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Suggestions for a Different Approach to the History of Dress

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Philippe Perrot
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Extract

Loincloth or business suit, djellaba or Chanel tailleur, blue jeans or leotard, evening gown or shorts, dress has always and everywhere been present as an object of material and symbolic investment. Why does a man belonging to a certain society dress as he does if not because a set of values and constraints such as custom, price, taste or decency prescribes or forbids certain usages, tolerates or encourages certain conduct? Dictating the use and assortment of various garments, this set of values is the expression of a veritable ethics of dress, protected by a series of sanctions that, from simple mockery to punitive measures (sumptuary laws or the present-day repression of transvestism and the illegal wearing of military, ecclesiastical or judiciary garb) guarantees the easy recognition of certain signs that are vital to the social order.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 29 , Issue 113-114 , March 1981 , pp. 157 - 176
Copyright
Copyright © 1981 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

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References

1 See Paul Daubert, Due port illégal de costume et de décoration (thesis in Law), Paris, A. Rousseau, 1905.

2 For a psychoanalytic approach to behavior in dress, see J.C. Flügel, The Psychology of Clothes, London, Flogarth, 1950 (1930).

3 André Leroi-Gourhan, Milieux et techniques, Paris, A. Michel, Coll. “Sciences d'aujourd'hui” 1973, p. 203. In a chapter devoted to the different processes used in the manufacture of clothing in time and space, Leroi-Gourhan notes that “technical inertia allows in a certain measure to make of costume a historical witness that often marks a real movement of men, a true invasion, because if material has always been imported, the effective presence of a conqueror has always been needed for fashions in dress to abdicate traditional forms.”

4 In fact, there are no real “national costumes” but rather local, regional or international ones that it would be fruitless to confine within political frontiers.

5 On the problems of vestimentary acculturation, see Patrick O'Reilly and Jean Poirier, “L'Evolution du Costume” in Journal de la société des océanistes, No. 9, Vol. IX, Dec. 1953, pp. 151-169. (Modifications in Neo-Caledonian dress under the Influence of Colonization); Ali A. Muzrui, “The Robes of Rebellion: Sex, Dress and Politics in Africa,” in Encounter, No. 2, Vol. XXXIV, Feb. 1970, pp. 19-30; Alain Tehon, “Acculturation et abandon du costume traditionnel” in L'Homme, hier et aujourd'hui, coll, of studies in homage to André Leroi-Gourhan, Paris, Cujas, 1973, pp. 695-704. (Ethnographic inquiry on the Indians of Mexico.)

6 Cf. Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the ‘Beagle’, (1831-1836), Geneva, Edito- service 1968, pp. 204-234.

7 Maurice Leenhardt, “Pourquoi se vêtir?”, in L'amour de l'art, 1st trim., 1952, p. 14.

8 Robert K. Merton Eléments de théorie et de méthode sociologiques, Paris, Plon, 1966, pp. 112-113, 122-124.

9 Roland Barthes, “Eléments de sémiologie” in Communications, No. 4, 1964, p. 106.

10 See the Oxford Dictionary for etymology of “cravat”.

11 George H. Darwin, “Development in Dress,” in MacMillan's Magazine, Sept. 1872, quoted by W.M. Webb in The Heritage of Dress, London, Grant Richards, 1907, p. 3.

12 The role and transparency of the sign is widespread with uniformed people and their relation with civilian society. A vital signalling means for the functioning of a hierarchized group but also an instrument and expression of power, the uniform may act as instigator or discloser of conflicts. See for example Nathan Joseph and Nicholas Alex, “The Uniform: A Sociological Perspective,” in American Journal of Sociology, No. 4, Vol. 77, Jan. 1972, pp. 719-730.

13 Comparing the evolution of a garment with that of the arts between 1350 and 1475, Paul Post concludes that dress during this period was subjected to the same stylistic laws as art, of which it was a manifestation. Die französischniederlandische Männertracht einschliessflich der Ritterrüstung im Zeitalter der Spätgotik 1350-1475. Ein Rekonstruktionversuch auf Grund der Zeitgenossischen Darstellungen, Halle, 1910.

14 The masculine silhouette also offers some changing details with erotic function, such as the broadness of shoulder, the fullness of chest, the smallness of waist or the prominence of the pudenda. Facial hair is also subject to great variation.

15 On the variations in importance in time and space of corporal regions of modesty and desire, see W.G. Sumner, Folkways. A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores and Morals, New York, Ginn & Co., 1906, pp. 429-435 and 453-459; see also Havelock Ellis, Etudes de psychologie sexuelle, trans. A. Van Gennep, Vol. I, Paris, Mercure de France, 1908, pp. 25-62.

16 Georges d'Avenel writes in this regard: “Everyone knows—but corset manufacturers know it best—that the women of the various European countries have different builds. Different models are necessary for each nation. Spanish women have wide hips and small abdomens; their short and shapely figure allows freedom to the natural protruberances of the bust. English women on the contrary stand erect and prefer that attitude. They need a laced and tightly-drawn corset from shoulder to hip. Russian and Scandinavian women have long waists with little indentation. German and Dutch women are massive and need confining and reinforced corsets. “These differences from one country to another, well known to the clothing industry, extend to all the parts of the body; from the calf, higher up on British v/omen, to the breast, usually lower across the Channel than on this side of the Ocean.” Le Mécanisme de la vie moderne, series 4, Paris, A. Colin, 18981900, pp. 64-65.

17 Fashion is a means for renewing “sexual information,” according to the expression of André Martinet in his article on the sexual function of fashion in Linguistique, No. 10, 1974, pp. 5-19. For the psychoanalyst Edmund Bergler (Fashion and the Unconscious, New York, Brunner 1953) the evolution of all fashion is determined by this shifting in the erogenous zones.

18 Montaigne, Essais, Book II, Paris, F. Roches. 1931, p. 21.

19 Anatole France, L'İle des Pingouins, Paris, Calman-Lévy, 1909, pp. 55-56.

20 G. Bataille, L’Érotisme, Paris, U.G.E., coll. 10-18, p. 159.

21 A study by André Handricourt establishes the relationship between unshaped clothing (tunic or poncho) and the way loads are carried, slung across the back or carried by a band across the forehead, and also the relationship between shaped clothing (the coat) and the way of carrying the same loads in a backpack or in a basket with two shoulder straps. “Relations entre gestes habituels, forme des vêtements et manière de porter les charges,” in Revue de géographie humaine et d'ethnologie, No. 3, July-Sept. 1948, pp. 58-67.

22 The same article of clothing does not necessarily bring about the same gestures. B. Koechlin found a profound sexual differentiation in the technical operation of taking off a sweater: “A woman crosses her arms in front, grips the bottom of the sweater and raises her arms so as to free her head, then seizing the arms of the sweater, she turns it right-side out. A man puts his hands on his shoulders, takes the back of the neck of the sweater and pulls until his head is freed…” (“Techniques corporelles et leur notation symbolique,” in Langages, No. 10, June 1968, p. 38); W.M. Webb has also noted ways that are specific to men and women for buttoning garments. Op. cit., p. 21.

23 G. Gorer, The People of Great Russia. A Psychological Study, London, Cresset Press, 1949.

24 Amiel, Journal intime, année 1857. Paris, U.G.E., coll. 10-18, 1965, p. 135.

25 Quoted by Merton, op. cit., p. 79.

26 On the quantitative study of the “how” if not the “why” of fluctuations in beard styles, see Dwight E. Robinson, “Fashions in Shaving and Trimming of the Beard: The Men of the ‘Illustrated London News’, 1842-1972,” in American Journal of Sociology, 81, (5), May 1976, pp. 1133-1141.

27 “Three Centuries of Women's Dress Fashion: a Quantitative Analysis,” in Anthropological Records, University of California Press, No. 2, Vol. 5, 1940, pp. 111-154. Earlier, A.L. Kroeber had made a list covering the period 1844-1919: “On the Principle of Order in Civilization as Exemplified by Changes in Fashion,” in American Anthropologist, n.s., vol. XXI, 1919, pp, 235-263.

28 F. Braudel, “Histoire des sciences sociales: la longue durée,” in Annales, ESC, No. 4, Oct-Dec. 1958, taken up again in Ecrits sur l'histoire, Paris, Flammarion, Coll. “Champs,” 1977, pp. 41-83.

29 Of course, all forms of clothing, like all forms of the body, do not evolve at the same speed. Hats, like hair styles, can change very quickly; footwear, like the figure, is more slowly modified. Age, status or civil state also influence the rhythm of these variations.

30 A. Young, Recurring Cycles of Fashion, 1760-1937, New York, Cooper Square, 1966 (1937).

31 In traditional societies on the way to acculturation there is always a certain historicity of forms. See in this regard Jacques Bergue, Le Maghreb entre deux guerres, Paris, Seuil, 1962, pp. 90-92.

32 See Bernard Rudofsky, Are Clothes Modern?, Chicago, P. Theobold, 1947.

33 P. Perrot, Les Dessus et Les dessous de la bourgeoisie, Paris, Fayard, 1981.