03 Social Psychological Properties of Dress

03.3 Culture/Religion/Ethinic

Forney, J.C., & Rabolt, N.J. (Eds.). (1990). Global perspectives modules for textiles and clothing curriculum and research (ACPTC Special Publication #3). Monument, CO: Association of College Professors of Textiles and Clothing, 126 pages, $22.00. (Available from ITAA, PO Box 1360, Monument, CO 80132.)

Reviewed by Betty Wass, University of Wisconsin

The ACPTC Special Publication #3 is a bibliography of published works, primarily from journals and newspapers, about textiles and apparel for a global perspective. As educational institutions are redirecting curricula to recognize ethnic diversity, cultural pluralism, global awareness, multi-cultural perspectives, etc., the textiles and clothing field must internationalize students' perspectives. Those of us who received our training in textiles and clothing more than twenty or thirty years ago studied a curriculum that was firmly grounded in studies of Western culture. As we attempt to broaden that view for our students, the task of searching far and wide for appropriate materials is demanding indeed! The compilation of materials in Global Perspectives Modules for Textiles and Clothing Curriculum and Research is a useful resource in understanding the effects of varying political, social, and economic systems on textiles and clothing behavior.
The bibliographic entries are divided into six sections: (1) Introduction to a Global Perspective, (2) Apparel Design/Aesthetics/Contemporary and Traditional Dress, (3) Apparel and Textile Industry/Economic/Trade, (4) Consumer Behavior/Marketing/Merchandising, (5) Historic Costume/Textiles, and (6) Social Psychology of Clothing/Fashion Process. Each section is divided into conceptual classifications, some with extensive entries while others are scantly covered. The concepts provide a classification section to which other references may be added.
As one who has done very little teaching of textiles and clothing courses for the past seven years, having since worked overseas in a research center and now in African studies administration, I eagerly accepted the chance to write this review, seizing the opportunity to update my knowledge. It is gratifying to see the awareness developing in the field along with the realization that we must broaden our horizons.
Forney and Rabolt introduce the text with some reservations about the usefulness and presentation of the citations indicating that they have included a high proportion of entries from San Francisco newspapers. They state that the newspaper articles, while not necessarily accessible across the country, serve as types of information that can be found in other papers. Citations from foreign newspapers have not been included and would add global views. Many major cities have a newspaper published in English. For example, an interesting article in the December 13, 1991, issue of the Jakarta Post discusses the contributions of Indonesian designers to fashions for 1992 and comments on their difficulties in penetrating foreign markets.
The many editorial oversights and typos were especially disturbing to this reader. A few examples follow. In the first section after the introduction, the name of David Heathcote, who has written a number of fine articles on Hausa embroidery, is incorrectly listed as "Heathcase", and the Mamluks, who were a powerful political force in Egypt for 500 years, are referred to as "mamluck." Content was omitted between pages 8 and 9, and among the discomforting generalizations is the statement, "Muslim women cover their faces in public for protection of their family honor and morals" (p. 105). Where? Many Muslim women in Egypt and other Arab countries practice their faith conscientiously, but do not veil themselves. At the bottom of p. 105, the editors acknowledge the role of politics in the phenomenon, but factors of economics and gender relations must also be weighed. Commendably, an article is included by J.A. Williams which presents a more comprehensive explanation of veiling.
The contributions to the bibliography deserve credit for sharing their resources. Assembling and classifying the references is an ambitious task and printing the work invites analysis and criticism from colleagues. This kind of intellectual exercise underlies the growth of a discipline. The bibliography is excellent material for stimulating a workshop in which others could share their references and edit out errors in the materials. Many in-depth analyses of practices involving textiles and clothing, based on the fieldwork of anthropologists, economists, historians, home economists, sociologists, and other scholars have not been included in this compilation.

Cerny, C., Baizerman, S. and Eicher, J.B. (Editors) (1993). Bibliography of theses and dissertations on ethnic textiles and dress. Monument, CO: ITAA Special Publication #6. ISBN 1-885715-02-1, 60 pages, $20.00.

Reviewed by David J. Trayte, Washington State University

Cerny, Baizerman and Eicher have through this monograph provided textile and dress researchers a very valuable tool. The authors have compiled 851 citations that are divided into five world regions and sub regions. The regions include Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, and Oceania. The American region - with North, Central and South sub regions - by far account for the bulk (43%) of the citations in the work.
The bibliography is clear and easy to use, and consists of two main indices: The first is a compilation of citations reflecting the above mentioned geographical distribution. The second is comprised of an author index. There is at the beginning of each world region a general section of citations that locates studies that range over multi-region areas. A Diaspora category at the end of each section accounts for studies of ethnic groups that originated in one location and no longer reside in that area. All of the Diaspora citations are cross-listed.
The first 44 citations in the bibliography are grouped in a general section, which includes some intriguing citations; however, there is no clear explanation of why or how some of these were selected. Some, based on their titles, are clearly "ethnic", others are not at all so. One example is the citation "Transport of Textiles through Travel and Trade" (citation #20). As an example of the study of the migration of textile and dress knowledge, and the role of dress and textiles in cross-cultural interaction, it is probably valuable, but the question is what is "ethnic" about it? My purpose in pointing to these instances is to bring attention to an issue that the authors deal with in their introduction, that, what is "ethnic"? The authors do make reasonably clear what they mean by ethnic, or a least as clear as possible with such a concept. I am disappointed that the bibliography is not annotated. Annotations by these three scholars would make for enjoyable and timesaving reading.
ITAA Special Publication #6 is valuable not only as a research tool, but also as a teaching tool. The short introduction provides good information on the definition and scope of the bibliography and on the definition of terms, which can in turn be used to help students define key terms in their own research topics. The authors make clear that terms such as dress and ethnic are not necessarily clear and simple. Key research terms rarely are. Also, the section on bibliographic sources would make for a good short reading in a graduate research course. This section makes clear that topical foci, such as ethnic textiles and dress, require that researchers consult a vast array of references, bibliographies, and bibliographies of bibliographies, in a number of fields.
I will definitely use this resource in research and teaching. It is a fine contribution to the literature on ethnic dress, and an example for the development of other focused bibliographic works in the textiles and clothing literature.

Barnes, R., & Eicher, J.B. (eds.) (1993). Dress and gender: Making and meaning. Providence, RI: Berg. ISBN 9-85496-720-6, 293 pages, $19.95 paperback.

Review by Jill Oakes, University of Manitoba

Dress and Gender: Making and Meaning is a collection of sixteen papers presented at the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research on Women at the Queen Elizabeth House in Oxford at a workshop with the same title. The papers are based on fieldwork conducted by international scholars in Asia, Africa, Europe, the Middle East, North America, and South America. Dress as a symbol of group affinity, economic position, and cultural identity is discussed throughout this publication. The primary focus is an analysis of how attributes of identity (clothing) are affected by the gender identification of the individual. Each essay provides a valuable cross-cultural perspective on how gender distinctions influence dress which in turn influence the individual and their social interaction with the community.
The introduction provides an analysis, from a gender perspective, of definitions and classifications of dress by Joann Eicher and Mary Ellen Roach-Higgins. Ruth Barnes provides interesting insights from Southeast Asia; Leedom Lefferts discusses the influence of Buddhism on textiles in Thailand; an analysis of purses in Eastern Indonesia by Danielle Geirnaert includes the social, physical and spiritual values shared by women in this region. Economic and social factors influencing gender boundaries are discussed by Cherri Pancake in Guatemalan textile production and by Suzanne Baizerman using the Jewish Kippa Sruga as an example. The role of women and socialization was explored in American quilt traditions and apparel by Catherine Cerny; and Lacemaking in Venetian culture by Lidia Sciama.
Influencing factors including environment, class, and ideology on gender and dress is discussed using examples from the Inka Earth Mother's long sweeping garment by Penny Dransart; the Kalabari dress in Negeria by Susan Michelman and Tonye Erekosima; and seventeenth century Japanese dress by Louise Cort. Hindu women's dress was analyzed by Julia Leslie who focused on the significance of dress, and by O.P. Joshi who studied continuity and change. The role of discipline and dominance in dress rituals were studied using examples from the British Imperial Authority by Helen Callaway; maternity clothing by Rebecca Bailey; and policewomen's uniforms by Malcolm Young.
One of the exciting features of this collection of essays is that authors incorporate ideas stimulated by other participants in the workshop on dress and gender. This produced an extremely rich analysis of dress as a form of gender identification. The index helps readers to easily make comparisons between concepts, cultural groups, and time frames. The inclusion of papers from a diverse range of geographic regions and time frames provides reference for individuals and classes interested in exploring the relationships between dress and gender.

By David J. Trayte, University of Minnesota

Published as a volume in the Smithsonian series in ethnographic inquiry, Cloth and Human Experience is a valuable contribution to the literature in textiles and clothing, anthropology, and social history. This collection of twelve essays explores the function of cloth on social, political and economic levels within a variety of historic, geographic and cultural contexts, ranging from precolonial Peru and colonial India to contemporary Oaxaca and Madagascar.
In their introductory chapter the editors delineate an analytical structure for approaching the essays. They suggest that four "domains of meaning in which people use cloth to consolidate social relations and mobilize political power" emerge from the writings. The first domain is that of interlacing fibers and threads in the production of fabric is analogous to the interlacing of human biological and social relations, and reflects the human life cycle of birth, maturation, procreation, and death. The second domain of meaning is bestowal and exchange. In this domain the giving and receiving of cloth serves to bind kinship groups and generations in relationships of power, obligation and loyalty. The third domain is that of ceremonies of investiture and rulership in which cloth is employed to confer and validate authority. Finally, the fourth domain is that of the manipulation of cloth as clothing. In this domain, cloth serves to establish and maintain identity, and can reflect relationships of power between groups.
The four domains of meaning are emphasized in differing degrees in the various essays. For example, Bernard Cohn's and Susan Bean's essays focus on the domain of meaning in which cloth is manipulated as clothing. Both write on colonial India, and both suggest that clothing was a fundamental symbol in the negotiation of power relations between the British and Indians. The other essays emphasize other domains of meaning; however, what is useful about this framework is that it not only provides the reader with a focus for approaching each essay, but also with a way to think about the function of cloth in many social and historical contexts.
Weiner and Schneider have organized their book into three parts. Part I focuses on cloth in small-scale societies. The authors of the four essays in this section rely heavily on symbolic anthropology in interpreting the meaning of cloth, and their analyses are primarily based on the discourse and ceremony which surrounds its use. Part II explores capitalism and the meanings of cloth. The three authors in this section employ a more materialist perspective in their analyses of the impact of capitalism on pre-capitalist cloth and garment manufacturing. Jane Schneider's analysis of the evolution of early modern European folklore in relation to the demographic and environmental impact of early capitalism is a particularly well-crafted blend of the symbolic and materialist perspectives. The four essays in the final section explore cloth in the large-scale societies. In these writings the tensions between expanding Euro-American colonialism and industrialized cloth production and large-scale, stratified societies (Peru, India, Japan) with rich cloth heritages of their own are examined.
The three parts of the book are thematically linked by both their focus on cloth and their concern with the means of production of cloth and the social value that adheres to that production. The essays in Part I show how those involved in cloth production and exchange create meaning and value for themselves and their group via the symbolic association of cloth and cloth use with social regeneration and harmony. In Part II the essayists focus on the disruption of traditional value systems associated with cloth production as a result of the development of capitalism and industrialized cloth production. Finally, in Part III the focus is upon the fluid nature of social relations and how the symbolic value of cloth, and the concrete value of producing it, can be reinvented as dominant and subordinate groups (men/women, colonizers/colonized) interact over time.
For scholars of textiles and clothing this well-documented volume is an excellent resource. The geographic breadth and indexed ethnographic detail can provide many points of departure for teaching and research in a variety of focused (e.g funerary practices) and broad (e.g. gender relations) areas. Also, the analytical structure suggested by the editors gives scholars and students a framework for analyzing the complexity of cloth in society and history, a complexity that is well brought-out in the essays.
Unlike most books, which focus on cloth, this work is not visually or technically oriented. Small, black and white plates are sparingly used to illustrate the text, and there is relatively little technical detail about the cloth. However, this is not a significant drawback in that the editors and authors did not intend a visual and technical analysis, rather they intended to analyze the complex nature of the ways in which cloth organizes social, political and economic relations among human beings.

Garrett, V.M. (1994). Chinese Clothing: An illustrated guide. New York: Oxford University Press. 0-19-586526-3, 224 pages.

Reviewed by Mary Ellen Des Jarlais, University of Hawaii

Fashion design teachers, artists, theater and film costume designers, appraiser, Chinese historians, and collectors of Chines artifacts persist in their need for inspiration, presentation, and evaluation of Chinese costume. Garrett's book, consisting of seven parts ranging from the historical costume of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) through the Twentieth century is intended to be a guide to change. Its mention of recent archaeological findings and the influences of Communism undertakes this mission. Included are fibers, fabrics, dyes, embroidery, and the Minority Dress of various groups of North and South China.
Most useful are its 300 illustrations - many from the author's personal collection. Their photographic clarity is very helpful in examining details often determined by clothing sumptuary laws that governed court apparel of the Emperor, Empress, Heir Apparent, eunuch, civil, and military Mandarins. The desire of the last Chinese Dynasty (Ming 1368-1644) to regain its Han-Song-Ming heritage is evident in the color and silhouette of its costume. The foreign reign of the Manchu Dynasty Qing (1644-1912), expressed in changed and anti-Ming sumptuary laws, is shown in its adoption of non-Ming clothing colors and silhouettes. The Manchu rulers, of the area known as China, were not about to assume traditional Ming clothing and customs because Han rule might be reestablished as it had been during a former foreign rule, Yuan (1206-1368). Clothing as an expression of material culture related to government regulations is seen in this book.
Costume in its fullest meaning is also described: hair styles, jewelry, shoes, and underclothing are pictured not only for the court but also for the military, children, the urbanites and the rural people.
The most troublesome difficulties with this book are the author's use of a "Select Bibliography" and few footnotes. Verification of statements needs more specific references. When the text discussion does not agree with the illustration, the author does not attempt to clarify differences.
Use of Western words such as jacket, vest, and skirt bring about Western imagery of how a garment should look. In many instances, the costume described has little resemblance to the same named object of the West; therefore, faulty mental pictures may have to be unscrambled. The correlation of Eastern and Western costume terms needs further definition.
Should this book be part of the library of those consumers mentioned above? Perhaps, since the photographs and 20th Century material give new insight to what is happening in China as this country hastily sheds her traditional costume and culture for Western adaptations.

Siegrist, J. H. ( Mennonite women of Lancaster County: A story in photographs from 1855-1935. ISBN 1-56148-205-6, 220 pages, $14.95.

Reviewed by Linda Arthur, University of Hawaii

Researchers of ethnographic dress are apt to complain about the lack of information and photos of clothing used by unique societies. To further complicate matters, many of these groups intentionally avoid interacting with outsiders and are potentially closed to researchers. The end result is a dearth of information about the dress of many fascinating groups. There is paucity of scholarly literature concerning Mennonite dress. While Siegrist's book was not intended to focus on clothing, nearly half of the 215 photo captions discuss clothing and textiles. Consequently, Siegrist's book provides useful information about clothing use of nineteenth and early twentieth century Mennonite women, and documents the role of women's work in the home and on the farm.
In an effort to preserve the rapidly eroding history of her people, Joanne Hess Siegrist started collecting and documenting Mennonite photographs a decade ago. Candid and formal photos provide photo-documentation of the social and work lives of Mennonite women. Each photo has at least a paragraph of accompanying information, gleaned from interviews of the women and/or descendants. As a Pennsylvania Mennonite herself, Siegrist was able to obtain entrée into the homes of many families with photo collections. To solve the problem of the family's reluctance to part with photos, Siegrist and her photographer used a portable photographic copy system, followed by interviews. The chapters of the book are roughly ordered around important themes and life stages for Mennonite women. The book would read more easily (especially for non-Mennonites) if it began with the chapter of Church Life and Faith.
Siegrist has provided researchers with useful information about middle class women in the late nineteenth century. By the time of the camera's arrival in Lancaster County, most of the Mennonites had been in Pennsylvania long enough to become comfortably middle class. In the nineteenth century, the Mennonites lived very much like their non-Mennonite neighbors. This book provides a rare glimpse into the lives of middle class farm families. However, intense religious revivals at the turn of the century led to prohibitions against "graven images" and "worldly dress". Many Mennonite photo collections were destroyed or hidden after the revivals, potentially dooming this piece of history to oblivion. That Siegrist has been able to assemble this book is a major accomplishment; her book provides documentation of the effect of the revivals on changes in Mennonite material culture, and these changes were dramatically evident in the shift away from fashionable Victorian dress toward "plain dress".
The book was intended to provide general historical overview of the lives of Mennonite women. While breadth was achieved, depth was sacrificed. This could be rectified in Siegrist's second book, which will reportedly provide much greater detail. In addition, Siegrist is considering a book on Mennonite dress. An index and glossary of terms and phrases unfamiliar to the general reader would be very useful in upcoming books.

Barnes, R., & Eicher, J.B. (Eds.) (1993). Dress and gender: Making and meaning. Providence, RI: Berg. ISBN 0-85496-720-6, 293 pages, $19.95 paper.

Reviewed by Jill Oakes, University of Manitoba

Dress and Gender: Making and Meaning is a collection of sixteen papers presented at the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research on Women at Queen Elizabeth House in Oxford at a workshop with the same title. The papers are based on fieldwork conducted by international scholars in Asia, Africa, Europe, the Middle East, North America, and South America. Dress as a symbol of group affinity, economic position, and cultural identity is discussed throughout this publication. The primary focus is an analysis of how attributes of identity (clothing) are affected by the gender identification of the individual. Each essay provides a valuable cross-cultural perspective on how gender distinctions influence dress which in turn influence the individual and their social interaction within the community.
The introduction provides an analysis, from a gender perspective, of definitions and classifications of dress by Joanne Eicher and Mary Ellen Roach-Higgins. Ruth Barnes provides interesting insights from Southeast Asia; Leedom Lefferts discusses the influence of Buddhism on textiles in Thailand; an analysis of purses in Eastern Indonesia by Danielle Geirnaert includes the social, physical and spiritual values shared by women in this region. Economic and social factors influencing gender boundaries are discussed by Cherri Pancake in Guatemalan textile production and by Suzanne Baizerman using the Jewish Kippa Sruga as an example. The role of women and socialization was explored in American quilt traditions and apparel by Catherine Cerny; and Lacemaking in Venetian culture by Lidia Sciama.
Influencing factors including environment, class, and ideology on gender and dress is discussed using examples from the Inka Earth Mother's long sweeping garment by Penny Dransart; the Kalabari dress in Negeria by Susan Michelman and Tonye Erekosima; and seventeenth century Japanese dress by Louise Cort. Hindu women's dress was analyzed by Julia Leslie who focused on the significance of dress, and by O.P. Joshi who studied continuity and change. The role of discipline and dominance in dress rituals were studied using examples from the British Imperial Authority by Helen Callaway; maternity clothing by Rebecca Bailey; and policewomen's uniforms by Malcolm Young.
One of the exciting features of this collection of essays is that authors incorporated ideas stimulated by other participants in the workshop on dress and gender. This produced an extremely rich analysis of dress as a form of gender identification. The index helps readers to easily make comparisons between concepts, cultural groups, and time frames. The inclusion of papers from a diverse range of geographic regions and time frames provides a valuable reference for individuals and classes interested in exploring the relationships between dress and gender.

Starke, B.M., Hollomon, L.O., Nordquist, B.K. (eds). African American dress and adornment: A cultural perspective. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, ISBN 0-9403-5902-0, suggested retail price $34.95.

Reviewed by Hazel Jackson. Ohio State University

Starke, Hollomon, and Nordquist bring together a collection of readings that reveal little-known and rarely accessible information on the African American experience. As stated by the authors, the purpose of the collection is to document clothing and adornment of African Americans from a cultural perspective. In general, this purpose has been realized.
Dress and adornment practices are analyzed in the African America cultural context, with special emphasis on the symbols and codes characteristic of the society during that period of time. Three aspects of dress form the central theme throughout the book: (1) the material form of clothing, (2) the act of dressing, and (3) the sociocultural meanings of appearance in context.
The book is divided into three parts, Part I focuses on West African dress as an antecedent of African American dress. Part II focuses on the dress of African American slaves, and Part III focuses on the dress of Twentieth Century African Americans. The readings are supported by an abundance of references and suggested readings. Illustrations placed throughout the book are varied and, on a whole, are very good. A list of context review questions concludes each chapter.
Throughout the book, the authors emphasized the social positions occupied by African Americans within the American culture. Between the time of the arrival of the first ships carrying slave cargo up until the present, African Americans have been a major part of the labor force, and dress and adornment practices of African Americans reflect their position within the social structure of specific points in time.
Part I presents a particularly provocative discussion on certain characteristics of African dress as antecedents of African American dress. This section also describes and analyzes traditional African values, beliefs, attitudes, etc., and their influence on dress and adornment practices of African Americans. However, since this initially exciting theme is not carried over into other chapters of the book, readers must investigate and synthesize the various readings and make these comparisons on their own.
To discover, organize, and compile information on African American dress and adornment over four centuries (or more) is commendable. This book provides several possibilities for dissemination, the best of which would be as additional readings in the teaching of dress and adornment from a cultural perspective. This collection will undoubtedly provoke much discussion, further investigations, and analyses of African American dress and adornment behavior among scholars.

Bonami,F.,Frisa, M.L., and Tonchi, S. (Eds.) (2000). Uniform: Order and Disorder. Milan: Pitti Imagine. ISBN 88-8158-307-0, $65.00.

Reviewed by Joe Hancock, Ohio State University

This book provides a contemporary account of the assimilation of military uniforms from the battlefields to the runways. It is a text and pictorial essay on how military uniforms have been displayed by journalistic photographers, designers, artists, advertisers and merchants. The authors of this text range from academics to artists who have witnessed the use of military uniforms in Western as well as non-western culture. The authors suggest that issues surrounding the evolution of the military uniform include fabrications, advertising, icon-garments, symbol images, uniforms themselves, records, comics, art, fashion, films, music, popular culture and the transformation and use of the uniform as an instrument of order or a "subversive signal."
Some chapters in the book include: Social Identity, Military Dress, Modern Dress, The Power of the Uniform, From Woodstock to Hollywood, Stalin's Uniform, or the Incarnation of the Sublime, Uniforms and Signs Art as Desertion, as well as various other topics.
In the chapter The Nineties Utility Movement: Prime Suspect in the Death of Designer Fashion, author James Sherwood traces the history of utility styled dress and its integration from street culture to the fashion runway. Generation X, grunge, and homosexuals are amongst the first groups to accept authentic military dress as fashion in the 1990s. Eventually designers such as Marc Jacobs, Vivienne Westwood, Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto and Alexander McQueen adopted the style and presented it in an upscale manner that was purchased and accepted as the latest in haute couture. Symbolism such as the use of Maharishi opium den dragon on utility pants is investigated and shown as important in the recreation of ordinary military dress into unique high fashion designs. Later, military and utility styles are adopted by mass merchants such as the Gap, DKNY, Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren. Only one has to peruse Abercrombie & Fitch or Target to see the Maharishi dragon still used on every thing from cargo pants to screen T-shirts.
While the book offers an abundance of colored photographs and contemporary text, those looking for traditional textiles and clothing research might be disappointed. Those interested in the areas of fashion design, aesthetics, marketing, advertising, cultural studies, costume history, and studies of military dress and uniforms will find this book not only informational but enjoyable reading. It challenges historical and traditional notions of the uniform to present it in a postmodern context.

The Englishness of English Dress, edited by Christopher Breward, Becky Conein, and Caroline Cox. (2002). Oxford and New York: Berg.

Reviewed by Cynthia R. Jasper

This book is a well-researched scholarly piece that is definitely worth reading. It consists of twelve essays (chapters) focusing on English dress as it reflects English national identity. As the title, The Englishness of English Dress implies, Englishness is meant as being representative of English nation identity. All essay authors are graduate students or faculty at various universities in England or curators within English museums.
The essays are based on papers presented at a conference that focused on clothing donated to the London College of Fashion by the sons of Mrs. Cecile Korner. The Korner archive contains items of dress typical from the 1940s to the 1980s that represent the dress chosen by Mrs. Cecile Korner, an upper-middle class conservative (German-born) woman who immigrated to England in 1935. As a banker's wife, her choice of dress reflected changes in her life circumstances from early to late middle age and her desire to be part of English society. Thus, rejecting her German heritage, Mrs. Korner had a sense in differentiating foreign-ness from Englishness. As England became her adopted nation, the English culture and tradition became part of her identity. Thus, the editors contend that her collection of dress represents a carefully chosen example of the meaning of Englishness.
Commenting on the Korner Archive, the editors state "From the moment of its delivery we realized that the content of the collection, though not museum standard, nevertheless allows us a privileged glimpse at the fashionable choices of one woman whose tastes and needs were informed by her social context and period" (p. 2). The clothing in the Korner Archive represents the clothing and identity of an upper-middle class English woman, not that of the upper class or royalty. This is significant since much of our information on dress is based on upper class, royal dress as opposed to the dress that most people wore. The editors state that the collection does not qualify as museum standard. The photographs, however, provide valuable insight into an otherwise unknown world of everyday living.
This book begins with an "Introduction: 'Dyed in the Wool English?'" by the editors Christopher Breward, Becky Conekin and Caroline Cox. The book is divided into three parts: Part I: Towards a History of English Style, Part II: On Designing Englishness, and Part III: Representing Englishness.
Chapters include: On Englishness in Dress: Englishness, Clothes and Little Things; Dressing like a Champion: Women's Tennis Wear in Interwat England, Strawberries and Cream: Dress, Migration and the Quintessence of Englishness and Home Dressmaking in the Age of the Sewing Machine; Rural Working-Class Dress, 1850-1900: A Peculiarly English Tradition?; The Wardrobe of Mrs. Leonard Messel, 1895-1920; The Spirit of English Style: Hardy Amies, Royal Dressmaker and International Businessman; Gilded Brocade Gowns and Impeccable Tailored Tweeds: Victor Stiebel (1907-1976) a Quintessentially English Designer; Vivienne Westwood's Anglomania; English-style Photography?; and Fashion Stranger than Fiction: Shelley Fox. An appendix provides information on The Korner Archive.
I found it refreshing to read an analysis of dress from an English point of view. The references at the end of each chapter show that each essay is based on rich background sources. The book includes black and white photographs that adequately illustrate the points made by the authors. However, a few color photographs especially of Mrs. Korner would have been a nice addition.
Although this book is about English dress, the discussion goes beyond its literal meanings. Authors spell out the history of English dress and why Englishness has been a lasting characteristic since the late 18th century. This book enables the readers to envision the material culture of English dress chronologically without losing the opportunity to explore the major causes that shaped English traditions.
Readers will quickly perceive that the styles and characteristics of English dress have gone through many changes throughout the years. Throughout this book, the discussions center on the traditions of the English nation, as they relate to dress and other social and cultural issues such as gender, class, and economic well-being. Dressing reflects the culture as well as the environment that spawned it. Perhaps, just as Persner stated that "national characteristics were constantly in a state of flux" (p. 16), so was the fashion business. This reasoning also helps readers understand the ways in which people interpreted "Englishness" differently over the years. The stories and cases proved the insight that not only is the nation constantly changing, but also its clothing practice has become more and more an international business.
Since national identity is the focal point of the book, it became imperative to see what evidence was used in the research and how effective the resources were to support the arguments. In the first two parts of the book, the authors indicated that the vernacular played an important role in forming the tradition of English dress, but it was the upper classes that signified the national identity of the clothing business. Indeed, one of the major social functions of dress was role playing, and the clothing industry emphasized this as their market niche.
The essays focus on the development of national identity as it relates to the design, construction and wearing of dress. However, the authors focus more on female dress than they did on male dress. This may raise another interesting issue: is the so-called "Englishness" more reflective of women's clothing practice than men's? Or, was the focus on female dress a matter of convenience, in that the background information was more readily available? This seems to be a topic that readers may begin to explore beyond this book. This book is highly recommended for those who are interested in dress, fashion, and cultural and national identity.

Tarlo, E. Clothing matters: Dress and identity in India. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-7896-4, $23.95.

Reviewed by Linda Arthur, University of Hawaii

Dress can provide a window through which we might look into a culture, because it can visually attest to the salient ideas, concepts and categories fundamental to that culture. Age, gender, cast, ethnicity and religion help define a person's social location, and are made visible when cultures make dress salient, as it is in India. In Clothing matters: Dress and Identity in India, Emma Tarlo uses dress as a means of exploring identity in India; she examines how dress has been used to express both social and political positions in India over the past century.
Organized around the central theme of what to wear, Tarlo does a credible job of illustrating the complex nuances that underlie such a seemingly mundane concern. The early chapters focus on the clothing of Indian men in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These are historically contextualized in terms of acculturation, imperialism and the Indian struggle for independence. Tarlo, contrasts the fitted clothing worn by the British to the draped garments favored by South Asians. The two types of garments were binary opposites: fitted garments (such as the suit) represented civilization while draped garments (such as the woman's sari and the man's dhoti) were considered by Europeans to be symbolic of barbarism. The Indian elite had a dilemma - whether to adopt European dress to facilitate their interaction with the British, or to retain their indigenous draped garments to maintain their social standing within the Indian community. While some adopted full European dress, several ingenious solutions arose.
The chapter on Gandhi and the re-creation of Indian dress is particularly good in showing the complex interaction between Indian dress and identity. For Gandhi, the rejection of European dress and a return to khandi, a traditional hand-spun, hand-woven fabric, was symbolic but misunderstood. Gandhi used his appearance to communicate the values of simplicity, morality, spirituality all the while reviving the Indian textile industry which had been seriously damaged by the British colonists' calculated importation of cheaper British textiles. The dhoti (loincloth) became a symbol of dire poverty in India, and the reintroduction of Indian dress symbolized political reaffirmation and the rejection of European culture and values. Tarlo shows that Gandhi's ideas did not work because they threatened regional identities, caste hierarchies, and perceptions of the role of women within Indian society.
Tarlo examines the dress of village women in a Gujarati village between 1947 and the late 1980s. Fascinating examples of women's clothing choices are used to illustrate the intricate web of interactions between dress and the social categories of gender, cast patriarchy and purdah. While men's dress has become standardized, women's dress continues to be an important marker of social differentiation in India. A hierarchy of fabric types roughly corresponds to a social hierarchy, where fine, sheer, smooth, lustrous fabrics are associated with social refinement. Coarse, rough fabrics are equated with crudeness. Embroidery and jewelry are also used to mark social differences among women. The chapter on Brahman dilemmas is exceptional in using real life examples to show how dress comes to encode numerous social complexities, from gender segregation, male domination, and social control, to innovative examples of female agency in spite of the gendered social constraints.
Questions of both local and national identity are brought out in a chapter of contemporary use of 'ethnic' fashion in a Delhi village. Tarlo shows how these sartorial trends underlie a complex debate on Indian identity, a debate that occurs at different levels within Indian society.
While the book does provide a glossary of Indian terms, it could have benefited from a few pages of description of dress in India prior to British colonization. Even costume historians will be somewhat lost when the author begins to describe the Indian adaptation to British dress, without a thorough grounding in what was worn prior to western contact. Tarlo, an anthropologist, states she used a "multi disciplinary" approach to the examination of the meaning of clothing in India: she states (p. 20-21), "we must be willing to look beyond the 'field', even if it does mean stepping into the risky territory of other disciplines." While Tarlo did a thorough search of the anthropological, sociological and historic literature, unfortunately she ignored the entire discipline of clothing and textiles scholarship and consequently missed many key studies that might have proved useful in her analysis.

Hunt, A. (1996). Governance of the consuming passions: A history of sumptuary law. Ipswich, Great Britain: Ipswich Book Co. ISBN 0-333-6332-6, 466 pages, $55.

Reviewed by Carol Anne Dickson, University of Hawaii

For the first time an author has taken a comprehensive look at sumptuary laws around the world and made a conscious effort to place them in social, political, and economic context. As a scholar of legal history and sociology, Hunt admits that he came somewhat reluctantly to the study of sumptuary law but his fascination with the subject of sumptuary laws is immediately apparent.
While Hunt examines sumptuary laws around the world, he focuses a substantial part of his effort on the sumptuary laws of Great Britain and Europe. Sumptuary laws are examined in the context of the sociology of governance. Throughout his examination Hunt asks the questions, directly or indirectly: Why did governing bodies expend so much energy in the enactment of sumptuary laws? Why did they continue to reenactment them when it was so obvious that they were unenforceable, and therefore doomed to failure? Why did various governing individuals and groups feel compelled to try to regulate the dress of others? Hunt places in front of the reader the stated reasons for the development of individual sumptuary laws, where they exist, and then proceeds to present the evidence that defines the social, political and economic circumstances that actually provided the base for the laws.
In Chapters 3 and 4, Hunt addresses clothing as a complex system of communication and the desire of others to be able to read what is communicated with some degree of certainty. Writing in the first person, it is in these two chapters that Hunt explores the nature of fashion in its strictest sense relative to sociocultural issues. Fashion is described as being somewhere between the trivial and the profound.
It is the dichotomies of law and fashion, human nature and the desire to regulate human nature, that particularly fascinate Hunt. The nature of sumptuary law applied to gender may surprise some. Although men and women have been almost equally targeted over time, there rarely has been very much grumbling or public outcry over sumptuary laws. Perhaps that is because they were rarely enforced and preoccupation with enforcement would, in and of itself, have been seen as frivolous.
The connections between sumptuary law and trade, are discussed to explain the economic importance of fashion. Once into a project, however, it is the nature of many writers to see their subject as the center of all subjects. The trade and the development of capitalism seems a bit farfetched at times. The analogies are interesting and thought provoking, though. The volume of sumptuary laws peaked in the 16th and 17th centuries and then abruptly declined, according to Hunt. Hunt's suggestions about why this was the case seem too complex. Simple answers may have had to do with worldwide population increases, increased speed in transportation and trade, and the increased physical mobility of people.
The strength of this book lies in its ability to examine the intertwined and interactive nature of sumptuary law, and therefore fashion, with many other aspects of the social, political and economic spheres in which people operate. It also highlights the continuing discourse and tension between governance and the governed.
Hunt suggests that with a few exceptions, authors have treated the study of sumptuary laws "with condescension" (p. 143). Clothing and textiles researchers have given very little attention to the area of sumptuary law. It is certainly an area rich with research opportunity.