I. The Neglect of Fashion

A. Reasons consumption neglected by anthropologists

1. political concern with neo-imperialism
2. importance of production and exchange
3. spread of capitalist consumer culture, fall of communism makes it impossible to ignore consumption

B. Why have anthropologists neglected fashion?

1. Intellectual, political perspectives
2. Gender assumptions
3. Definition of dress, costume, fashion based on notions of evolution

 

II. Intellectual Bias: The Mind-Body Dichotomy and the Anti-Fashion Bias in Academia

A. Valerie Steele (1991): Why do academics dress so badly?
B. Anti-fashion ethos in academia
C. Rene Descartes (1594-1650): mind-body dualism
D. Academics: intellect more important than body

 

III. Gender: Femininity and Frivolity

A. Gender associations in academic disciplines

1. Natural sciences, biomedicine, engineering, psychology, sociology, anthropology, political science, economics = objective, scientific, rigorous, male
2. Fashion and body in home economics = softer, less academically rigorous, female
3. Medicine: doctors versus nurses

B. Feminists reject fashion

1. Restricted movement
2. Made women sex objects

 

IV. Early Anthropological Concepts of Dress and Evolution

A. Dress chapter in ethnographies
B. Evolution (late 19th - mid 20th centuries)

1. Anthropologists studied "primitives"
2. Concerned with origins of dress (Ruth Benedict, 1937)

a. Modesty as instinctive vs. socially conditioned
b. Clothing promotes sexual attractiveness
c. Protects from evil eye
d. Climate

C. Problematic assumption of evolution

1. "Primitives" = earlier stage of Homo Sapiens
2. West vs. Rest as fundamental difference

a. Benedict (1937): "Whereas in simpler conditions, even in untouched rural districts of Europe today, dress is geographically differentiated, in modern civilization it is temporally differentiated."
b. Fashion in Europe connected to history: 10th to 15th centuries, takes off during Renaissance
c. Elsewhere, fashion = custom, tradition, response to environment
d. Edward Sapir (1937): "[Customs] change, but with a less active and conscious participation of the individual in the change" (1937)

D. Length of fieldwork, couldn't see history
E. Dichotomies

WEST	REST
Civilized	Primitive
History	Timeless
Fashion	Dress, clothing
Aesthetics	Instinct, environment

 

V. Anthropology and the Problem of Individual Innovation

A. Difference between psychology and anthropology or sociology
B. Problem of individual behavior

1. Euro-Americans: individualism
2. Other cultures: Sapir (1937), "In custom bound cultures, such as are characteristic of the primitive world, there are slow non-reversible changes of style rather than the often reversible forms of fashion found in modern cultures. The emphasis in such societies is on the group and the sanctity of tradition rather than on individual expression."

C. Kroeber downplays individualism in Western fashion

1. Cycles of history: civilizations originate, grow, climax, decline, die
2. Measures women's garments
3. Conclusions

a. Social change subject to underlying cycles whose "very magnitude dwarfs the influence which any individual can possibly have exerted in an alteration of costume" (260).
b. "Again the principle of civilizational determinism scores as against individualistic randomness" (261).

 

VI. Redefining Fashion

A. Two oppositions: West vs. Rest, Individual vs. Social Group
B. Recent attention to agency, interaction between individual and social group, cultural values
C. Every society has history
D. Cannon's essay on North American fur trade

1. Native Americans showed fluctuating taste for beads and blankets, colors, shapes, sizes
2. Early explanations: religion, gender relations
3. Cannon: status display and distinction
4. Redefines fashion: "manipulation of appearance to enhance or maintain a positive self-image" (25).
5. All cultures have doubt about self-identity, ability to make social comparisons ==> fashion change

E. Fashion processes are universal

1. Some cultures have institutionalized fashion change
2. Others have greater tendency toward conservatism, but changing social circumstances change fashion