Clothing as Language, Memorial, and Status

            In “Clothing as Language: An Object Lesson in the Study of the Expressive Properties of Material Culture,” Grant McCracken discussed the various ways in which clothing functions as an expressive medium. His discussion included many aspects which I felt could be applied to Emma’s corset and several of the other objects in class. First, he explained the cultural categories that costumes have displayed within certain cultures throughout history. He used the traditional costumes of the Moravians to prove his argument that through clothing, individuals could be placed into cultural categories, including rank, sex, marital status, and occupation. The style of corset Emma wore during her 1885 wedding certainly placed her into several categories; it allowed me to identify her as an upper class female—two distinctive cultural categories.

            Another point of McCracken’s discussion focused on the expressive character of clothing. That is, that an individual can express themselves through what they wear. When reading this, I wondered if McCracken would consider body shape to be an expression of something—whether choosing to contour one’s body by wearing a corset, or, more radical at many points in history, choosing not to. This thought echoed in my mind as I read McCracken’s section about fashion, specifically conformation to fashion versus the initiation of change. During Clare’s lecture, she noted that women began to abandon the corset in their daily lives after the third bustle period, which was thought to be the most uncomfortable form of corset in history. After conforming to society’s expectations, women began to initiate change and abandon the corset. Various points in his article apply to the analysis of our objects.

            Peter Stallybrass also makes an important argument about the significance of clothing in his article “Marx’s Coat.” He discussed the idea of a fetish, and noted that the concept became demonized when it became evident that history, memory, and desire might be materialized through objects that are touched. I found Stallybrass’s discussion of Marx’s coat and how his status changed—what he wrote, where he went—depending on whether or not he was wearing his overcoat extremely interesting. I found the description of the pawnshop market fascinating, especially when Stallybrass noted that while the Marx’s were driven to participate in this pawn trade, they still employed a servant. Stallybrass noted fustian, a fabric that became a “material memorial,” essentially an embodiment of class politics that came before the actual language of class politics in England. Did this fabric mean the same thing in America? Would the owners of our objects acknowledge the inferiority of fustian? Stallybrass’s conclusion, “Things were the materials—the clothes, the bedding, the furniture—from which one constructed a life; they were the supplements the undoing of which was the annihilation of the self,” stood out to me as defining the significance of this exhibit, and the importance of the study of material culture in general.