - the social life - of the cloth is removed, the materiality is given a blank slate and a new potential social life (101). Similarly, in my work in a recycled clothing boutique, Rethreads, in Madison, Wisconsin, materiality was prominent and immaterial transformation occurred through the manipulation of the material. We cleaned, steamed, mended, and removed the pilling from used dresses and sweaters, and thus the materiality of the clothes rendered new immateriality: we transformed the “old” into the “new” by material manipulation. The effect was magical: these cast offs were alluring and attractive to customers for whom their gleaming “newness” materially became as appealing as their never-before-seenness and uniqueness. Thus, recycling in India and this example from the U.S. reveal the overarching of immateriality by materiality in the recycling of clothing, where materiality is valued. Together these examples from Japan, China, India, and the U.S. suggest that a focus must be placed - as an “immaterial” value - upon the cloth, upon the stuff of clothes, for their materiality to take on more significance than the elusive connotations of clothes’ meanings.

The Dominance of Immateriality Over Materiality

Still, the immateriality associated with clothes often if not mostly seems to dominate, with a degree of independence from it, the stuff of the cloth itself, in varied geographic cases. Initially, jeans in Japan were portrayed as “American” even though they were of and from Japan and made of Japanese denim: their materiality as Japanese was obscured by an immaterial association with the U.S. The brand Edwin featured Brad Pitt in its advertisements and the Japanese brand Big John obviously referenced the West (Keet 48). And despite its links to material specifics, authenticity in Japan is defined as a core essence: it is essentially an immaterial quality (55). Indeed, all of the fixation on material specifics - production process, qualities of the final pants, origin of the denim - in these “vintage” Japanese jeans is about, Keet argues, a quest for the immaterial quality of authenticity: the authenticity is what is important, what is sought.

In the example from festivals in Ghana, it is striking that the traditional significance of festival tshirts seems to override entirely their form in the Western, modern garment. As Androver reveals, the t-shirts directly signify a social tie of chiefs: this immaterial value is more important than its nontraditional material form. And while corporations sponsor the traditional festivals, the aesthetics of their corporate logos are interpreted in traditional terms: chiefs often select sponsors for the resonances of the color pattern of their brands, interpreting the corporate in terms of traditional aesthetics (56). The immateriality of the shirts’ aesthetics is the crucial fact for both corporations and chiefs: the aesthetics of the t-shirts are increasingly a site of contest, with chiefs stipulating an adherence to tradition and corporations more concerned about their own advertising (58). The meaning of the shirts, their “value” as Androver puts it, is in what is imprinted upon them (46). Here image takes a step away from materiality.

The example of China’s Cultural Revolution and its aftermath, even with its specific valuing of materiality, nonetheless reveals the importance of immaterial categories over stuff. The immaterial environment - the environment of social pressures - of the revolution determined material choices: the government did not decree that people must wear certain things, but the environment of fear led everyone to try to conform (2). In the post Mao era, clothes were thought important for their signification of thoughts: the majority against the new styles thought the bellbottoms were a sign of unhealthy thoughts, unhealthy minds (11). Later, the Chinese experienced immaterial constraints in an environment of material freedom. Individualism began to find a place in Chinese life when the government began encouraging entrepreneurs and the idea that some people would get rich before others (16). Still people did not typically express individuality through clothes - they avoided being the first to try a new style (17).

More examples of the importance of clothes’ significations, more than their materiality, abound. During the period of the Chinese Republic, women saw privileged female students as role models and trendsetters of fashion, because, though few could achieve it, education was new for women and were associated with “‘progressive and independent’ minds and views,” “‘civilized careers,’” “‘civilized marriage,’” and “‘civilized clothing’” (33). Later, mass clothing trends were quickly taken up and then abandoned from the mid-1980s: people abandoned their material clothes, which were still functional, when their immaterial resonances became out of mode (53). Generally the messages of clothing were considered indistinct, meaning in “‘an indirect and allusive way’” (53). But a trend that was shut down by the government was more explicit. “Cultural shirts” displayed written expressions of one’s feelings or a rebellious idea (53). For example shirts read, “Leave me alone, I am fed up,” or, “I only follow my feelings” (53). The government curtailed the trend, banning the manufacture and sale of the shirts deemed “unhealthy” (53). The emotions expressed on the shirts were deemed too negative, cynical, and decadent (53).

Clothing has also signaled national identity for the Chinese. After the Opium Wars (after 1860) in China, Western dress entered China materially through the now-open ports and began to be taken up by the Chinese as a signifier of modernism; at the same time, the Chinese began to have a need for representing their distinct national identity, which was now juxtaposed and seemingly under threat from the new interaction with others (105). In 1912 the government stipulated proper formal dress for men and women - women were suppose to wear the ao qun ensemble, consisting of a long jacket and skirt (107). In 1927 the government proposed that the qipao also be a “national” garment — the new version, altered from the banner gown, had a Western influence — it was slimmer and shorter and printed with abstract designs (107). While the banner gown reflected sartorial codes of the dynasty, the new version was supposed to be democratic and classless (108). Variations of the qipao developed and during the wars with Japan a patriotic blue fabric became popular (110). Wu points out that, today, the qipao is associated with periods of time the Chinese are not particularly proud of — imperialism and the Republican era (119). Despite the specificity of material form, such materiality is relatively incidental to the importance of the garment as a national symbol.

Today, nebulous evocations dominate the materiality of the Chinese brand Shanghai Tang: Doris John explains the brand is thought to be “synonymous with elegance and charm” (30). To become successful Tang was thought to need to become international, to have an international aire (30). Christine Tsui, too, explains the immaterial, social significance of Chinese design: She found the desire to express Chinese heritage to be prevalent among Chinese designers she interviewed for a book (580). “‘The national is the international’ has been one of the most frequently used slogans by Chinese fashion media journalists and designers” (580). The designer Frankie Xie explains, “‘For a Chinese designer, it is important to understand the essence of Chinese culture and spirit, which is its profundity, its broadness and its tolerance of foreign culture.’” He sought to move beyond the qipao and peonies as motifs to present China to the world: Chineseness moves, thus, into formlessness or, at least, more nebulous form (583).

Confused Immaterialities for the Same Materials

Different immaterial values may be attached to the very same materialities. Therefore, the social logic of dress lies outside its materiality. Wu points out that during the revolution, when social practice was under deadly scrutiny, the Chinese who tried to carefully adhere to dress protocol did not find the logic within clothing to contain answers - the answers had to be politically constructed and then projected as meanings onto clothes. For example, if green meant egalitarianism, people could not know whether red, its opposite, signified bourgeoisie. If one style of pockets was favorable, was a different style thus immoral? The logic did not exist precisely in the relationship between forms of clothes but was made outside of them (18). Today the revolutionary attire is now itself called “old” - “‘three old styles’ (lao san zhuang) and ‘three old colors’ (lao san se)” — these labels refer to fashions prior to economic reform beginning in 1978 (3). The old styles are the Mao suit, the youth jacket, and the casual army jacket and the old colors are subdued blue, white and gray (3). The very same clothes considered new are now old: their value is not inherent in their material form. Later, new looks in post Mao China were considered “eccentric” by some but rebellious and cool by others (Wu 8). There was also confusion over jeans in China. The translation of “jeans” in Chinese is “cowboy pants” and some leftist intellectuals opposed the new styles because they thought there was a link to being like farm animals (12). Immaterial values must socially congeal outside their material conduits.

Clothing as Sociability? The Significance of Form

In her article, “Sociability: The Art of Form,” Sally Anderson highlights the aesthetic and formal properties of sociable interaction, which some deride as superfluous and others esteem as a necessary mode of relation (97). We see resonances of this notion of sociability as form in a discussion of the materiality and immateriality of clothes. The materiality is their “form,” like modes of sociability, whereas their immaterial, social significances are more like the sociability itself - the relating between individuals, the way clothes speak. If my conclusion, that materiality must be emphasized as a value - as an immaterial value - for it to take precedence in the realm of clothing, there may be an analogy to sociability: people must consider and emphasize in their minds an adherence to social form for the sake of immaterial values, for the sake of socializing. However, the form of sociability, since it is not material itself, may be more like the “image” of clothing - a step away from concrete stuff - than the stuff of clothing’s cloth. And so a comparison between clothes and sociability might be about the role of aesthetic form, and not materiality, in giving logic and coherence to social interaction.

From Fragment to Whole: Application of Universal Categories and Conclusions

I assume in this analysis a universal applicability of “materiality,” “immateriality,” and “aesthetics.” I do not contend that these are culturally universal concepts - indeed various cultures on the planet might not distinguish them at all. However, I believe they are concepts of the west, at least, that can be thought of as universal for humans, because the unique trait of our species is to apprehend the phenomenal world through various complex symbolisms. Van de Veer makes the case against universalizing but for comparison of mid-level concepts in his treatise, The Value of Comparison. Perhaps “immateriality and materiality in clothing” can be seen as such a mid-level realm. The insights suggested by this brief essay could be examined with a wider swath of data from cultures around the world. And so I do not entirely depart from Dany Miller’s attention to materiality. In calling for such emphasis, he may be pioneering the very approach that would best reconcile the glut of immaterial resonances in much of the corporate clothing industry today with their abuses of the material, ecological world, however much social logics remain immaterial and only embody clothes to act out their values. In other words, I do not believe that materiality indeed determines immaterial values’ “propensity,” in Miller’s term. The relation between the social value of a clothing item and its material form is more often arbitrary, unmoored from specific material qualities, and insecure. But to root clothing in an ecological sensibility, attention to material specifics themselves as values may be the solution. Turning such values into representations that cannot be copied, misrepresented, and mimicked - real wool versus polyester, recycled cloth versus new - may be the challenge, given the frequent dominance of the immaterial and aesthetic side of the clothing equation.

Works Cited

Andover, Lauren. “Branding Festive Bodies: Corporate Logos and Chiefly Image T-Shirts in Ghana.” African Dress: Fashion, Agency, Performance. Ed. Karen Tranberg Hansen and D. Soyini Madison. London: Bloomsbury, 2013.

Anderson, Sally. “Sociability: The Art of Form.” In Thinking Through Sociality: An Anthropological Interrogation of Key Concepts. Ed. Vered Amit. New York: Berghahn, 2015.

John, Doris Rajakumari. “Shanghai Tang: Taking Chinese Fashion to the World.” The Icfai University Journal of International Business. Vol. III. No. 3. 2008.

Keet, Philomena. “Making New Vintage Jeans in Japan: Relocating Authenticity.” Textile: The Journal of Cloth and Culture. 9:1. 44-61. 2011.

Kuchler, Susanne and Daniel Miller, ed. Clothing as Material Culture. Oxford: Berg, 2005.

Miller, Daniel. “Introduction.” Clothing as Material Culture. Ed.

Miller, Daniel and Susanne Kuchler. Oxford: Berg, 2005. Norris, Lucy. “Cloth That Lies: The Secrets of Recycling in India.” In Clothing as Material Culture. Ed.

Miller, Daniel and Susanne Kuchler. Oxford: Berg, 2005.

Ohnuki-Tierney, Emiko. Kamikaze, Cherry Blossoms, and Nationalisms. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002.

Ohnuki-Tierney, Emiko. “Phases in Human Perception / Conception / Symbolization Processes: Cognitive Anthropology and Symbolic Classification.” American Ethnologist. 1981.

Tsui, Christine. “From Symbols to Spirit: Changing Conceptions of National Identity in Chinese Fashion.” Fashion Theory. Volume 17. Issue 5. 579-604. 2013.

Van de Veer, Peter. The Value of Comparison. Durham: Duke University Press, 2016. Wu, Juanjuan. Chinese Fashion From Mao to Now. Oxford: Berg, 2009

Formalizing Evocations

By Bevin Moeller

Studying Surfaces

Art happens at the boundary of logic and its own illogic. According to Edward Sapir, “Fashion is the discreet solution of subtle conflict” (40). Clothing references concepts outside the self, which must be a smaller set than individuals themselves, because the point is to organize them even if the innumerable specificities of combination make a kind of public of individuals. What is the difference between these pairs of pants? They differ not only in their formal properties of shape, balance, color, and material: they differ in their interaction with the body. Inhabiting the clothes, underneath the clothes, the body imposes its form on the clothes, pushing it to its boundaries in places, letting it skim in others, a straight versus a curved line heading for the edge of the cliff. The body is both the body and the clothes - the clothes are both the clothes and the body. In some places, the clothes step away, letting the body articulate, even if only an asterisk of ankle between the pant cuff and the shoe. The emphasis of the foot and ankle together draws upon the soldier’s march, the barefooted peasant, or the bicyclist but does not quite signify any of them. The style is a shadow version of nonmeaning, the meaning refusing to take itself seriously, refusing to dress up as anyone, displaying its prototype of the everyone, for whom social role is a glance in another direction. Coolness has its habitat here: it lives, for example, outside the house of enthusiasm, standing in a circle in the yard, everyone’s hands tucked into the pockets of their zip front hoodies. “Only on the basis of their cool clothes can they be ‘superior’: hipster knowledge compensates for economic immobility” (Greif). They know full well how to dress.

Clothing is always a gesture. Sometimes clothing allows the body to be the gesture. Sometimes clothing is more about the body than about the clothing. Clothing emphasizes different parts of the body, giving them the strongest voice in a chorus. One season, the eyes linger on the unbelted waist, the convexity of a hip length sweater. Another season, pants border the waist, which is now disjuncture instead of flow. The insertion of a beat up item into a new ensemble roots it to authenticity. And different time periods refocus the gaze on different body parts: in one span of years skinny jeans make the legs look long and in another set of years ankle boots make the legs seem short. New styles also influence the meaning pattern of the body form and coerce bodies into new shapes. You have to have a certain body to wear certain styles. And this fluctuates: the 1990s grunge look was mostly about the clothes, rather than the body, while subsequent looks demanded a physical discipline. Clothing styles and the body are in a constant motion of meaning.

Aversions and Contrasts

By titling a chapter, “Why Clothing Is Not Superficial,” in his book, Stuff, a material culture analysis, Daniel Miller highlights the paradigmatic opposite of his argument, conflating clothing with superficiality or a defense of the term. He recalls his personal aversion to fashion during his student days at one of England’s most prestigious schools: “We student academics at places such as Cambridge were deep and profound because frankly we looked like rubbish, and clearly didn’t much care that we did” (14). One wonders how Miller overcame his disinterest in the topic. He goes on to discuss the duality of surface and depth - he suggests clothing is considered superficial because Westerners locate the self in their interiors. Trinidadians, in contrast, “tend to see truth and being as on the surface” (20). Miller says that in such an egalitarian society, clothing literally represents who a person is. Miller points out that the tendency to value “naturalness” is no less social than adornment: face type, for example, determines what “characters” one may play on a stage, with or without makeup (21). “By contrast, a person who spends time, money, taste, and attention in creating a look, where the final look is the direct result of all that activity and effort, can properly be discovered in their appearance. Because now one is judging what they have done, not what they happen to look like originally” (21). Similarly, men who prefer women not to wear makeup, claiming to shun the beauty industry, still assess their faces - which they nonetheless prefer to be beautiful - via the lens the beauty industry has constructed over centuries. We assess aesthetics socially in one way or another.

My mother had no time for sewing, but my grandmother made a lot of my clothes when I was kid. I loved them for their varieties of color, texture, and style and of course her personal touch. But my classmates were getting into brands and when I wore blue wool pants my grandmother made me, pants I was outgrowing, a popular girl in my school asked whether I was waiting for the flood to come in. The interplay between masculinity, femininity, and class contextualizes Western fashion today in striking ways. In his book, Behind the Label, the UCLA sociologist Richard Appelbaum makes no attempt to understand clothing intellectually, focusing entirely on the economic structure of the industry. Of course, when the loss of sewing skills in middle class American women coincided directly with the feminist movement and women’s foray into workplaces previously dominated by men, the derided labor of sewing, formerly unpaid in the household, was transferred to the oppression of women in the peripheries of the World System. In another interesting twist, the founder of fast fashion, Amancio Ortega, devised his company as a solution to his own poverty and as a capitalization on the populist idea that all women should get to wear desirable fashions, which should not be exclusive to a certain hierararchy. Now he is the richest man in the world and Zara and other companies pump out a continual onslaught of catwalk copies at prices affordable to masses. The unconscionable oppression of sweatshop laborers is well known. When I asked my grandmother to teach me sewing, suggesting it would be good to bring the practice back home, she asked with characteristic racism, of sweatshop laborers, “Well what else are they going to do?” The story of Western clothing in the last century or so, thus, contains striking paradigmatic contrasts.

Opportunities for Meaning

When I began working at H&M, my trainer, herself a fashion designer, as were several of my coworkers, who particularly excelled in her position for the company and was perfectionistic about her work, taught me how to deal with the immense task of keeping separate in one’s mind the myriad variations of style sold in the store. A large part of our job was returning clothes to their proper place in the sales floor, along with placing new merchandise, and to do so one had to keep a mental map of where everything was located and also to remember the varieties of styles. This task was largely impossible, longtime employees assured me. Still, Becca, my trainer, told me that to help differentiate the styles, I should note what was unique about each one. A black legging with a lace trim at the bottom versus the top. A blouse with a tie neck and piping versus one with a tie neck and no piping. A pencil skirt with a slit versus without a slit. Fifteen different kinds of pleather jackets. The endless variations of fabric, cut, and embellishment within just one H&M store provided a vocabulary of nuanced difference for people to select their representations of their selves. And each of these nodes of meaning - the slight differences between fabrics, cuts, and embellishments - was an opportunity for H&M’s profit, which, since the rise of fast fashion, is based on the continual generation of nuanced difference. The nodes of meaning generation in Western dress are remarkably various.

Clothing and Meaning

Scholars wrestle with the tension between clothing as meaningful and such meanings as indefinite. On the one hand, as Barnard points out, the wrong item worn to the wrong event “sends all the wrong messages” (170) and so there is certainly meaning to clothing. On the other hand, Campbell argues that if anything depended on individuals’ ability to correctly decipher one another’s clothes into messages, their failures would cause a communicative breakdown (167). Scholars hold two paradoxical views: clothing is inescapably bound up with meaning, but its meanings are not definite. Fashion means nebulously: Sapir explains, “The chief difficulty of understanding fashion in its apparent vagaries is the lack of exact knowledge of unconscious symbolisms attaching to forms, colors, postures, and other expressive elements in a given culture” (42). Meaning in clothing is not built upon one-to-one linkages of sign to signified but is sets of aesthetic evocations.

Still, much attention has been given to the idea of clothing as a code. McCracken believes clothing can be seen as a code, but the interpretation of the code depends on the person and his or her social location (1989). Davis quotes Culler’s distinction between codes and aesthetic codes: the latter are meant to be nebulous; once they become too definite, art moves on to other expressions (153). Therefore part of what fashion means is that it doesn’t mean anything in particular. Just as Campbell rejects the notion that fashion is a set of messages sent from sender to receiver (166), Barnard locates the significance of clothing in its representations of itself, which, he says, are not references to elsewhere but the site of a construction of identity (171). The visual fact of clothing demands ambiguity, according to Barnard: “The account of meaning to be proposed here cannot even pretend to be uncontroversial” (173). Citing Derrida, Barnard argues that meaning is endemic to its own expression (176). He argues that connotations cannot be correct or incorrect (173). Thus while Campbell insists that clothing is not a language because no strict rules govern it, other scholars believe the lack of strict rules is an important part of the meaning.

While some scholars point to clothing as a form, primarily, of individual self expression (Roach and Eicher 110, 112), with dress both signaling and hiding one’s mood (110), Barnard and other scholars believe clothing signals group belonging. Fashion relates the self and others (Roach and Eicher 109) — these authors point to the social functions of adornment as including the representation of social role, social worth, economic status, politics, magico-religious condition, ritual, or values. Veblen famously pointed out a process whereby styles were copied from the aristocrats to the bourgeoise, rendering them unappealing to the aristocrats and driving fashion transformation — but Wilson notes that Veblen’s theory does not account for why certain styles replaced others (18). (Today, it is very difficult to differentiate between cheap and expensive clothing without knowing which is which). Sapir emphasizes that fashion can signal both group belonging and individual differentiation (43) and that it can allow one group to mimic another group (41). Barnard believes that fashion constructs people as members or non-members of cultural groups (172). Brooks Young shows that women signal their belonging to a group of women who do the same through dressing in mode (47). Davis points out that in addition to their signaling of group belonging, the interpretation of clothing comprises groups — interpretation varies from group to group. A quality such as “fabric, color, texture, cut, weight, weave, stitching, transparency, and whatever else makes a difference in how the garment or its surrounding ensemble of apparel is responded to in a community of clotheswearers” — so the meanings are rooted in the society (154).

An important connotation of clothes is of a moment in time. While Brooks Young tries to show that fashion is a set of rules by tracing the very specific prescriptions of form and style through centuries of women’s dresses, what these specifics mean is the question that cannot be answered definitively: rather, on one level, at least, they signify a present moment of “mode.” In his seminal essay, “Social Life as a Sign System,” Umberto points out, “Fashion codes are less articulate, more subject to historical fluctuations than linguistic codes are” (144). Fashion is a continuous process of adjustments and change (Brooks Young 48). Davis calls for an explanation of the emergence of legibility of new styles as they replace old ones (155) while Sapir highlights the offset between fashion and custom: “Fashion is custom in the guise of departure from custom” (40). If signaling the present historical moment is one way fashion means, how does it do so, and what else is evoked along with time?

An Ethnographic Example

Sophie Woodward studies the dressing practices of three English women in her ethnographic analysis, “Looking Good — Feeling Right: Aesthetics of the Self.” Rosie, a financially well off woman with bureaus and bureaus of clothes, dresses for a night out at a trendy restaurant. Mumtaz, who has one bureau of Western clothes and one of Indian clothes, dresses for a wedding. And Woodward studies Vivienne’s dress practices overall, which derive from her ideology about keeping things for a long time, not caring what she wears, and ostensibly not trying to look any certain way. Overwhelmed by choices, Rosie falls back on a skirt she wears often. She finds a shirt to go with it, to contrast with it, to add qualities to it, and wears, ultimately, a jacket and boots as well, but she is unhappy with her final choices. Mumtaz effortlessly combines elements of Western and Eastern styles into a look that earns her compliments from the other guests at the wedding. And Vivienne’s collection of hand-medowns and threadbare items combines into a look that nonetheless has an aesthetic cohesion; Vivienne only wears certain things together and likes the look of being functional.

While Woodward argues that these women’s aesthetics are about themselves - their expression of their selves, being really them, “what feels right” - the ethnographic descriptions reveal the women are not describing unique people but participating in concepts external to themselves when they select their, nonetheless unique, outfits, just as Michael Carter points out that women dress in adjectives. Rosie’s skirt, for example, exhibits “refined shape and style” (23). She picks a top that contrasts stylistically; thus, in addition to the style of the skirt, she generates a new aspect of style that is neither individual item but their combination: an ironic juxtaposition. Her ultimate choice of a khaki top involves the tension between camouflage and glitter — an earthy invisibility and an unnatural hope to be seen, so the shirt, too, has an internal tension. Woodward says there is a balance to the shirt and skirt that is then thrown off by the addition of boots and a jacket; balance could be seen as another quality the outfit is about, even if the concepts being “balanced” are opposite in connotations (24).

Mumtaz’s outfit combines the evocations of Western and Indian dress. Her outfit, too, embodies juxtaposition and ironic tension - she is being neither of these people; it is important she not be a stereotype. Rosie remarks that she looks like the social person of a girl going clubbing (24): clothing can approximate, for better or worse, social characters - stereotypical, even, representations of social people doing social practices - and so one dresses or tries not to dress in a muted costume. And Vivienne’s color palette in her selective wardrobe of disinterest in dress is specific: dulled down colors, earthy colors, and warm colors. She, too, evokes concepts: looseness, for example, evokes fluidity (36). Despite her claim of functionality, she puts forth a cohesive and meaningful aesthetic that references elements of her environmentalist politics (28). Woodward concludes: “What women experience as an aesthetic logic inherent in the style of the clothes can considerably impede their sense that they are free to choose” (36).

A Case Study: The Exposed Ankle

A glimpse around the populated places of downtown Montreal - the streetscape, the buses, the metro trains and stations - reveals the trend toward exposed ankles. These examples are only a smattering in a larger context of full length pants, but they are nonetheless noticeable. One the one hand, the wide leg pant shape is quite a departure from the unforgiving silhouette of the skinny jean. On the other hand, the exposure of the ankle is a robust gesture, but pinpointing its meaning is a difficult task. Sometimes the pant is tapered but ragged, the ankle jutting out as though it is breaking free of something. Sometimes the pants are wide, long swinging lines of leg, the ankle a ball of harsh bone undergirding the fabric, which is more a slab than a drape. And sometimes the loose jeans - they’re the old kind of denim again - they’ve separated from the flesh, they’re cloth again - are rolled up, to expose the ankle, revealing the effort of the style bearer in presenting this form. The style seems to merge the ankle with the foot, calling attention to what the foot does - its movements - and creating a new bounded form, a new gesture of resonance.

I had seen this before. One of the contestants on Project Runway Season 16, which began in 2017, a fashion student at The Academy of Art University in San Francisco, was always wearing pants that cut off above his ankles and emphasized his foot and ankle combined. I am not suggesting he is the root of the trend - but I remembered how significant it was on him. Perhaps because of his man bun, the whole look evoked “samurai” for me — but images of samurais do not show any such ankle-and-foot emphasis. Meanwhile, my internet search turned up another designer at the same university serving up the ankle-and-foot silhouette; its appearance in his drawings reverberates the styles seen around Montreal — I am not suggesting, again, that he caused it but that there is a back and forth of the creation and use of such ideas.

How can we answer the question, “What does it mean?” I propose that the form resonates with an existing one and its meanings but is different than it and that this offset between a derivative and a reference to it is, itself, the crux of the formation of meaning in Western dress. In this case, we have seen the emphasis of the ankle and foot together before in the soldier’s combat boot. This piece - the combat boot - unifies foot and ankle in the activities, the motions, the walking or marching, of the soldier. We have also seen the emphasis of the foot and ankle together in pictures of poor and poor rural people e.g. during the Great Depression. The bare foot and ankle together under a cropped loose pant stands out in these images - we are meant to notice that the pictured people are not wearing shoes. And finally, emphasis, though in another way, centers on the ankles of bicyclists, who bind up their pant leg on the side of the gears to avoid getting the fabric caught in the metal. The new style of ankle exposure is none of these meanings definitively nor does it, nor is it meant to, evoke any such social role — and yet the ways we have seen the form before are a dreamlike essence around the form’s replication as a new style. Its chief meanings are, of course, newness and coolness - and difference - but it also references its rejection of the costume of soldier, farmer, or bicyclist, its refusal to be any of them.

Works Cited

Barnard, Malcolm. “Fashion Statements: Communication and Culture.” In Fashion Theory. Ed.

Malcolm Barnard. London: Routledge, 2007. Bonacich, Edna and Richard P. Appelbaum. Behind the Label: Inequality in the Los Angeles Apparel Industry. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.

Brooks Young, Agnes. “Fashion Has Its Laws.” In Fashion Theory. Ed. Malcolm Barnard. London: Routledge, 2007.

Campbell, Colin. “When the Meaning Is Not a Message: A Critique of the Consumption as Communication Thesis.” In Fashion Theory. Ed. Malcolm Barnard. London: Routledge, 2007.

Carter, Michael. “Dressed in Adjectives.” Fashion Theory. Volume 22. Issue 1. 2018. Abstract only.

Davis, Fred. “Do Clothes Speak? What Makes Them Fashion?” In Fashion Theory. Ed. Malcolm Barnard. London: Routledge, 2007.

Eco, Umberto. “Social Life as a Sign System.” In Fashion Theory. Ed. Malcolm Barnard. London: Routledge, 2007.

Greif, Mark. “The Hipster in the Mirror.” The New York Times. November 12, 2010. Online at occonline.occ.ccd.edu.

Miller, Daniel. “Why Clothing Is Not Superficial.” In Stuff. Polity, 2010.

Roach, Mary Ellen and Joanne Bubolz Eicher. “The Language of Personal Adornment.” In Fashion Theory. Ed. Malcolm Barnard. London: Routledge, 2007.

Sapir, Edward. “Fashion.” In Fashion Theory. Ed. Malcolm Barnard. London: Routledge, 2007.

Veblen, Thorstein. “Dress as an Expression of Pecuniary Culture.” In The Theory of the Leisure Class. Online at www.moglen.law.columbia.edu/LC/theoryleisureclass.pdf

Wilson, Elizabeth. “Explaining It Away.” In Fashion Theory . Ed. Malcolm Barnard. London: Routledge, 2007.

Yim, Eun-Hyuk. “Idealization of the Body in Fashion: Focus on Skinny Jeans as an Externalized Corset.” Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles. Volume 35, Issue 10. 2011. Abstract only.Description text goes here