In “Clothing
as Language”, Grant McKtracken discusses clothing as an expressive medium and
explores how clothing constituted parts of history.[i]
His analysis of relationships between clothes and languages explores expressions
of clothes as materials are limited. Clothing shares space and time with people
who live in the same time periods. In that sense, clothing shares social customs
and habits within history. Considering with two wedding dresses of the 1837’s
and the 1845’s, they interacts with social and cultural backgrounds within each
time periods. Those two dresses are the latest fashion of each time periods. The
dress of 1837 has special ham-shaped sleeves and the dress of 1845 has fringes
and short sleeves, both of which are the specific designs of the 1830s and the 1840s.
Those dresses expressed women’s status and social backgrounds. They also can tell
that women who own those dresses at the time were sensitive for fashion and
could afford to have the latest dresses. However, it is hard to tell specific
languages of women who wore those dresses in specific occasions and how they
expressed their identities. Material culture reveals relationships between
objects and social/cultural situations of the past. However, it is sometimes
hard to describe specific ordinal and daily languages of owners.
In “Marx’s
Coat”, Peter Stallybrass explores the idea of fetish for objects.[ii]
Within the concept of capitalism, he analyzes how possessions of clothing
influence people’s social status. He describes that “Marx’s overcoat was to go
in and out of the pawnshop…and his overcoat directly determined what work he
could or could not do.” [iii]Without
the overcoat in winter, he labeled as a poor man and hard to be a part of
society. A wedding dress also works as a symbol of status. It does not affect
people’s occupation, but definitely tells family’s status and power in communities.
When a bride wore the dress with latest fashion, expensive material, and designer’s
label, that expresses how her family has authority and status in the community.
Since wedding is a family involved ritual, it became a place to show their power
to relatives and community members. Fetish to the commodity shows social attitude
in the capitalistic society.
[i] Grant McKracken, “Clothing as Languages: An Object Lesson in the
Study of the Expressive Properties of Material Culture,” in Culture and Consumption (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1988).
[ii] Peter Stallybrass, “Marx’s Coat,” in Patricia Spyer, ed., Border Fetishisms: Material Objects in
Unstable Spaces (New York: Routledge, 1998).
[iii] Stallybrass, 187.
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