The Latin American Fashion Reader

Abstract

The Latin American Fashion Reader Regina A. Root, Editor. Oxford, UK: Berg, 2005. This brilliant collection of well-researched articles approaches fashion as a unique document in which specific elements such as style, and selective use of fabrics, patterns, designs, and color serve as distinct indicators of cultural identity. Because variety of topics treated in this book reveals a mosaic of ethnic regions influenced by unique combination of elements forming their historical and geographical circumstance, this text stands out in contrast with traditional studies that tend to view region as a uniform set of countries tied by their common colonial history. As authors show, dress and accessories used in customs of a given region are part of a social experience and communicate specific ethnicity, values, beliefs, practices, and economic status of many groups that form Latin America's cultural map. In Visualizing Difference: The Rhetoric of Clothing in Colonial Spanish America, Mariselle Melendez states that dress has played a vital role in process of identity construction of different ethnic and racial groups. The dress worn by different groups in colonial Spanish America was a visual tool to identify their place in caste system and to reinforce superiority of ruling class, as evident in authors who observed colonial societies of Mexico, Peru, and other regions of Latin America at time. Similarly, Kimberly Randall in The Traveler's Eye: Chinas Poblanas and European-Inspired Costume in Postcolonial Mexico, explains in-depth origin, influences, and transformation of China Poblana dress in Mexico and its importance as a symbol of national identity. In her essay The Eastern Influences of Latin American Fashion, Araceli Tinajero examines syncretic nature of Latin America's civilization, and wide variety of Eastern products and influences visible in art, literature, and dress that combined to give it its distinct multicultural richness. In addition to these three studies presented under Part One of her book subtitled Unraveling History, Regina A. Root presents a fascinating study of the peineton, an enormous hair comb worn by some women in Argentina in early nineteenth century to gain public attention and a place in political arena. Her essay called Fashioning Independence: Gender, Race, and Social Space in Post-colonial Argentina is a valuable study of many cultural manifestations that arise in building of a nation. Altered Traditions, Part Two of this book, is a series of three articles that explore effects of capitalism and present global economy on manufacturing of indigenous garments that are being transformed by market demands, and consequently no longer preserve symbolic value that once connected pieces to other ritualistic items charged with cultural value. This is case of izcacles, discussed by Pamela Scheinman in Ixcacles: Maguey-Fiber Sandals in Modern Mexico; as well as use of color black as symbolic of funeral rituals and mourning in Caylloma, Peru, as discussed by Blenda Femenias in Why Do Gringos Like Black? Mourning, Tourism, and Changing Fashions in Peru. In Dressed to Kill: The Embroidered Fashion Industry of Sakaka of Highland Bolivia, Elayne Zorn gives a detailed description of culture of Sakaka Indians and importance of their dress as a marker of resistance, as well as challenges they have faced in preserving tradition given persistent economic difficulties, and other phenomenon such as modernization and racism. Finally, in Representation of Tradition in Latin America Boundary Textile Art, Elyse Demaray, Melody Keim-Shenk, and Mary A. Littrell use Mayan and Peruvian textiles manufactured for outside market to explore question of whether an item no longer made for local consumption can preserve traditional authenticity once intrinsic to it. …