Language Of Dress Research Articles

Text]uring: writing through fashion for a new literacies dissertation

The term 'literacy' encompasses reading and writing practices, each with distinct meanings and histories. Scholars define individuals as 'literate' or 'illiterate' based on these practices, a point not to be taken lightly. New literacies studies have expanded literacy from print to encompass all forms of meaning-making, leading to an expansion of associated terminology. In American higher education, despite the expanded meanings of terms like 'writing' and 'text,' the term 'research' remains dominated by written language, even within dedicated disciplines (Coiro et al. 2008; New London Group 1996; Wilber 2008). Through a cultural studies perspective, I traced the historical evolution of American literacy to the present day. The study revealed darker consequences of literacy's past, providing insights for scholars to understand silenced voices and advocate for their inclusion in the future. Given the ever-expanding practices of literacy, the need for increased attention to writing instruction, and the problematic otherness of arts-based disciplines such as fashion, my goal is to broaden the range of accepted scholarly compositions in higher education. I believe this pursuit is key to the advancement of academic research publications. To address this paradox, I actively embraced new literacy practices by creating a dissertation supported by Barone & Eisner’s (2012) concept of arts based research. Drawing on my experiences in the industry, I sought to challenge views of fashion as frivolous by writing my dissertation in the language of dress, offering a new perspective on the interwovenness of literacy and fashion. My dissertation argues that fashion is a form of writing by exploring nonverbal communication in scholarly work. This move reconciled the perceived frivolity with the substantive nature of fashion and ignited my commitment to the acceptance of research in diverse language forms.

“We Are Expected to Be Pretty and Well-Dressed Till We Drop”: Fashion and “Passing” in the Novels of Edith Wharton

Focusing on Edith Wharton’s New York trilogy of (1862–1937), the author interprets the function of fashionable dress as a means of constructing social identity. The paper looks at how the concept of “passing” develops through the language of dress and the poetics of behavior. The semiotics of dress reflects the wearer’s strategies of performative “passing”: efforts to become accepted in a certain social group, in this case, New York high society of the Gilded Age. The paper analyses two key conceptual discourses used in the works of Edith Wharton: Veblenian theory of the leisure class and the Darwinian idea of natural selection.

Parodying the Hysteric as a Form of Empowerment in Mary Sibande’s Exhibition The Purple Shall Govern

In a discussion of selected works by Mary Sibande, the author explores how the artist visually locates a persona, “Sophie Ntombikayise,” she has created within the realm of theatrical fantasy through use of exaggerated poses, dramatic gestures, and extravagant dress. Sibande’s theatrical quotations of the language of dress and use of dramatic poses may be related to photographic representations of the Victorian female hysteric in various stages of a hysterical attack, in that they both evoke a sense of excess. It is suggested that, in works on the exhibition The Purple Shall Govern (2013), Sibande moves from the language of quotation of photographic representations of hysteria traceable in earlier works, into the realm of parody. Drawing on feminist writers who posit that hysteria may be regarded as a form of non-verbal, bodily communication for otherwise “voiceless” Victorian women, and relating this to the silencing and invisibility of the black domestic worker in the South African home under apartheid, the author argues that hysteria may be construed as an empowering form of self-expression.

복식과 회화에 표현되는 몸의 재현 - 프란시스 베이컨의 작품과 레이 카와쿠보의 컬렉션을 중심으로 -

Abstract In examining the relationship between fashion and art which are intimately interrelated, the body is a suitable subject in that it is the common object of representation. This study investigates and compares the images of the body in Francis Bacon’s paintings from 1940s to 1970s and the formative aspect and aesthetic value of the abstract body images in Rei Kawakubo’s designs since 1980s. The figures in Bacon’s paintings are confusingly and atypically deformed as well as distorted, which are the combinations of the anatomies without references, not so much represented objects as experienced sense. Kawakubo’s designs attempt to deform the body, moreover, she transforms the body; represent abstract forms without association with any other figures that exist, emphasizing sculptural or architectural shapes of garment. She suggests extensive visual language of dress by challenging the norms of beauty. The body in Bacon and Kawakubo’s works is dispersive as well as complex in that the body images are deconstructed, fragmented, and exaggerated. Respectively, they articulate the perception of the body in postmodernism era by destroying the myth of subject; furthermore establish the aesthetics that transcend conventional ideals by reevaluating as well as refusing the standards of beauty. Key words : body(몸), Francis Bacon(프란시스 베이컨), Rei Kawakubo(레이 카와쿠보), representation(재현)Corresponding author: Yim Eunhyuk, Tel. +82-2-760-0517, Fax. +82-2-760-0514 E-mail: ehyim@skku.edu

Clothes and Identity: The Case of the Greeks in Ionia c. 400 BC

AbstractThe capacity of the individual to maintain several identities concurrently is well established, as is the ability of dress to reflect (passively) or to announce (actively) the social identities of its bearer. Within a multi-national structure such as the Achaemenid Persian Empire the semiosis of dress is especially complex. Since dress functions as a form of non-verbal communication, study of the language of dress of past cultures must appeal to the widest possible range of literary and visual sources.Analysis of the visual arts within the Persian sphere shows careful attention to vestimental definition of the Iranian ‘dominant ethno-class’ and its separation from the dress of the subject peoples in the western empire. Artistic and literary evidence for the Greek and West Anatolian experience of the Persian Empire testifies to the extent of the Persian presence in the west. It also shows the cultural flexibility of the local populations, who might occasionally emulate the Persian model by adopting Persian dress while retaining the traits of their traditional cultures.

Oromo Fashion: Three Contemporary Body Art Practices among Afran Qallo Women

Peri M. Klemm In 1998, when I first visited Harar,1 a town in eastern Ethiopia, I was traveling with a young Muslim Oromo-American woman. Wherever we ventured in and around the old walled city, people stopped dead in their tracks and stared. Not at me, per se, although my light skin and hair color certainly attract attention, but at my traveling companion. She looked Ethiopian, certainly, and even Oromo. Her headscarf indicated her faith in the devoutly Islamic region of Harar and though I also covered my head as a sign of respect, for her it was culturally and religiously motivated. Unlike Oromo women in Harar, however, she usually wore the clothes of an American college student and she appeared heavier than most Ethiopian women in her T-shirts, jeans, and sneakers. In Harar, those bold enough, usually men, stopped her on the street to ask her with some insistence: What is your father’s name? Where is your family’s house? Why do you dress this way? Those living in and near Harar, we learned, were particularly curious about my friend because she could not easily be identified. I, on the other hand, as a white foreigner, was either classified as part of the growing tourist presence in Harar or as an NGO worker on temporary leave.2 Categorizing people by ethnicity, religion, marital status, social and economic class, and occupation is by no means limited to the inhabitants of eastern Ethiopia. Throughout Africa, one could argue, those not easily deposited into recognized and accepted expressions of personhood are suspect and afforded considerable attention. In Harar, however, where four major ethnicities live and work within close proximity to one another, identifying and categorizing others through visual signifiers such as clothing, hairstyle, and body markings is crucial to formulating all future modes of interaction. This is particularly overt for women. Men from all local ethnicities—Harari, Argobba, Somali, and Oromo—wear similar types of clothing, including waist wraps made of imported Indonesian textiles or pants with T-shirts, dress shirts, and jackets, which render them virtually indistinguishable from one another (Klemm 2002:196). Women, on the other hand, clearly differentiate themselves through specific dress3 ensembles that convey their regional ties, clan affiliation, class, and life-cycle stage. This information is clearly communicated to individuals who understand the complex language of dress in eastern Ethiopia. Beyond the immediate visual correspondences, more subversive political references also exist, many of which have developed during the last generation. This 1 An Afran Qallo Oromo woman transports water in jerry cans with the help of her donkey to the market. She wears a beaded bracelet and a series of thin beaded necklaces along with the large beaded ambarka necklace. Fedis, Ethiopia.

THE IMPOSSIBLE ART OF DRESSING TO PLEASE: JEROME AND THE RHETORIC OF DRESS

This paper uses the letters of Jerome as a case study for examining the rhetoric of dress in early Christian writing, and considers how far such a language of dress can be useful in creating a catalogue or chronology of female dress in Late Antiquity. The paper will argue that discourses about dress and gender in the western empire show striking continuity over time and across the boundary between classical and Christian literature.

STEEVE O. BUCKRIDGE. The Language of Dress: Resistance and Accommodation in Jamaica, 1760-1890. Foreword by Rex Nettleford. Kingston, Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press. 2004. Pp. xvii, 270. $25.00

STEEVE O. BUCKRIDGE. The Language of Dress: Resistance and Accommodation in Jamaica, 1760-1890. Foreword by Rex Nettleford. Kingston, Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press. 2004. Pp. xvii, 270. $25.00

:The Language of Dress: Resistance and Accommodation in Jamaica, 1760–1890.Foreword by Rex Nettleford

:The Language of Dress: Resistance and Accommodation in Jamaica, 1760–1890.<i>Foreword by Rex Nettleford</i>

The language of dress: resistance and accommodation in Jamaica, 1760-1890

The language of dress: resistance and accommodation in Jamaica, 1760-1890

Material Culture in Central Asia and the Middle East II

A two-day conference on material culture in the Islamic Middle F.astand Central Asia with special reference to the innovation and diffusonof technology in the areas of engineering, architecture, carpet manufacture,and medicine, among others, was held in London between 5-6 May1994. It was hosted by the School of Oriental and African Studies(SOAS), University of London, United Kingdom. As conveners of theconference, Keith McLachlan (SOAS, University of London, UK) andRichard Tapper (SOAS, University of London, UK) pointed out that itwas the latest in a series of conferences to be held at SOAS on variousaspects of material culture. Earlier ones were entitled "Culinaty Culturesof the Middle Fat" (April 1992)," The Language of Dress in the MiddleEast" (November 1992), and the first conference on #Material Culture inCentral Asia and the Middle Fast" (June 1993).Participants reviewed nomadic, pastoralist, cultivator, and urban systemsand assessed the regions' role as centers for innovation and the diffusionof technologies, principally during the Islamic period. The firstscsmon of the conference's keynote speech was chaired by GhaziAlgosaibi (Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United Kingdom) andincluded a revealing paper titled "Arab and Islamic Contributions to Euro­pean Civilization." Rifat Ebied (professor of Semitic Studies, Universityof Sydney, Australia, and currently Visiting Fellow, Trinity Hall, Cambridge,UK) elaborated upon the historical issues concerning the productionof knowledge in the Muslim world and its transmission to Europe viaeducational establishments. Ebied pointed out that the Arabs inherited thescientific tradition of late antiquity, preserved and expanded it withvaluable additions, and finally passed it on to Europe. He outlined themajor segments of the Muslim world's massive contribution to westerncivilization, focusing on the influence of the Islamic legacy on Europe inthe various fields of knowledge, with particular emphasis on the Islamicorigins of the system of higher education (i.e., the creation of the universityas an institution). In the second session, Donald Hill read a paperentitled "Science and Technology in Islamic Building Construction,* inwhich he examined some of the scientific and technological content of ...

Fashion, anti‐fashion, and heteroglossia in urban Senegal

This article focuses on the language of dress among women in urban Senegal and on the social uses of cloth that it entails. Using Bakhtin's notion of heteroglossia as an organizing concept, it examines the social construction of hegemony as manifested in the practice known as sañse, dressing up or dressing well. The social practices of dress and the production and decoration of textiles embody a dialogue between dominant and subordinate or oppositional voices and between what Bakhtin calls centripetal and centrifugal impulses. This dynamic is analyzed in terms of the concepts of anti‐language and multiaccentuality. [Senegal, cloth, clothing, heteroglossia, anti‐language]

The Language of Dress: A Sociohistorical Study of the Meaning of Clothing in America

In the early part of the nineteenth century, Godey's Lady's Book and Magazine warned its readers to "be careful that our fashions are not inconsistent with good sense and pure morals."1 In other words, the clothes we wear tell something about our character. Those who wish to maintain a good reputation will attend to their dress: "the woman who is careless and indifferent to her personal appearance loses half her influence" (p. 18). Americans have been so convinced that dress tells something about the character of the wearer that laws regulating dress were proposed in various states as late as the early 1920's.2 Clothes give us more than information about the character of the wearer, however; in fact, clothes are a form of what social psychologists call "structural nonverbal information."3 Clothing, that is, is an aspect of an individual that, like gestures (dynamic nonverbal information), conveys important information. But what kind of information? Or to phrase the question differently, what is the meaning that Americans attribute to clothing—both to the kind of clothes worn and to the manner of wearing them? We researched the meanings by looking at what people have said in the popular media—magazines and newspapers. Where possible, the data were supplemented by professional studies. We found that there has been a relatively stable set of social meanings of clothing in America. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Americans have asserted that dress provides specific information about individuals (their characters and personalities; their acceptance or rejection of the social order; and their status), about groups (their identity and the character of their members), and about the entire society (its tastes, principles, moral state, and mood). We shall look at each of the categories in turn.