The Power of Clothing to Challenge, Reinforce and Cross Social and Cultural Identities in History

Written by James Galileo Russell

Clothing has always been more than just a garment protecting our naked bodies from the elements, it’s an extension of the wearer and his environment. The human becomes a chameleon that can camouflage into their environment, signalling to others their status and identity, or simply to stand out. To this regard we should start viewing clothing as animate objects, with the power to communicate and engage with others. Though theoretical in concept, social scientists have begun to uncover the ways in which clothing acts as the medium for the construction of social identity and culture. Of course, we do not always buy and wear clothing for any upfront social meaning, sometimes practicality and price are key factors to the way we dress. However, more often, there are implicit and subconscious factors attached to the decision-making process of buying and wearing clothing. Dress acts as a material skin, categorizing our social and cultural identities, communicating silently with observers. This short article will briefly look at how clothing (broadly) has influenced and shaped cultural identities whilst revealing the animate nature of the material world. I will primarily focus on American and British history for the scope of this blog.

 Dress has always been able to mediate communications between distant peoples. For instance, the relationships between Native Americans and European traders in the eighteenth century was often explored through the exchange of dressing customs. Some settlers on the frontiers would develop their own conventions of dress, using Native American garbs to construct an identity of a particular lifestyle.[1] Native Americans also used forms of European dress to cross social boundaries, challenging European notions of the ‘savage’ and ‘uncivilized’. During 1816, a Russian vessel arrived at a Hawaii Island, ruled over by old king Kamehameha. Louis Choris, a Ukrainian artist, wanted to paint the king’s portrait whilst he was in his native clothing. To Choris’s dismay, Kamehameha had changed his costume to that of a sailor for the portrait, refusing to change back to his native clothing. Historian Christina Hellmich suggests that Kamehameha had worn European garments to showcase political equality with the Russian Empire.[2] Other scholars suggest that Kamehameha had done this to show his power to his rivals in the region. It is important to remember that during the Enlightenment, racial hierarchies were manufactured based on differences of skin, religion and culture. Distant peoples’ clothing was often displayed in contemporary periodicals and newspapers to showcase their ‘otherness’ and ‘less civilised’ nature. Kamehameha’s adoption of European dress reveals the power imbued in clothing; the king was able to cross political boundaries, challenging Western stereotypical racial categorizations.

 On the other hand, clothing has often reinforced cultural distinctions and social roles. In Britain, a clothing reform occurred towards the end of the eighteenth century, with the functionality of garments altering one’s gestures and posture.[3] Garments such as the corset and the top hat were imbued with bourgeois notions of self-control and restraint, as they purposely limited the movements of the wearer. If the bourgeois ‘controlled’ themselves, then they also needed to exert control over their domestic staff. Uniformity in material skin for domestic staff was enforced, displaying their functions as servants but also their relationships with their mistresses and masters of the house.[4] Dress would allow others to challenge bourgeois ideals of control and hierarchy, with the emergence of Bohemian culture contrasting the aristocracy. As Manuel Charpy points out, Bohemians would use clothing and style; whimsical, loose baggy clothing and unkept hair.[5] Their clothing allowed for theatrical gestures to emphasise their freedom of thought, contrasting that of the Bourgeois’s restrictive wardrobe. Class was not the only social and cultural boundary that could be reinforced, challenged, or crossed, as gender was also often defined by material skin.

 The powder puff in early twentieth-century London is a perfect example of the fragility of gender identity. A product traditionally designed for the female make-up industry, the power puff was appropriated by queer men, allowing them to cross fragile social boundaries.[6] The police, in response, used the possession of powder puff as evidence in court to convict men of ‘immoral’ offences, despite it not being directly linked to an offence.[7] Men that was found using the powder puff were treated as different because their behaviour was similar to activities culturally linked to women. Police would have associated men with powderpuff as effeminate, likely to be guilty of ‘dubious’ activities. This showcases the power that dress accessories have had in history; the power puff spoke for itself, emitting cultural implications whilst influencing people’s attitudes differently.

 Nationalism is another relationship that dress has mediated throughout history. As the British started to engage in more colonial wars by the late nineteenth century, popular public enthusiasm for the military influenced the creation of new fashion trends.[8] Brent Shannon remarks that during the Boer War, Khaki fabric and colours were adopted into civilian fashions, mimicking the new attires of the British military. Neckties, hats, handbags, golf and cycling outfits, suits, were incorporated into the Khaki turn emphasising the masculine heroic character that ‘protected’ the Empire’s frontiers.[9] It is important to note that the adoption of military patriotism in civilian dress connected Britain’s far-away conflicts to the metropole, where public subconsciousness could be influenced. Support for Britain’s colonial conflicts could be installed into the public mind, military-influenced dress would allow men at home to portray the ‘spartan masculinity’ of the frontier soldier.

 Twentieth century America saw the emergence of the ‘wilderness hunter’ as a national character, with popular figures such as Theodore Roosevelt praising the outdoor lifestyle.[10] The L.L. Bean Boot was originally designed to keep deer hunter’s boots dry, using elf-leather uppers with rubber-based bottoms.[11] However, as the urban middle-classes begun to have more leisure time and money they would frequent outdoor nature locations to escape their industrial landscapes. The practice of shopping for outdoor equipment, and dressing as rangers helped to immerse people in the natural environment, despite many of them relying on tour guides to interpret the landscape for them. Joseph L. Scarpaci points out that the adoption of the Bean Boot by urban middle-classes demonstrates the ways in which dress contextualisation changes over time. Power is present within the Bean Boot, as it allowed people from urban geographies to temporarily mimic the character of the American wilderness ranger.

 As we have explored in the brief article, clothing and dress has had agency in shaping cultural identities throughout history. Race, class and gender categorizations have been challenged, reinforced and crossed by people using dress as a medium. Dress then, emits cultural implications, communicating different meanings and languages to different people across time and space. Other factors such as material production and consumption are also very important to the cultural implications of dress, something that this blog has not explored. I will leave a reading list below of the sources I have cited in writing this short blog, if you would like more blogs like this then please send feedback to Simplyovercomplicated@outlook.com.

Reading List

Gerritsen, Anne, and Giorgio Riello, eds. Writing Material Culture History. Second Edition. Writing History. London, England: Zed Books, 2021.

Hamlett, Jane, Hannan Leonie, and Greig Hannah, eds. Gender and Material Culture in Britain since 1600. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019.

Martin, Ann Smart. “Material Things and Cultural Meanings: Notes on the Study of Early American Material Culture.” The William and Mary Quarterly 53, no. 1 (1996): 5–12.

Scarpaci, Joseph L. “Material Culture and the Meaning of Objects.” Material Culture 48, no. 1 (2016): 1–9.

Shannon, Brent. “Refashioning Men: Fashion, Masculinity, and the Cultivation of the Male Consumer in Britain, 1860- 1914.” Victorian Studies 46, no. 4 (2004): 597-630.

[1] Ann Smart Martin, “Material Things and Cultural Meanings: Notes on the Study of Early American Material Culture,” The William and Mary Quarterly 53, no. 1 (1996): 9.

[2] C. Hellmich, “Cosmopolitan relationships in the crossroads of the Pacific Ocean,” in Writing Material Culture History, 2nd ed. Anne Gerritsen and Giorgio Riello (London, England: Zed Books, 2021).

[3] M. Charpy, “How things shape us: Material Culture and Identity in the Industrial age,” in Writing Material Culture History, 164-165.

[4] Charpy, “How things shape us,” 173.

[5] Charpy, “How things shape us,” 171-172.

[6] M. Houlbrook, “Queer Things: Men and Make-up Between the Wars,” in Gender and Material Culture in Britain since 1600, ed. J. Hamlett, L. Hannan and H. Greig (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019), 129.

[7] Houlbrook, “Queer Things,” 122-123.

[8] Brent Shannon, “Refashioning Men: Fashion, Masculinity, and the Cultivation of the Male Consumer in Britain, 1860- 1914,” Victorian Studies 46, no. 4 (2004): 605.

[9] Shannon, “Refashioning Men,” 605-606.

[10] Joseph L. Scarpaci, “Material Culture and the Meaning of Objects,” Material Culture 48, no. 1 (2016): 4.

[11] Scarpaci, “Material Culture,” 4-5.