18 June 2009

random thought on the non-aesthetic determinants of fashion

There were a few random blog postings and reports on the nature of Islamic decrees on the apparel of women (and the presumptive demands of a younger majority in a country like Iran). Since I myself have no intention of expressing opinions on the aesthetics of high fashion, as in what supposedly looks "good" or "fashionable", I shall confine myself to deliberations over the cultural and individual determinations, the sort of war between the two where individuals actually select what to adorn their bodies with in the company of others.

Firstly, we have a cultural expectation. There are some cognitive advantages to this in that we are able with furtive glances to decide the character, occupation, or some other vital attribute. The difficulty is that such attributes are really only those which another person wishes to share (which could be very confusing on its own if a person decided to appear as a doctor in a moment of medical crisis, but was not actually licensed to practice medicine). Piled upon this problem is the nature of perceptions. We are left to determine what we think another person would think or presume upon looking at our clothing selections (or, in some versions, lack thereof). This is a difficult consideration, if not impossible, given the variations of people, and their various expectations of what we would/should/could/have to wear.

Bound up in all of that messy illogical consideration is a mild to severe gender gap problem. For example, it is possible as a male to generate attention or condemnation on our attire. But it tends to require several deviations more away from some credible norm before such attention is roughly comparable to that created by a woman's choice of attire. As in a particularly nice suit worthy of its own commentary, a Hawaiian shirt at a business meeting, or whatever it is that is considered "flaming homosexual" attire that month. Yet there is such a general requirement of conformity upon male attire that it pretty much all looks the same anyway. The subtle variations between casual and business casual are lost upon me. They draw commentary only where the distinction somehow impunes a person's character with a perception of un-professionalism. This sort of commentary is in fact never made in direct statements of a sort like "go buy better clothes". It's more like "you don't fit in here". By contrast, it seems that with all the attention that is lauded fairly or not upon a woman's attire, she has much greater flexibility on how to actually accede to the cultural norms (at least in a society like this one where she doesn't have to cover her entire body with cloth). There is not a strong repulsion to women wearing men's clothing for professional purposes (though there is of course, some commentary to this effect). But there is a strong repulsion to cross-dressing. I find it difficult to make sense of this, a paradox of sorts. Women have more attention paid to clothing choices, but effectively have more options. Men have no attention but have few options.

I say this issue with "few options" not for the idea that men should seek to wear women's fashion or to adopt the level of scrutiny involved, but really that it seems like it's reasonably harmless manner of self-expression to select YOUR OWN fashionable demands rather than to conform to some strict social norm. For some reason it's more socially acceptable to get a tattoo than to buy a "loud" shirt (whatever that means). Clothing is to me a tremendous pain in the ass. I tend to leave it up to various holidays throughout the year to replenish my wardrobe, without a great deal of thought as to what it is composed of (beyond trying to avoid advertising for anyone or anything). And thus it would seem that the image that would create is illegible or incoherent. It's certainly not one that I feel compelled to put any serious thought into. I'm not sure what expression that conveys to the general public, when I have cause to bump into the public. But the notion that someone else should tell me what I have to wear to satisfy their demands of what I should look like is tremendously repellent.

I have no idea how to square that paradox either. That I should care that much about a problem I don't actually give a damn about. But in terms of something like Islamic hijab, I have some thoughts. It doesn't look like it's actually something that was to be the responsibility of the woman to cover herself by a holy writ, but rather the man to respect her privacy. The fiqhs and hadith on specific clothing requirements came about later. I don't necessarily object to the idea of dressing "modestly". This came up in an article with an Islamic feminist (or something like that), whose consideration was that a khimar was not religiously needed, but that women running around half-naked shouldn't necessarily be the ideal either. I might agree with her point to some extent, in that women doing so when men are dressed formally can be viewed with skepticism. But realistically, the problem is again that men are not respectful, and do not express themselves using clothing (or lack thereof), and so there is a perception of inequality. Women should be free to arrive at a gathering wearing very little, be totally covered, or somewhere in between and have just as little commentary upon these features as any accompanying men would for similar variations.

The ideal state would be where any person is free to craft their attire in the manner they see fit, and that they accede to social circumstances or woeful mis-perceptions of their character only out of politeness, decency, or mutual respect and not out of some required and enforceable notion of what is acceptable dress. To be honest, I'm not really sure what the difference between Iranian or Saudi hajib rules and US fashion magazines are on the surface as both attempt to determine a code of dress and conduct for women (with very limited expressions of appropriate male clothing). The distinction seems to be more the level of social or political repression that is suffered for deviation from that rule and not the actual nature of the rules themselves.

5 comments:

not undecided said...

Hmmm...not sure what I think about this. In general, my understanding is very similar to what you mentioned - men force(d) women to wear hajibs and burkas (sp?) to remove the visual stimuli that tempt them into 'impure' thought or action - to remove responsibility from themselves and place it on women. Some women love their scarves, it becomes a whole new part of self-expression that Western women don't consider as part of their dress. Some, of course, see it as just another instrument of oppression.

I go back and forth on Western fashion. Some days it feels really good to get all "hoed up," as I call it. Other times, I could not care less who sees me at the grocery store in sweats and flipflops. There are things in my closet that you could hold one in each hand and normally never guess that the same person would wear both of them, depending on the occasion. If I woke up a dude tomorrow, I think that'd be what I'd mourn first - lack of options. It's definitely a creative outlet.

Sun Tzu said...

I think in hard line Islamist societies, there are other reasons that women have required forms of dress, primarily as a means of political and public isolation. Now it's true that the Qu'ran tells its faithful to be chaste or to respect the privacy of others, but the only real mentions of a real wall of separation between men and women in this fashion were between Mohammed's wives and his followers.

In this case, again I'm not sure there isn't a similar rationale for American codes of dress. Effectively isolating women by having their own harsher criticisms of fashion sense pushes aside more serious political discussions like inequalities of representation and seniority.

It bothers me that there's all this attention on Michelle Obama's wardrobe and almost no public attention on what she's "had to" give up as a consequence of her husband's recent career path. I am not sure we're that different as a society "underneath the hajib". We just don't punish the offenses of women as quickly and as abruptly by stoning them to death. At least there it's a clear delineation with women as second class citizens. This is really confusing at times.

not undecided said...

Ahhh, yes. I see. I've definitely felt the sting of lunching with ladies who carry Prada, up until then having been rather proud of my Aigner! It's a class distinction. High fashion now prides itself on mixing high and low (T-shirts from the GAP or Target along with your $700 jeans), but they stay far away from saying it's okay to wear head-to-toe Walmart. It cracks me up, because I know that they couldn't really afford it any more than I could if I rearranged my financial priorities. It's aspirational, and a complete distraction from the things we could agree upon - political discussions of inequality in representation and seniority!

What do you mean, what Obama "had to" give up re: her spouse's career? HER career? Privacy?

Sun Tzu said...

My impression was that she was both more outspoken and more career oriented before. It is okay to re-prioritize throughout one's family or married life. But it doesn't seem sensible that we have some sort of logic that says a first lady shouldn't have a job or a career of her own. Even though that's plainly what the general public still perceives the role as. And it really doesn't seem sensible for us to muzzle the first lady and keep her from having any opinions (and that's not just her that's happened to, even Cheney's wife used to be a political commentator for example).

So the amount of attention on her choices of fashion (apparently largely fine with the comparisons to Jackie coming along from time to time) being out of proportion to her actual and more meaningful choices in life seems strange to me. She didn't "have to" give these things up, she could very well have maintained her own identity. But she was compelled to by the mysterious American body politic and rigors of political life at its preeminent positions. Sort of like compelling people to wear certain clothing or the rigors of high fashion.

And there are jeans for $700? I knew shoes were overpriced (even non-high fashion basketball or running shoes are absurdly priced), but jeans? How on earth do they get those to be that expensive?

not undecided said...

Ah. Yeah, I can see that she's bent a bit to the expectations. Perhaps. Perhaps that's what she wanted to do anyways. Who knows. If she had not changed a thing people would criticize that, too, so I don't think there's a winning strategy when it comes to guessing what will stoke criticism/commentary.

Yeah, I don't know. Quality in general, I'd hope. Say, a pair of jeans that costs $700 is actually made to be nearly universally flattering and should withstand a lifetime of washing/drying and still be in good enough shape to pass on to your daughter. Some garments are really that good of quality. Choosing which high-priced item will stand the test of time, to me, would still be a crapshoot.