Dress as Metaphor British Female Fashion and Social Change in the 20th Century. Katarzyna Kociolek
seems to merely fill in the CONTAINER that is tailored clothes.
For the sake of clarity and following Lakoff and Johnson, I propose to view metaphors as “the key to giving an adequate account of understanding” (1980, ix) and fashion as embedded in and deriving from “the most fundamental values in a culture” (22). While as noted by Lakoff and Johnson, language metaphors reflect cultural values, I want to stipulate that so do other forms of communication including fashion. In fact, many fashion historians and theorists have pointed to a correlation between sartorial practices and forms of social organisation, for example in feudal societies, or as practiced by members of subcultures (Dick Hebdige’s notion of homology might in fact be viewed as linked to Conceptual Metaphor Theory). However, what these accounts seem to lack is a more accurate methodological approach to the mechanism through which a garment or an attire evoke connotations which are sufficiently specific to be satisfactory for the ←45 | 46→identity-constructing wearer and “readable” for the viewer. Fashion historians, have largely shunned from examining the signification process of dress, concentrating on describing historical alterations in clothing, while semioticians such as Barthes focused on the language of fashion instead.
Applying the A is B model to clothing, firstly one may observe that in Western societies, including Britain, up to the mid-20th century items of clothing were used to convey clear-cut boundaries between gender identities. And so, until the sexual revolution of the 1960s, the following statements seemed to be largely true for mainstream society: SKIRT IS FEMININITY, TROUSERS ARE MASCULINITY. As observed by Elizabeth Wilson “trousers were (…) respectable wear for women only on the beach, on the sports field or for leisure until well after the Second World War” (164) and even in the late 20th century on formal occasions in business and banking “women may not wear trousers,” (165) she adds. Interestingly, while the latter in its basic form, without any qualification, is no longer valid, the former, and is only subverted in the process of a marginal social practice of gender cross-dressing (deliberately omitted in the book, for it informs the study of masculinity rather than femininity). Among other issues, the questions that I intend to explore in the current study are what types of skirts or trousers connoted what types of feminine identities, as well as which garment combinations strengthened and which subdued specific modes of femininity, and why.
Browsing through photographs of historical costumes and paintings which illustrate fashions of the past centuries, it is hard to resist a statement that in given periods in history fashion of the elite reflected the elite value systems. While some of these values have prevailed well into the contemporary times, some others have been modified or marginalised. Lakoff and Johnson’s analysis of orientational metaphors, which “have to do with spatial orientation” and “have a basis in our physical and cultural experience” (14) allows us to better comprehend how inherent qualities of the items of clothing communicate social values. For example, until the 19th century in menswear and until the 20th century in womenswear, fashion seemed to have reflected the cultural value described by Lakoff and Johnson as “MORE IS BETTER”. Excessive ornamentation, decoration, and exuberance of fabrics used for creation of attire of those in position of power were also expressive of and coherent with other spatialization metaphors proposed by Lakoff and Johnson, namely “MORE IS UP and GOOD IS UP”.
The link that the authors propose between the concept of UP and social status as well as power and virtue, noting that “status is correlated with (social) power and (physical) power is UP” (16), “VIRTUE IS UP because actions correlate with social well-being” (17), seems to shed some more light on the introduction of ←46 | 47→and the centuries-long appeal of corsets, crinolines, busks and all sorts of padding sewn into the garments. (In fact, the cultural value GOOD IS UP seems to have prevailed into the 21st century, with the fashion for lifting of various body parts being expressed in underwear, footwear and cosmetics). Lakoff and Johnson also argue that being in control is correlated with virtue. Therefore, clothing that controlled the body, such as corsets, seemed to metaphorically convey not only status and power, for they lifted the breasts UP, but also being in control as they shaped/controlled/limited the waist. Being in control is in turn linked to being rational, “CONTROL IS UP thus provides a basis for MAN IS UP and therefore for RATIONAL IS UP” (17). It seems that relating a corset to these metaphor models allow us to account for its ambiguous meaning as a garment enhancing female sexuality on the one hand and a metaphor of female virtue and supreme status on the other (tight lacing equals excessive control over the body, to the extent that the supposedly rigid bone structure is interfered with and internal organs misplaced).
Rejecting both objectivist and subjectivist theories of human understanding, Lakoff and Johnson regard metaphor as “an experientialist synthesis,” which “unites reason and imagination” (192–193). According to the scholars, metaphor is a device which breaches the division between objectivism and subjectivism and connects rationality with imagination. Therefore, it proves particularly useful as a tool “for trying to comprehend partially what cannot be comprehended totally: our feelings, aesthetic experiences, moral practices, and spiritual awareness” (193). Since fashion operates across these areas – reflecting feelings, moral practices, and spiritual awareness, as well as being a source of aesthetic experience, garments and attire, especially those assembled for a public gaze, may be treated as visual metaphors. Following Conceptual Metaphor theorists, I consider metaphors to be “conceptual in nature” and to belong among “principal vehicles for understanding” (159). Consequently, like Lakoff and Johnson, I hold the view that their relevance far exceeds the domain of linguistics, for they seem to “play a central role in the construction of social and political reality” (159). Although, undoubtedly textual metaphors are widely used in political and social discourses, becoming the main area of academic analysis, in this work I intend to shed some more light on the use of metaphor in non-verbal expressions, treating dress and clothing as an example of such expressions.
Also the Conceptual Blending Theory as proposed by Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner in their ground-breaking work The Way We Think (2002), seems to offer a viable tool for the analysis of fashion as a cultural phenomenon that is linked to concepts of identity. While the theory accounts for a largely obscure operation of the human mind, it can be traced in the texts of culture ranging ←47 | 48→from literature to scientific inventions. In fact, according to the authors, it is conceptual blending that lies at the foundation of creativity and all human actions, including design, “conceptual blending underlies and makes possible all these diverse human accomplishments, (…) it is responsible for the origins of language, art, religion, science (…) it is as indispensable for basic everyday thought as it is for artistic and scientific abilities” (vi). While humans are preoccupied with forms such as music or art, these forms are characterised by their complexity because human beings “have the most effective abilities for the construction of meaning” (5). One of the products of these largely unconscious operations of the mind in relation to form, which manifest themselves in the ability to recognise sameness and difference, is identity. Because fashion is frequently conceptualised in terms of its ability to construct and subvert identities, in the following paragraphs I attempt to apply conceptual blending theory to explain how identities may be constructed through clothing.
Indeed, the initial example of form provided by Fauconnier and Turner appears related to the notion of dress. While observing that Achilles’ armour tricked Trojans into believing that they saw real Achilles, the scholars note that in the 21st century we seem to attach undue importance to form and that “like the Trojans, we (…) have come to realize that the miracles of form harness the unconscious and usually invisible powers of human beings to construct meaning” (5). Unsurprisingly then, clothing is often regarded as pivotal in the construction of identities. As “form prompts meanings and must be suited to its tasks” (5), we may view dress as being the form analogous to armour, which explains the importance of appropriate dress in public/political space. According to Fauconnier and Turner, Conceptual Blending Theory, which allows us to understand “the stability of character across different activities” (251) explains the mechanism through which humans establish a connection between a person and his/her actions. By introducing the concept of “frames”, which seems to correspond to social contexts and situations but also social roles, the authors claim