Dress as Metaphor British Female Fashion and Social Change in the 20th Century. Katarzyna Kociolek
2), and therefore the current study of communication through fashion proposes a view that fashion communicates through visual metaphors. Striving to develop a more accurate theory of communication through fashion, Barnard observes that meanings in fashion are negotiated in the process of “interaction between an individual’s values and beliefs […] and the item of visual culture” (175) that is specific garment. Therefore, opposing Campbell’s approach to fashion as expressive of individual’s self, Barnard prefers to view the process of communication through fashion as constructing and reproducing identities (175). In other words, Barnard challenges Campbell’s model of communication through fashion by establishing that there are no pre-established meanings inherent in the items of clothing and hence the sending and receiving of messages through clothes is different from the linear model that operates in the case of languages.
Barnard illustrates this point by referring to clothes worn by male political figures representing radically diffident cultural contexts: Tony Blair and George Bush on the one hand and Osama bin Laden on the other. According to Barnard, the use of fashion by the three men as depicted in two photographs, counters the theory that clothes are a form of “individualistic self-expression” (177) based on sender-receiver model of communication. Neither the two suited western male political figures nor the white-turbaned Afghan leader chose their attires to express themselves. However, as argued by Barnard, their clothes correspond with the public’s expectations of what they should look like, and the clothes are largely a response to these expectations (178). Unlike in the sender/receiver model, it is not possible to claim that all the meanings are predicted by the wearer, as these are constructed by the observers based on their specific cultural context, and will vary from culture to culture and across social groups (179).
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1.2 Identity Formation Through Fashion: Gender, Class, Subculture, Age
The theory of fashion that regards clothing as essentially meaningful and hence a form of communication, corresponds with studies which view fashion as an area where identities are constructed and negotiated. Since there is no identity without difference, consumers of fashion are constantly engaged in a process of sartorially separating themselves from their others. At the same time, however, individuals use clothes to avoid social exclusion and to accentuate their membership in specific social groups, based on gender, class, ethnic distinctions. Trapped in what Barnard calls “ ‘structure and agency’ debate” (2007, 184), consumers of fashion are bound to construct their identities using a toolbox of existing sartorial practices (structure), which entails conformity, whereas any alteration to the established styles is an expression of agency. As Barnard maintains, “What we wear is a way of negotiating identity and difference in that the same outfit is used to construct an image (an identity) that is similar to that of our friends but also, crucially, different from them as well” (2007, 184).
In the 20th century the sphere in which fashion most clearly mediated the construction of identities and the negotiation of meanings in relation to differences was gender. Being a cultural representation of sexual differences (generally), gender demanded appropriate fashion in order to successfully reproduce distinctions between femininity and masculinity. Yet, the characteristics of feminine or masculine styles were constantly changing, rather than being inherent in the attire, stress such scholars as Joanne Entwistle, Lee Wright or Tim Edwards. The history of some sartorial practices proves that the categories of masculine and feminine clothing are fairly arbitrary.
Since the 19th century, gender distinctions in clothing have communicated “Protestant-oriented values of hard work, sobriety, frugality” (Davis 1994, 38). Particularly, male clothing has become the “primary visual medium for intoning the rejection of ‘corrupt’ aristocratic claims to elegance, opulence, leisure” (Davis 1994, 38). Likewise, Entwistle observes that following “the great masculine renunciation” male clothes stressed “solidarity and uniformity” (2000, 154) of the middle-class men who acquired their wealth and status through professional career rather than inheritance, thereby accentuating more democratic principles. Both Davis and Entwistle note that from the 19th century onwards, a man’s suit communicated commitment to the ideals of hard work, honesty, seriousness (Davis 38), and connoted “sobriety and work as opposed to a life of aristocratic idleness, sloth, and leisure” (Entwistle 2000, 154). Most importantly, however, ←25 | 26→the bourgeois suit delineated the boundary between male public space and female private sphere of the home.
The elaborated female sartorial practices contrasted sharply with “men’s restricted dress code” (Davis 1994, 41) accentuating inequalities in social status of women and men. Entwistle (2000) emphasises the fact that since the Industrial Revolution the separation of male and female spheres was represented metaphorically through clothing. While the 19th century standard of respectable femininity demanded that women be confined to their roles of wives and mothers, ideas about normative femininity and masculinity were conveyed metaphorically by clothing which either allowed body movement, was dark and unornamented (male clothes), or restricted body movement through corsets and crinolines, was colourful and stressed fragility of female bodies through styles that reduced the size of shoulders and waists (female clothes). While the former might be regarded as metaphorically communicating such masculine traits as mobility/action, practicality, and rationality, the latter metaphorically conveyed socially acceptable femininity that was characterised by passivity, childishness, and weakness.
Conceptual Metaphor Theory allows insight into the social signification of women’s elaborate dress styles in the past, which can be viewed as connected to the conceptual space of aesthetics in general; and decorative arts in particular, where functionality gives way to aesthetic emotion and pleasure. Therefore, unlike the male suit, the female dress could be seen as fulfilling the same purpose of pleasing the viewer as paintings or interior designs do. Men’s tailored clothing, on the other hand, related to the conceptual space of industrial enterprises marked by accuracy and efficiency, dominated by the functionality of a well-designed and carefully-crafted machinery, which is deprived of any excessive and purely decorative elements. While women could only gain status through their husband’s position, female clothes metaphorically conveyed the idea that a woman is a male accessory, a decorative element that both enhances and reflects male social status. At the same time, men’s plain clothing metaphorically communicated status by linking the wearer with conceptual space of industrial development, scientific advancement, and democratic promise of social mobility through serious commitment to hard work.
While gender ambiguity in dress is rare, argues Davis, “spatial and semantic metaphors” (1994, 46) are deployed to encode “the identity ambivalence” (46). Androgynous clothing has been frequently mentioned as an example of gender ambiguity in dress, although its metaphorical function has remained unexplored. While Davis (1994) and Crane (2000) point to the asymmetrical development of androgynous clothing, in which more masculine elements of dress ←26 | 27→have been incorporated into womenswear than vice versa, they also agree that androgynous clothing served the purpose of downplaying femininity. According to Davis, unisex clothes metaphorically communicated “instability of gender identity” (35), as androgynous clothing was deprived of elements that sartorially indicated gender. Yet, in the visible absence of feminine elements of dress, those borrowed from menswear would frequently include “entailments” (to use Lakoff and Johnson term, 139) to boyishness rather than mature male identity. Such items of clothing as “Eton jackets, button-down shirts, loose fitting loose slacks” (Davis 1994, 37), incorporated into female fashions could be metaphorically communicating