In Blue
Jeans: The Art of the Ordinary, Daniel Miller and Sophie Woodward explore
sociological aspects of blue jeans and analyze personal and cultural relationships
with blue jeans through interviews in England. In their early chapters, they
discuss personal relationships with blue jeans. They interviewed people and
asked their experiences of blue jeans. It is interesting to focus on personal
histories of blue jeans and connected to social experiences. They interview a woman,
who calls Susan, and explore that she had different connections with blue jeans
in each stage of her life. When she was young and went out for fun, she preferred
to wear skirt, but after she got married, she always wore jeans. It was her
personal history, but the relationships between her and blue jeans were not entirely
personal. Her decisions to wear jeans were influenced by social and cultural environments
surrounding her. Authors talk about conformity of blue jeans in other chapter. They
said “the need to feel comfortable, in the sense of appropriate, under the gaze
of others within a public situation.”[i]
Although jeans sometimes uncomfortable to wear depend on weather and shape,
they describe conformity in physical, social, and personal perspectives. When I
think about two wedding dresses from 1830s and 1840s, those dresses needed
corset to wear and used heavy materials. Although wearing dresses must be
uncomfortable from perspective of modern fashion, people might be comfortable to
wear those because of social appreciation at that time.
Miller and Woodward also discuss about jeans
and women’s bodies. They said “Jeans are both the measure of her body and
sometimes even the reward for getting her body shape right.” [ii]Through
their interviews, they found most women tend not to wear jeans if they gain
certain amount of weight. If they are slim enough, they consider it is
appropriate to wear jeans. In some part, jeans are for ordinal and comfortable
wears, but in certain brands and shapes, they represent ideal women’s bodies
unconsciously. Skinny jeans remind me my dresses and corset. Both of them are
tight and squeeze women’s body to create ideal shape. On the other side, people
who can fit and wear those fancy clothing feel comfortable because of
appropriation from social gaze. As authors mention that “Comfortable, meaning
that at least from the point of view of subjective experience there is a good
fit with the situation,“ [iii]ambivalent
conformity exist together.
0 件のコメント:
コメントを投稿