“Indian Shawls”

With Monica’s guest post, and subsequent discussions by Lizzie at The Vintage Traveler, I have been inspired to revisit a topic dear to my heart — Kashmir shawls, and their European imitations.

 

‘I have spared no expense in [Edith's] trousseau,’ were the next words Margaret heard. ‘She has all the beautiful Indian shawls and scarfs the General gave to me, but which I shall never wear again.’

 ’She is a lucky girl,’ replied another voice … ‘Helen had set her heart upon an Indian shawl, but really when I found what an extravagant price was asked, I was obliged to refuse her. She will be quite envious when she hears of Edith having Indian shawls. What kind are they? Delhi? with the lovely little borders?’

 – Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South, p. 9

I discovered Elizabeth Gaskell, I’m embarrassed to say, not through her wonderful novels, but through the dramatized BBC miniseries for North and South. It was a period piece, the costuming was beautiful, there was a handsome leading man… That was more than enough to gain my attention.

I loved the series so much that in 2008 I bought the book. Little did I know then that the passage above would not only spark a keen interest in Indian shawls (as discussed in the preface to my friend Monica’s guest post back in January), but would set me on a new career path, and even take me to India.

My annotated edition of North and South was extremely valuable as I knew very little — still know very little — about Victorian society, and the references and explanations provided by Patricia Ingham taught me why certain events within the novel had the repercussions and reactions that they had. However, within the first ten pages I was frustrated, as I could not understand why Indian shawls were so coveted, let alone what they were. I embarked on a quest to learn. I soon found out that they were actually Kashmir shawls, made of cashmere, and woven in the Kashmir region, all of which was lumped together as “India” in Britain at the time of their discovery (seventeenth century), and throughout the time of the shawl’s popularity (late eighteenth, and well into the nineteenth century). They were handwoven of rare and expensive materials, and were difficult to import, especially with near-constant wars and rivalries with France, making them a rather exclusive status symbol, and one that was extensively copied. Thus making the originals even more valuable. Along the way, I also discovered an entire academic field that had been unknown to me, alternately called costume, fashion, or dress history.

Long story short, I ended up in Edinburgh, earning a degree in Art History, focused entirely on material culture — specifically dress and textile history. It seemed only natural when I decided to explore the influence of India on British dress and material culture in my dissertation that I would need to do an entire chapter on these “Indian Shawls”, and how they not only saved the British silk-weaving industry, but inspired major technological advancements in the pursuit of better and more intricate copies, and how a uniquely Indian pattern came to be known in English after the Scottish town of Paisley.

Cashmere (a bowdlerization of Kashmir, where the fibre was mistakenly believed to originate), comes from Himalayan goats. In order to survive the extremely cold winters, these goats have adapted their coats to be very soft, but very warm. The problem is that cashmere cannot be farmed the way wool or silk can, or at least couldn’t be back in the eighteenth century. To get the best quality cashmere, herders had to wait for the goats to shed the fur and then collect it. The outer layer was useless to the shawl weavers as it was too coarse from exposure to the elements and to foliage, rocks, etc., to be of use. The inner layers, though, close to the skin have the seemingly miraculous quality of being extremely fine, and ridiculously soft, while being very, very warm. Once collected, carded, spun, and dyed, the shawls were thin enough to be drawn through a wedding ring — and they still are. Patterns remained in families for generations, and the weavers worked by hand on floor looms, creating intricate patterns that would eventually become the modern Paisley (and which help us to date the shawls now):

These shawls were originally worn by men in India and Persia, as can be seen in the portrait of Captain John Foote below. This portrait is one of those rare instances where we not only have the portrait, but the same museum (York), has the actual garments worn by the sitter as well. The shawls were typically gifts to favoured diplomats, or courtiers in Indian and Persian courts, given by the monarch in gratitude for services, successes, or loyalty. There are even accounts in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries of their being excellent bribes to and from the East India Company. It is not clear how they came to be worn by Western women in India, but wear them they did, and it is believed it was these women — called nabobinas by a distrustful and dismissive press and public back in Britain — who brought the first shawls back, and set a new fashion.

Sir Joshua Reynolds, Captain John Foote, 1761 – 65. Oil on canvas. York Art Gallery Collection. Image courtesy York Museums Trust (York Art Gallery).

The earliest account of these shawls comes from the love letters of the author Laurence Sterne, who wrote Tristram Shandy, to his beloved, the unhappily married Eliza Draper, who had returned to England from Bombay on account of her health. He mentions after their parting — her husband had heard she might have fallen in love with someone else, and also to protect her own reputation she returned to India — how he cherishes the shawl she left him as all he has left of her.

The returning nabobs — another bowdlerization, this time of nawab, or ruler, and used to refer to the men sent out to India to work for the East India Company — and their accompanying wives, sisters, or mothers (called nabobinas) were seen by a suspicious public as having a dangerous influence on proper British Society. There is a farcical Letter to the Editor which appeared in the Scottish publication, The Lounger, in 1785 — though written anonymously, largely believed to have been authored by Henry MacKenzie, The Lounger‘s editor — in which a Mr Homespun laments the deplorable influence of the recently-returned Mr Mushroom, but more than that his wife, on his own household and daughters:

“… everything that used to be thought comfortable and convenient formerly, is now intolerable and disgusting. Everything we
now put on, or eat, or drink, is immediately brought into comparison with the dress, provisions, and liquors [at the Mushrooms'], home-made gowns, of which they were lately so proud, have been thrown by with contempt since they saw Mrs. Mushroom’s muslins from Bengal; our barn-door fowls we used to say were so fat and well-tasted, we now make aukward [sic] attempts, by garlic and peper [sic] to turn into the form of Curries and Peelaws.” (1)

 

Their rarity, their colours — Indian and Kashmiri textiles were far more vibrant and more colour-fast than anything the English could produce — as well as the exoticism of coming from the subcontinent and the very foreign design aesthetic made the shawls a much-desired garment. They were particularly to be worn while on promenade, whether in London or Bath, where everyone who was anyone could see you, and it. By the late 1790s, with the shift in fashion to the more grecian directoire or Empire styles most often seen in Jane Austen film adaptations, Indian shawls gained even greater desirability: thin cotton muslins will do well in India, or even southern France or Italy, but in the chilly climates of Britain, a warm shawl that manages to retain the grecian aesthetic is particularly useful. It was also a way for the elite women of France to display their wealth in a less ostentatious way than the wigs, hats, sacques and other mantua that had made them targets during the recent revolution. Or one would be better to say it made it possible for the men to demonstrate their wealth, as dressing one’s wife was as important to maintain the appearance of being a gentleman with taste as decorating one’s house. I love the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but I’m not blind enough to want to live in them.

Jacques-Louis David, Anne-Marie-Louise Thélusson, Comtesse de Sorcy, 1790, Oil on Canvas

Kashmir, Shawl, circa early nineteenth century. Woven cashmere. Victoria & Albert Museum, London. Image Courtesy of the Victoria & Albert Museum website.

Poor, overworked, weavers working by hand in Kashmir could not keep up with the sudden and increasing demand in Europe, and very few people could afford the shawls, anyway. A shawl in the eighteenth century cost between 70 and 100 pounds, the equivalent of $9,000 – 12,000 today. This left the market open for imitators, and many clamoured to fill it. This demand for shawls coincided nicely with a drop in the British silk-weaving industry, since Britain was at war with France, and France had been Britain’s supplier of silk. The British authorities were also worried about the fashion, as the government saw it as threatening British goods, British work, and they could not earn much money off of them besides tariffs, which many traders would avoid by smuggling the goods in via the black market. In an era before digital records, there was no way to know how shawls in a particular shop had been imported. There were even schemes to bring Cashmere goats in to Britain and create their own crop of the fibre, but on the few attempts to import the animals almost none of them survived the crossing, and those that did, did not survive the new climate.

Then, a weaver in Norwich came up with the idea of combining silk with high-quality wool to imitate cashmere, and suddenly, you could have something almost, but not quite, like the new shawls for only a fraction of the cost. Weavers in Edinburgh, France, and Paisley, Scotland quickly picked up on the combination themselves. Mechanized weaving had been established in Britain and Europe since 1785, meaning that while the quality was not as good as those coming out of Kashmir, they could produce more and faster.

And as can be seen in the images below, just as with chinoiserie or Japanned furniture, the designs were obviously a Western interpretation of an Asian aesthetic beyond their comprehension.

Norwich imitation shawl

Then, in 1801, Joseph Marie Jacquard of France developed the Jacquard mechanized loom, which enabled the weavers to create intricate, all-over patterned shawls, further shifting the aesthetic back in Kashmir. Complicated patterns are still known in English today as jacquard.

Eventually, the imitation shawls flooded the market, with most of the shawls coming out of Paisley. Paisley was unscrupulous in its desire to not only survive, but to succeed — blatantly copying the designs of its rivals in Edinburgh and Norwich, and filling the milliners and drapers shops of Britain with so many Paisley shawls that the clientele soon forgot that “Paisley” indicated the place of origin, not the pattern itself. They eventually put both Edinburgh, and Norwich out of business to the point that while we can identify Norwich shawls from the nineteenth century and distinguish them from Paisley’s, there are no known examples of surviving Edinburgh shawls, despite Edinburgh’s at one point being a major weaving town. And ultimately, many of the original Kashmiri weaving towns went bankrupt and were abandoned as well.

The shawls were so popular that they altered along with the European fashions — even those coming out of Kashmir began to be almost exclusively made for the Western market. From the turn of the century through the Romantic era of the 1820s and into the 1830s, the rectangular-shaped stole with border designs was popular. However, as skirts expanded into the bell-like shape, and eventually needed crinolines to keep them so wide, that was the fashion for the 1840s and 1850s, the shawls became more square, with all-over patterns and only a blank portion in the very middle. Shawls with reversed colour patterns also became popular as then the wearer could fold the shawl in a different way to achieve an entirely new look.

The way of wearing the shawl altered as well. The directoire style was somewhat casual in the wearing of the shawl, as can be seen in the fashion plates below, but by the Victorian era, the shawl was now folded diagonally and worn about the shoulders, and often so large that the tip of the shawl would stop just above the hem of a dress, even with the crinoline.

1812

1813

Paisley Shawl, 1870. India, Kashmir, maker unknown. Photo by Monica Murgia.

The Kashmir weavers continued to work, but with such reduced numbers of operating manufacturers, the originals became even more expensive and even more exclusive, such as those inherited by Margaret’s cousin, Edith, in North and South. Or, to highlight a modern indicator, as worn by Jane Eyre when she returns, rich after inheriting her uncle’s fortune, to Mr Rochester in the most recent adaptation of Jane Eyre starring Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender. Knowing about Indian shawls has made me even more insufferable to watch period films with than I was before…

The shawl was popular for well over a hundred years, but by the late nineteenth century not even Paisley could survive the invention and popularity of the bustle.

While I was studying these shawls in Edinburgh, I had the good fortune to have a roommate from Bangalore who has since become one of my dearest and best friends. While in Bangalore myself last summer for her wedding, it was absolutely necessary when buying souvenirs to acquire my own, genuine Kashmir shawls (they have mechanized weaving in India and Kashmir now, of course, so they were affordable enough for a poor academic). One for me, and one for my mum.

The patterns are more muted and more subtle, as suits the modern fashions — a continuing tradition, if you will. But as you can see in the image above, they are still finely woven enough to be pulled through a finger ring.

Who would have thought that a single section in a novel that I became curious about would bring me here?

I don’t believe in fate. I’m quite content to believe that there is no master plan, but instead that life is nothing but a series of both happy and unhappy, unplanned accidents. One such is the gray “Indian Shawl” above, which I wear almost every time I’m heading out and the weather is a bit unpredictable.

The most eerie of all, however, came about recently in a conversation with yet another of the wonderful friends I made in Scotland. While Skyping with her about her upcoming wedding and reminiscing about Scotland and how much we missed it, she asked me if I had ever seen the BBC miniseries, North and South. I laughed and told her that yes, I had. She then told me that she often watches it when she’s in a nostalgic mood, because so much of it was filmed in Edinburgh.

Another happy accident, that brought it all full circle.

(1) Nechtman, Tillman W. 2006. ‘Nabobinas’. Journal of Women’s Studies, Volume 18, Number 4: 8 – 30.

Further Reading Recommendations:

Beardsley, Grace & Sinopoli, Carla. 2005. Wrapped in Beauty: The Koelz Collection of Kashmiri Shawls (Ann Arbor, Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan Press).

Clabburn, Pamela. 1995. The Norwich Shawl (London, HMSO).

Irwin, John. 1973. The Kashmir Shawl (London, Her Majesty’s Stationary Office).

Mackerell, Alice. 1986. Shawls, Stoles and Scarves (London, B.T. Batsford Ltd).

Nechtman, Tillman W. 2007. ‘A Jewel in the Crown? Indian Wealth in Domestic Britain in the Late Eighteenth Century’. Eighteenth-Century Studies, Volume 41, Number 1: 71 – 86.

Nechtman, Tillman W. 2006. ‘Nabobinas’. Journal of Women’s Studies, Volume 18, Number 4: 8 – 30.

Rock, C.H. 1966. Paisley Shawls: A Chapter of the Industrial Revolution (Paisley, Paisley Museum & Art Galleries).

Rothstein, Nathalie. 2003. ‘Silk in the Early Modern Period, c. 1500 – 1780’ The Cambridge History of Western Textiles, Volume I, David Jenkins, ed. (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press):  528 – 561.

Rothstein, Nathalie. 2003. ‘Silk: The Industrial Revolution and After’ The Cambridge History of Western Textiles, Volume II, David Jenkins, ed. (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press): 790 – 808.

Shrimpton, Jayne. 1992. ‘Dressing for a Tropical Climate: The Role of Native Fabrics in Fashionable Dress in Early Colonial India’. Textile History, Volume 23, Issue I: 55 – 70.

Smith, Simon. 1998. British Imperialism 1750 – 1970. (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press).

Stewart, A.M. 1946. The History and Romance of the Paisley Shawl (Glasgow, Paisley Museum).

For the love of Paisley

I am happy to present Of Ravens and Writing Desks’ first ever guest post from my Worn Through colleague and one of my dearest friends, Monica D. Murgia.

Monica has an MA in Fashion & Textile Studies: History, Theory, Museum Practice from FIT. Her focus was curatorial, with an emphasis on twentieth century fashion designers. Her current research interests surround American fashions from 1935-1965, artistic collaboration with fashion designers, and current technological innovations that impact the fashion system. Monica has also taught several courses in fashion design, focusing on history of costume and the creative process. She writes about teaching fashion at Worn Through, and explores the relationship between fashion and art on her own blog. Be sure to follow her on Twitter and to like her on Facebook!

A few weeks ago she visited the Allentown Art Museum exhibit, The Paisley Pattern: Woven Shawls from Asia to Europe, and knowing about my passion for Indian and Kashmiri shawls — I did an entire chapter about them in my master’s dissertation — kindly offered to do this guest post for me.

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I recently went to see an exhibit on Franz Kline at the Allentown Art Museum.  After taking in that show, I wandered around the other galleries in the museum.  Much to my delight, there was a wonderful exhibit on textiles.  The Paisley Pattern: Woven Shawls from Asia to Europe was a small show, but expertly done.

Paisley Shawl, 1860. Possibly France, maker unknown.

On Mannequin: Scarf, 1820. American, maker unknown.

 

The show’s focus was specifically on woven shawls.  These objects were prized possessions during much of the 19th century.  Fashion moved at a much slower rate.  Clothing was not disposable. Garments had to last years, and were passed down.  Because of this, many garments had to be made of conservative colors.  Shawls and scarves added variety and flair to a wardrobe.  Paisley shawls from Kashmir, India were the most sought after.  Kashmiri shawls were meticulously crafted with the best fibers, dyes, and weavers.  The shawls were woven in sections on small looms by several weavers.  Once the sections were complete, they were stitched together to create the final product.

Patka, 1815 – 1825. Jammu-Kashmir, India, maker unknown.

 

These paisley shawls were worn by upper class Indian and Persian men.  However, Dutch and British colonization of India introduced Europeans to Kashmir shawls.  The exotic and beautiful patterns caused an immediate fashion craze.  Textile manufacturers throughout Europe started to replicate these patterns on jacquard looms.  Jacquard looms are mechanical looms that can create complex designs with the use of punch cards.  These punch cards controls a series of operations in the weaving process.  France and Scotland became major mass producers of paisley designs via jacquard looms.  This mass production made paisley more accessible to the middle class throughout Europe.

Shawl, 1840. France or Scotland, maker unknown. Detail above.

 

Paisley Slippers, 1990s. Stubbs & Wootten, North America.

Purse, late 1900s. North America, maker unknown.

 

Paisley Shawl, late 1800s/early 1900s. Possibly Scotland, maker unknown.

 

The exhibit showed some wonderful examples of real Kashmir shawls and those that were produced abroad.  A favorite detail of mine was on a shawl from 1870.  The embroidered signature of the workshop is visible.

Paisley Shawl, 1870. India, Kashmir, maker unknown.

The shapes of the paisley shawls manufactured in Europe also changed.  In the 1850s, the shawls were long and rectangular.  This was to accommodate for the crinolines (hooped petticoats) and full skirts that were fashionable during this period.  As the bustle replaced the crinoline, shawls became square.  The change in silhouette meant that there was less to cover, hence smaller shawls.  Americans coped with lack of access to paisley prints by embroidering them onto shawls and scarves.  The museum had several great examples of paisley motifs embroidered onto white muslin scarves.

Full Plaid Kirking Shawl, 1840. Probably Paisley, Scotland, maker unknown.

Scarf, 1900s. Bharat, India, maker unknown.

 

Scarf, 1830. American, maker unknown.

 

I was really impressed with the wall text and featured textiles.  The curator explained such a complex history in a way that was easy to understand.  The selection of objects really reinforced the main points.  The paisley on display was so dazzling.  The complexity of design, use of color, and the skill of embroidery were on my mind long after I left the exhibit.  It’s amazing how well-made items can last such a long time.  Seeing how these shawls survived 150 years (or more) makes a wonderful case for sustainability.  All of the scarves and shawls are still stylish, even now.  I would love to own something so well-made and so beautiful.  Knowing that well-made fashion and accessories can last several lifetimes says it all: Quality over quantity.

http://www.allentownartmuseum.org

Detail, Paisley Shawl, late 1800s/early 1900s. Possibly Scotland, maker unknown.

Monsoon

You can hear the monsoon coming. The spatter of rain drops on banana and coconut leaves starts at a distance then comes toward you like an ocean wave. The sound is so faint it is hard to distinguish whether it is the wind in the millions of surrounding trees, or a deluge. You register the sound when it is perhaps three miles away. Two miles away, slightly louder. Louder still, one mile.

All of this happens in a split-second, and it is only just before it breaks overhead that your mind recognizes it and braces for what is coming. Under a tin roof, the sound is deafening. Even inside a solid, wood and concrete house with terra cotta tile roofing you can barely hear yourself think. By comparison, when you are out in it, there is almost no sound at all. One moment you are making your way through the dark, using what little moonlight is filtering through the clouds to try to perceive snakes, deceptively deep puddles, and the very vague difference between the “road” and the start of the jungle or other people’s plantations. The next, you are drenched. Having lived in Scotland, I was still unprepared for the actuality of getting caught in a torrential downpour. Five seconds before I was stomping along in a borrowed Manchester United jumper, damp TOMs that still smelled vaguely of the rotten jackfruit I’d stepped in several hours and miles earlier. Then suddenly I was more properly soaked through than I would have been had I walked for miles through Edinburgh’s heavy spring rains.

Five seconds before, I was longing for home. At that moment, I wanted time to stop so I could live that moment just a little longer.

I returned from India two months ago today. I miss the people I met. I miss the colour, the clothes, and the food. India is as far away from where I live as I can possibly get on this planet. Not everyone speaks English, so don’t believe people when they tell you that. But you’re quickly reminded that you do not have to share a language to communicate with someone, or for them to share their culture  and their world with you. India taught me that it is possible to make an exquisite garment completely by hand, of far better quality than anything at Forever 21 or the Gap, in a back alley off a major commercial street not because it will fetch a higher price or make you a household name, but purely for the joy and pride of making something beautiful. India taught me that hot water is a luxury. As is enough food, and a roof over your head. It reminded me that in an economy where I don’t have much, I have a family that loves me, and which offers me unending support while I pursue a writing career, and that that will last longer than any bank account or security.

India taught me that sometimes you have to get as far from home as possible, to reconnect with yourself.

Occupy Aesthetics

Despite the best attempts of municipal and larger governments to block coverage, it has been hard to ignore or remain ignorant of the Occupy Movement. Or ‘#Occupy’, should you prefer to use the language of Twitter in keeping with the movement’s primary method of planning, orchestration, and communication.

For those still unaware (if there is anyone), Occupy is the mostly peaceful demonstration of a large number of American citizens ranging from the young, educated, and broke to 90 year-old, retired World War II veterans, who choose to assemble in places of financial power to demonstrate their dissatisfaction with the growing financial gap between rich and poor in America. The movement has spread to other countries and has been praised and demonized, supported and condemned.

What has struck me most about the movement is its aesthetics.  I am the daughter of two flower children, those 1960s teens and young adults who did not tune in, turn on, and drop out, but instead fought for political change. I was politicized early (I attended my first political rally at the ripe old age of four), and have grown up not only hearing the stories of the many marches my parents joined, but seeing photos and documentaries so that I would understand what the 1960s my parents participated in truly stood for (ie, not Woodstock alone, awesome though the music may have been). So when the first photos broke, it was hard for me not to instantly see the similarities.

Image via SFGate

Image via Travis Lin Photography

And it was not long before Occupy had its iconic moment of horror,

to join the infamous 1970 photo from Kent State.

The imagery produced by the movement itself, however — particularly its posters — borrow heavily not from the aesthetics of the last age of American protest, but from America’s ‘enemies’ during that time: the Communist regimes of the USSR, China, and North Korea.

Image by Eric Drooker

Image by Alexandra Clotfelter

Image by Dave Loewenstein

You could also argue that perhaps the protesters had seen a few too many episodes of Mad Men.

But I just don’t think that a movement organised enough to form a library for use by those residing in camps protesting corporate greed would have chosen anti-Capitalist imagery by accident.

Capitalism in and of itself is not flawed, any more than is Communism. But the belief that the Market — or the Premier, or the President — is always right most definitely is. The problem is that Capitalism and Communism are only uncorrupted so long as they stay within the hallowed white tower of Academia. This is not to say that Academia is pristine so much as to say that any theory must alter when placed in the hands of human beings, a highly unpredictable species if ever there was one. And Capitalism began to be corrupted in America in about the mid-nineteenth century, when President Lincoln gave unprecedented powers to rail and industrial corporations in order to win the war between the Union and the Confederacy. Lincoln was troubled by what the outcome of his choices would be and even wrote to the effect that he hoped things would return to what they had been before.[1] Genies are not quite so easily put back in bottles.

Capitalism was further distorted when the Fourteenth Amendment awarding the recently-emancipated slaves ‘personhood’ was used to award corporations their own ‘personhood’. The idea that a corporation could have the same rights as a person is ludicrous in the extreme. Particularly when the corporations are magically immune to the repercussions for their actions that other ‘persons’ must face. If an individual steals or murders, they must stand trial and pay the determined penalty. But when corporations do the same, you do not see groups of CEOs, their boards, or shareholders going to prison for the decisions they made as a corporation.

Whatever your personal feelings about the Occupy Movement, you must admit that it has begun a dialogue. It has drawn attention to the growing schism between rich and poor, and at long last given voice to a portion of Americans who have been silenced since the introduction of first radio, then television turned the exchange of information in the modern world from a dialogue (as could be achieved when the only medium of communication was word of mouth or print) into a one-sided dictation of what those who HAD the information decided those who did not could or should know.

But all the attention and all the dialogue will not change anything if the thousands of protesters and supporters do not begin speaking the language the politicians understand: Votes.

America is lucky in that it has direct representation. Each vote counts, as the Iowa Caucus in which Romney only won by EIGHT votes has shown.

To paraphrase Ghandi: First they ignored the movements because they were organised through Twitter and other social media (it’s not like any of those things brought thousands to Tahrir Square or anything); Then they dismissed us, and told us to take a shower and get a (non-existent) job; Then they fought us, and banned press coverage and arrested journalists so we could not see the overtly brutal tactics they used to do so; Now, we win. Whoever ‘we’ ends up being.

By voting.

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[1] Gore, Al. 2007. The Assault on Reason. (New York, Penguin Press): 88.

Conspicuous Intellectualism

This is a modified version of the paper I recently presented at the Developments in Dress History conference at the University of Brighton. Where permissible I have included the images exactly as I used them in my presentation, however all of the objects and works of art are copyrighted, so internet links will be provided to those images I purchased for the conference, but which are not available for public display.

I am extremely grateful to Linda Baumgarten of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, and Clarissa Eseguerra of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art for their assistance as well as letting me rifle their collections both in person and online for this research.

Please feel free to share your comments or questions!

♦♦♦

Conspicuous Intellectualism: Banyans and the Construction of Masculine Identity through Dress in the late Eighteenth Century (1760 – 1800)

The Savile Row tailor, Hardy Amies once said, ‘A man should look as though he had bought his clothes with intelligence, put them on with care, then forgotten all about them.’[1]

The maxim itself may be ‘modern’ (Amies only died in 2003), but the attitude it expresses regarding the sartorial construction of masculinity is at least 250 years old.

When looking at the suits of middle to upper class men in Britain and France from the early to mid-eighteenth century, it is hard to believe that any man could have simply ‘forgotten’ about what he was wearing.

© Los Angeles County Museum of Art Man’s Suit, France, ca 1755 Silk cut, uncut, and voided velvet (ciselé), on satin foundation

© Los Angeles County Museum

At a time when one wore one’s wealth and status on one’s back (or displayed it on one’s wife), opulence was the norm. Fabric was more expensive than labour, thus the most elaborate velvets, silks, and wools were used in men’s attire so that anyone could see at a single glance that you were a person of money or rank, if not both.[2]

This is particularly true at the beginning of the eighteenth century, when the three-piece suit – coat, waistcoat, and trousers (breeches at that time) – was still relatively new. The waistcoat and coat replaced the doublet sometime around 1666, when Charles II discarded it and hose as his own attire. The shift in sartorial preference was a propagandistic attempt by the king to prove his loyalty to England over France by rejecting what was seen as a particularly ‘French’ mode in favour of good British tailoring.[3] Cuffs for the coats were overly large, waistcoats reached nearly to the knee, and the skirts of the coats were voluminous in the amount of fabric, pleats, and buttons or other adornments employed. However, by the middle of the century, the male silhouette had begun to narrow, making such excessive uses of fabric no longer fashionable, and occasionally, even the fabrics used became simpler and less ostentatious, compensating with more expensive appliqué.

© Los Angeles County Museum of Art Man’s Suit, France, ca 1760 Coat and waistcoat: wool plain weave, full finish, with sequins and metallic-thread embroidered appliqués; breeches: wool plain weave, full finish, with silk and metallic-thread passementerie

© Los Angeles County Museum of Art

But, by the last quarter of the eighteenth century we can see a massive societal shift in attitudes, through the satire aimed at those  (usually older) men still clinging to the traditions and fashions for embellishments that had been the norm as recently as fifteen to twenty years before. The mezzotint engraving of ‘The OLD BEAU in an EXTASY’, depicts an older gentleman in absolute raptures with his own reflection as his valet laughs at him behind his back while preparing his bag wig. A closer look at the cartoon shows that the gentleman is dressed in a banyan – quite appropriate for the toilet – but beneath it we can see that the waistcoat he wears is embellished with the sort of opulent gold appliqué that is no longer in vogue anywhere but court. The caricature was published on 13 July 1773; caricatures and satire are employed to mock an aspect of, or group of people within society that is no longer needed, wanted, or approved of. The old beau is mocked for caring about his appearance, and indeed caring about it so much that his own reflection sends him into ‘an extasy’. This, quite literally, illustrates that society at large already expected men to put on their clothes with care, and then to forget all about them.

The phrase ‘Age of Enlightenment’ can be rather misleading, because it can suggest a uniform age of reason and philosophy happening simultaneously across Europe, when indeed it happened in different ways and at different times from Russia to Scotland. But the Enlightenment in Britain was unique in that it happened in the two metropolises – London and Edinburgh – through the medium of printed essays and treatises, lectures, and coffee house discussions rather than around or in university or court settings as had happened in France and the rest of Europe. This made the ideas as accessible to the middle class – even upper working class, such as Thomas Paine – as they were to the elite.[4] And for the first time in British history, politics and philosophy were being heavily and publicly debated through the medium of the printed pamphlet.[5]

The Glorious Revolution of 1688 had deposed James II and ensured a safely Protestant monarchy, but an unforeseen side effect was the complete discrediting of the ideas of Divine Right and Hobbes’s Leviathan.[6] If God’s ‘chosen representative’ as monarch wasn’t, that placed the power of government even more firmly in the hands of Parliament than it had been during the Civil Wars or Cromwell’s Republic. In fact, it meant that the fate of Cromwell’s Republic had not been divine retribution for the sin of regicide, it had simply failed. Divine Right may have addressed the legitimacy of a king to rule, but it had a broader impact on society: implying that everyone was in the place that had been divinely chosen for them. If they were not in their current position due to divine will, then surely they could change it if they had the means and desire. And if they could remove a king without divine retribution, why, then, couldn’t they remove members of Parliament if they didn’t like them?

For the first time since the Renaissance, or perhaps since Ancient times, men began to question their place in the world, how that world worked, and even the concept of divinity and the rights and power of religion. Not content with mere contemplation, they began to perform experiments to find answers to these questions. Newtonian laws of nature replaced Divine Right. And the Hobbesian idea that in his natural state man was a feral beast, was replaced with the Rousseauian theory of the ‘nobel savage’, ie, that it was civilisation that corrupted man; ‘civilisation’ being the old regime and the courts they lived in. The obvious solution – to Rousseau – was to get ‘back to nature’, so as to reclaim our natural untainted state.[7]

Not for the first time, nor the last, what people read informed not only their attitudes toward their society, but also what they wore. Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther had perhaps the greatest impact on masculine attire and identity of any single novel written at the time.[8] Published in 1774, it is partially autobiographical and follows the misadventures of a young nobleman who has escaped to the country on a twofold mission: to take care of some family business and to recover from the sudden death of a dear friend. There he sits in glades reading Homer in the original Greek, communes with the yeomanry to learn and partake of their simple, ‘real’ tragedies, and falls in love with a woman already engaged to someone else. This setting serves as a contrast for the court life he runs away to to rid his mind of the beautiful Carlotta through work as an assistant to the ambassador. The court, in contrast to the idyll of the countryside, is full of gossip, intrigue, corruption, and people who care far too much about their appearance (particularly repulsive in the men). Werther triumphantly discards his ornate court attire when he is forced to resign from his post due to a petty, fabricated scandal, and is all too happy to don his plain blue frock coat again: clothing that is comfortable, well made, and easily forgotten about once it has been put on.[9]

The novel created a vogue for English country sporting attire. Elements of it were borrowed and became a part of men’s daily wear, such as the coat collar, and the frock coat and great coat being elevated from the wear of servants and the working class to permissible clothing for the gentry. All of it leading to the rise of British tailoring which still stands to this day. By the end of the century the standard uniform for male portraiture (and probably daily dress) was a navy blue frock coat, a gold- or buff-coloured waistcoat, and buff broadcloth or buckskin breeches.

©Los Angeles County Museum of Art Portrait of Richard Palmer George Romney Oil on canvas, 1787

Colours became extremely limited: black for evening dress, brown, navy, and dark green for everyday dress, with drab – as seen in the portrait of Sir Brooke Boothby by John Wright of Derby – being the most popular. [10]

During the Age of Enlightenment, middle and upper class men now had far more important things to think about than their clothes. Subtlety became the guideline.

Except in the banyan. In fact, during the forty-year transitional period under discussion, the banyan was one of the increasingly few garments where men could be flamboyant in their textile choice. The only real change in the banyan during this time period was in its increased prevalence. Throughout the eighteenth century it came in two distinct styles: kimono, or frock coat.[11] During the latter half of the century construction techniques had improved, as can be seen in the Victoria and Albert’s Coromandel Coast banyan as opposed to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s.

© Victoria and Albert Museum Banyan, Coromandel Coast, 1750 – 1775 Cotton chintz, painted and dyed, lined with block-printed cotton

© Los Angeles County Museum of Art Man’s At-Home Robe (Banyan), Coromandel Coast, 1700 – 1750 Mordant-painted and resist-dyed cotton

That the banyan was one of the few ways men could use ornate fabrics is particularly evident in the Colonial Williamsburg banyan from about 1760: this banyan (with matching waistcoat) was actually constructed from fabric recycled from a woman’s sacque.[12] A remarkably similar fabric was used in the construction of a made-to-order French banyan from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art collection, showing how acceptable such a textile was for this garment.

© Los Angeles County Museum of Art Man’s Banyan & Waistcoat, France, ca 1765 Silk, wool flannel lining

At a time of intense simplification – even constriction – on what textiles constructed an appropriately ‘masculine’ public identity, it is odd that the banyan not only survived, but thrived. The number of middle and upper class men painted in banyans for their portraits rose exponentially, and indeed the banyan was considered acceptable ‘undress’ to be worn in the mornings not only to receive visitors, but even to visit the famous coffee houses where they would discuss the latest news and philosophies with friends and acquaintances.

© Los Angeles County Museum of Art Man’s Banyan, China & The Netherlands, 1750 – 1760 Silk satin and silk plain weave (damassé)

© Los Angeles County Museum of Art Man’s At-Home Robe (Banyan), France, ca 1760 Silk satin, lined with striped plain weave silk

The banyan, being an object of conspicuous consumption which used a vast amount of the most expensive, exotic fabrics available, was also extremely ‘masculine’ as an object of what I like to think of as ‘conspicuous intellectualism’. The preference for either the most expensive or the most exotic foreign fabrics (Indian cottons, Chinese silks, or even Scottish tartans), made them as elaborate as the daily dress of the first part of the eighteenth century. Possibly more, since they were such a contrast to the plain coats and breeches that had become the new expected attire of the average middle to upper class man. But as Brandon Brame Fortune stated in the title of her 2002 article for Dress, ‘Studious Men are Always Painted in Gowns’.[13] Men of the Enlightenment had more important things to think about than their clothes, but what better way to advertise that you yourself are a thinker and ‘studious man’ than by donning the garment worn by Newton for many of his own portraits? And perhaps unconsciously, how better to cling to the old ways of wearing your status and wealth for all to see, without incurring the mockery afforded to old beaus, than by being conspicuously intellectual in a coffee house of a morning?

The practice of wearing the banyan or dressing gown in public became so prevalent that by the last twenty years of the eighteenth century, laws began to be passed banning them from the streets of Bath and a number of university towns, with other cities soon following suit.[14] Sartorial laws are generally passed to comply with society’s attitudes and expectations surrounding appearance; that enough irritation was aroused by the wearing of banyans in public to warrant the attention of governing bodies shows that it was no longer acceptable for men to be seen in a state of undress – and perhaps in such elaborate fabrics – outside of their own homes. The diminution of what was appropriate public attire indirectly had the same effect on what fabrics were acceptable for men in public.

© The University of Edinburgh Fine Art Collection Professor John Robison Sir Henry Raeburn Oil on canvas, ca 1798

The banyan could still be worn to receive visitors, and was, and men continued to be painted in them – since this was now their only public forum for displaying the garment or the fabrics they were made from. And they were painted in them whether they actually owned one or not. As can be seen banyans used prodigious amounts of fabric at a time when fabric was more expensive than labour. This meant that some men, such as Nicholas Boylston, of Boston, would simply have themselves painted wearing a fictitious banyan, thus enabling them to appear intellectual and wealthier than they actually were.[15] (There are two versions of this portrait identical in every way but one: in one, the banyan is blue-green, in the version below it is brown, despite their being the ‘same’ damask fabric, leading me to believe these garments were not painted from life.)

©Boston Museum of Fine Art Nicholas Boyston John Singleton Copley Oil on canvas, ca 1769

These portraits, though, were the banyan’s last ‘heyday’ and that of exotic fabrics for men. Shortly after it became unseemly to be seen in the street in one’s dressing gown or banyan, it ceased to be acceptable to receive visitors in the garment unless you were being attended in your sickbed. The trend for the banyan in portraiture faded as well, so that by the 1820s, it was no longer acceptable for men to be seen – even painted images of them – in anything but the most ‘forgettable’ of fabrics.

Since then, any masculine attire that did not conform to the rigid ideas held by mainstream society have been relegated to minority groups, and they (or any man seen to noticeably care about his appearance) have been mocked and pilloried for their refusal to conform ever since. From the extravagant suits of the African American men who were part of the funk music culture in the 1970s, to the Mods of 1960s London youth, to the Beatniks, the Teddy Boys, and the Punks; they all have specific names, and their ‘look’ has a place in history, because it stood out as a contradiction, and a contrast to the eighteenth-century ideal that clothes should be chosen with intelligence, put on with care, and then forgotten.

It is ironic that at a time period when Western Civilisation was progressing in thought, ideas, politics, and understanding, it so severely constrained the attire of the men making that progress. During the time period of transition they had the banyan, which served to emphasise their masculinity by showing them to be thinkers and philosophes, but by the end of the Enlightenment, they didn’t even have that.

Bibliography

Baumgarten, Linda. 2002. What Clothes Reveal: The Language of Clothing in Colonial and Federal America. (Williamsburg, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation).

Baumgarten, Linda. 1998. ‘Altered Historical Clothing’. Dress, Volume 25: 42 – 57.

Byrde, Penelope. 1979. The Male Image: Men’s Fahsion in Britain 1300 – 1970. (London, S. T. Batsford, Ltd.).

Chenoune, Farid. 1993. A History of Men’s Fashion. Deke Dusinberre, tr. (Paris, Flammarion).

Colley, Linda. 1992. Britons: Forging the Nation 1707 – 1837. (New Haven, Yale University Press).

Fennetaux, Ariane. 2004. ‘Men in gowns: Nightgowns and the construction of masculinity in eighteenth-century England’ immediations, Volume 1: 76 – 89.

Fortune, Brandon, Brame. 2002. ‘ “Studious Men are Always Painted in Gowns” Charles Wilson Peale’s Benjamin Rush and the Question of Banyans in Eighteenth-Century Anglo-American Portraiture’ Dress, Vol. 29: 27 – 40.

Hume, David. 1994. David Hume: Political Essays. Knud Haakonssen, ed. (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press).

Lemire, Beverly. 1991. Fashion’s Favourite: The Cotton Trade and the Consumer in Britain, 1660 – 1800 (Oxford, Oxford University Press).

McDowell, Colin. The Man of Fashion: Peacock males and Perfect Gentlemen. (London, Thames and Hudson, Ltd.).

McGillicuddy, Louisa. 2011. ‘Economies of style in The Ides of March’ The Guardian Fashion blog, http://www.guardian.co.uk/fashion/fashion-blog/2011/oct/28/ides-of-march-style  [28 October 2011]

Paine, Thomas. 2000. Thomas Paine: Political Writings. Bruce Kuklick, ed. (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press).

Ribeiro, Aileen. 2002. Dress in Eighteenth-Century Europe 1715 – 1789. (New Haven & London, Yale University Press).

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 2010. ‘The Fall from Nature’ The Western World. Dr John P. Farrell (ed.) (New York & London, Penguin Custom Editions): 9 – 17.

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 2010. ‘Morals of Nature’ The Western World. Dr John P. Farrell (ed.) (New York & London, Penguin Custom Editions): 18 – 29.

Schama, Simon. 2002. A History of Britain: Volume III. (New York, Hyperion Books).

Taylor, Lou. 2004. Establishing dress history. (Manchester & New York, Manchester University Press).

Voltaire. 1989. Voltaire: Selections. Paul Edwards, ed. (New York & London, Scribner/Macmillan Books).

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[1] McGillicuddy, Louisa. The Guardian website: [28 October 2011].

[2] Baumgarten, Linda. 1998: 44.

[3] Lemire, Beverly. 1991: 10 – 11.

[4] Paine, Thomas. 2000: viii.

[5] Schama, Simon. 2000: 12 – 141.

[6] Hume, David. 1994:xi – xiii.

[7] Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 2010: 13 – 16; 19 – 27.

[8] Ribeiro, Aileen. 2002:212.

[9] von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang. 2005: 12 – 108.

[10] Ribeiro, Aileen. 2002: 212 – 218.

[11] Fortune, Brandon Brame. 2002: 28.

[12] Baumgarten, Linda. 1998: 50 – 51.

[13] Fortune, Brandon Brame. 2002: 27 – 40.

[14] Fennetaux, Ariane. 2004: 81; Ribeiro, Aileen. 2002: 178 – 180.

[15] Fortune, Brandon Brame. 2002: 28 – 32.

 

Truly FABULOUS!

‘Dress is at one and the same time a science, an art, a custom, a feeling.’

– Honoré de Balzac, 1799 – 1850[1]

I own a number of exhibition catalogues, most of them pertaining to fashion and textile exhibits. It is a joke among my friends that I own more books and catalogues about clothes than I own actual clothes. Catalogues are tricky things; you at once must please the academics, inform the layperson, and appeal to the person who wandered in on a whim, or the insistence of a friend or colleague, and whom you have to win over.

This is not an easy balancing act to do.

To take two catalogues from my collection, FAMSF’s Pulp Fashion, and their Balenciaga and Spain: the former appealed strongly to the person on the street and (yes, I have checked) even to the layperson. It contained full-colour photographs of the pieces as presented in the exhibit, with a (very) little bit of information. The latter pleased the academics: it opened with a facsimile of a statement in appreciation of the designer from Baroness Phillipe de Rothschild, dated 1973. Most of the photos are archival, and there are several essays with very small print. The academics loved it. Most of the laypeople, however, seemed disappointed. They wanted something to remember the exhibit by, not a reference text on Balenciaga. Of course, it is possible the two exhibits had different target audiences for their catalogues. Not all exhibit catalogues are designed to appeal to everyone.

But some of them are.

I reserved my place on the upcoming Costume Society of America behind-the-scenes event for FIDM’s FABULOUS! exhibit several weeks ago. There is to be a catalogue-signing session, and I had convinced myself that I could just wait until the event to get my copy … Then Monica Murgia tweeted that she had received hers and was in raptures. Then Two Nerdy History Girls did a review. Then the FIDM Museum Blog did a recap of the opening and began to discuss pieces from the exhibit, and, well … What’s the Carrie Fisher quote? “Instant gratification isn’t fast enough”?

So, my copy of the FABULOUS! catalogue arrived two weeks ago. I have been petting it ever since.

It is truly fabulous. 370 full-colour pages featuring the fantastic images and detailed information that patrons of the museum have come to expect from the blog (meticulously run by Rachel Harris), and previous catalogues.

The FABULOUS! exhibit is a retrospective, displaying and celebrating the last ten years of acquisitions by the museum, ranging from an early nineteenth-century gentleman’s court suit, to the multi-coloured ‘hightop’ trainers of the 1990s. The catalogue is broken down into six sections based on time period, and spans 210 years of fashion history. Each section opens with a detail photo of one of the objects, and a fold-out timeline covering the major developments and events in art, fashion, politics, and science during the time period; with a one-page essay on the facing page placing the events – and the garments, accessories, and images – within the correct context. What follows are page after page of exquisite photographs by Brian E. Sanderson, with succinct, but elucidating descriptions of each object, often including its provenance and history, by curators Kevin Jones and Christina Johnson.

I cannot find a fault. And I have tried. Even the section on Scottish textiles – I did an entire (not very good) ‘virtual exhibition’ and wrote more than one paper on tartan during my post-graduate studies – was impeccable.

It is perhaps not as informative as the Balenciaga catalogue, but I do not turn to exhibition catalogues as the ultimate reference tool when I am doing research.  I look to them for images of the garments I have been reading about; for the sort of concise context FIDM is so good at providing in its catalogues; and for the reference section.

I, myself, am rather ignorant of ‘modern’ fashion history. I studied the eighteenth century and the early nineteenth. With the help of the FIDM Museum blog – which is firmly ensconced in my GoogleReader feed – and now the FABULOUS! catalogue, I have embarked on an independent study course, of sorts, educating myself not only about twentieth century fashion history, but how to be objective about my own century.

This is extremely fitting since FIDM is first, and foremost, a school.

The museum was conceived in 1973, ‘when the Fashion Design Department insisted that students studying clothing design and construction examine garments firsthand in order to fully understand textile drape, pattern structure, and finishing techniques’.[2] The faculty were the first donors, raiding their own private collections to aid their students’ learning.[3]

It has grown by leaps and bounds and does not simply comply with, but sets a standard of excellence in exhibits, incorporation of modern technology … and catalogues.

19 November can’t come fast enough.

All images courtesy of FIDM Museum Blog

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[1] Jones & Johnson. 2011: 13.

[2] Ibid: 6.

[3] Ibid: 6.

Research Ramblings, or Court vs Country, 21st-Century Style

If you follow me on Twitter or have checked out my Current Projects page, you’ll know that I am preparing a paper for the Developments in Dress History Conference at the University of Brighton in December. The paper is titled ‘Conspicuous Intellectualism: Banyans and the Construction of Masculine Identity through Dress in the late Eighteenth Century’ (thank you to one of my best friends, Shobha, for giving me the main title, credit where it is due!).  And it involves quite a bit of research.

I have been reading and re-reading various essays, novels, and political and philosophical tomes written by eighteenth-century scholars attempting to get as clear a picture as possible of what the intellectual culture was and how it might have shaped an eighteenth-century, middle to upper class man’s attitudes about himself and masculinity.  This is the Age of Reason.  There is a lot of intellectual debate going on.  The printing press was no longer a new invention, it was a flourishing one; innumerable circulars and pamphlets flooded not just the metropolitan areas but the countryside as well. The landed gentry needed their news and opinion pieces when out of town as much as when they were in town casting their votes, after all.  Books were becoming more plentiful for those who could afford them (though you bought the pages and paid to have it bound yourself, so that it would match the rest of your books, of course).  The authors being read and discussed were Rousseau, Voltaire, Hume, Paine, Goethe … just to name a few.

It was a tense time politically.  There was the Seven Years’ War that spread across the Continent and beyond (to be called the French and Indian War in North America). That was followed by the American Revolution, and the French Revolution. In Britain, the Union between Scotland and England into Great Britain was fairly new (1707), and not universally adored. The Union had dissolved the Scottish Parliament in favour of a “new” British Parliament, but since it remained at Westminster, it was seen by those opposed to the Union as the absorption by the English parliament of the Scottish.  That’s not to say that the Scots (those few who could vote) didn’t have representatives, but in a country that still considers Scotland and England a massive distance apart (the train ride from London to Edinburgh is about four hours, a travel time I do not find impressive), in the eighteenth century it must have been extremely unnerving to have your government packed up and moved to over 500 km away when the only mode of transport was sail, horse, or your own two feet, and you might speak Gaelic rather than English.

Not everyone opposed the Union. Many, like David Hume, saw it as an opportunity for growth and progress for Scotland. Which is what it turned out to be, but it is not easy to see what the struggles during turbulent times will bring when you are living through them. Especially when your uncertainty is compounded by the removal of the Stuart king, James II, in 1688 in favour of the safely Protestant William and Mary (Mary being James II’s daughter).

This deposition rattled more than just the Scots. It completely upended the long-held ideal of the Divine Right of kings. This Divine Right was seen to have been proved when the Cromwellian Republic, established in the wake of the Civil Wars and the beheading of Charles I by his own people, failed. The Restoration of Charles II was accordingly atonement for the sin of regicide, and the prosperity of that era (or so they thought of it) was proof they had been forgiven.

But when Charles II died childless (well, legitimately childless … ), his openly Catholic brother James II was seen as a backdoor to the blood-drinking papist despots of the Continent, and not fit to rule Protestant Britain, thank you very much. We’ll just ignore that Britain had only been truly Protestant for little more than a century, shall we? Good.

Charles II and James II were the descendants of Mary Queen of Scots. Charles II was the last king to be crowned in Scotland as well as England. For those in Scotland opposed to the deposition, the Union was just a further stripping of their identity. Particularly when it was followed  by the Clearances in the late eighteenth century.

There were multiple attempts by the Jacobites to reinstate the ‘rightful’ king: First James II (attempts from 1689 – 1690); then his son, James III (‘The Old Pretender’, attempts from 1708 – 1715); then the glorious Bonnie Prince Charlie, who failed for the last time in 1745 at the Battle of Culloden, and whose face now adorns shortbread biscuit tins the world over. How the mighty have fallen…

The Jacobite cause never truly faded, though. There are still Jacobites today, albeit very small in number, who want to depose the current monarchy and put a (believed) descendant of the Stuarts back on the throne.  Which ignores that the current monarchy are descendants of the Stuarts, they are just the product of daughters married off to Hanoverians rather than the ‘direct male’ line. The crazy is everywhere.

But in the eighteenth century the Jacobite cause was seen as a true threat. There were secret toasts held by secret clubs, the toasts made in glasses with secret signs etched into their designs, secret loyalties stitched into garters and bedcovers by the Jacobite women. The secret, potential threat.

It was an uneasy time to be in Britain.  Not least because they had deposed the ‘rightful’ king, and other than the rebellions (which were easily quelled) nothing had happened to the government itself.  It carried on with the business of running the country.  Taxes were set and collected. People went about their business. Which called the ancient, established idea of ‘rightful rule’ into question, and rattled the core belief systems of an entire nation (or two nations, to be precise).  This meant the Cromwellian Republic had simply failed, rather than being a divine punishment of some sort. It also meant that they were right to stamp out the rebellions, because the Jacobites were clearly standing in the way of Progress. Progress replaced ‘divine right’ in a way. It was seen as linear, unyielding, and right. Thus anyone who stood in its way (ie, the Jacobites, or the indigenous people of colonised nations), was mowed down accordingly in its name.

Real power was now acknowledged to be in the hands of the politicians. Now all those votes the landed gentry were casting when in London really, truly meant something.  And they began to be bargained for, debated and even bought in new ways.  Or perhaps they weren’t new, they were just more publicised thanks to all those busy presses.  Either way, a war of sorts began.  Not just between political factions, but between ‘Court’ and ‘Country’.

Court in the eighteenth century meant high society, and the king’s court, not an institution where crimes are tried.  The Court began to be seen as corrupt, superficial, fake and decayed. Who knew what was under all that make up (worn by both men and women), or those ridiculous wigs?  What diseases did they hide?  If you wanted truth, you went to the Country, where real people made their own way in life.  The people of the Country didn’t make their living on gossip or outdoing each other in appearance. They grew or reared their own food, made their own clothes… and so on.  You can see the beginnings of the Victorian morality discussions about Country innocents off to the City to make their fortunes in the factories and ending in Ruin.

Interestingly enough, it was through clothing that this debate began to be waged. Simplicity became desirable, decoration detestable. This might have had something to do with the ongoing wars with France and thus an interruption in British silk supplies, but who has time to bother with facts when you’re being philosophical in the Age of Reason? When have human beings not come up with philosophical and moral justifications for conforming to necessity? The other intriguing fact is that it would take longer for women’s fashions to simplify even though they were the most constricting, to the point of doing bodily injury. It was acceptable for women to be concerned with their appearances. Everyone knew they had weak minds (unless they were Voltaire, who believed women to be just as good as any man, only nicer). But a ‘real man’ had more important things to consider. If he did take care or wear things that were considered too decorative, or put on wigs and make up, he was a dandy, or a macaroni (Yankee Doodle Dandy, anyone?).

This became most apparent to me when I was reading Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werthur, because Aileen Ribeiro cited it as being highly influential to fashion in her Dress in Eighteenth-Century Europe, 1715 – 1789 (pp 212 – 216).  I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive her. But, I can see why it would have an impact. (I do not, however, recommend it to anyone looking for a good read, it is an eighteenth-century philosophical morality piece, so not for the faint hearted or the easily-annoyed.)  The main character retires to the Country to recover from the death of a friend and sort out some family affairs.  There he sits in glades and reads Homer in the original Greek and connects with the local people (the working class and yeomanry), sharing their ‘true’ sorrows, and admiring their self sufficiency.  In the highly regulated dress etiquette of the eighteenth century, and quite frankly because it was impractical, one did not wear the same clothes in the Country as one wore to Court. And Werthur’s disparaging comments on the people at Court and what they wore indicate that he has the fashionably disdainful attitude towards its artifice that should be expected of a well read, thoughtful man of his century.  It’s all very Rousseauian. There is a passage where he lifts his own plain, blue Country coat to almost reliquary status, mostly because it was what he was wearing when he first met his love interest Carlotta (who is engaged to and in love with someone else when he meets her, but he insists on falling in love with her — sorry — is helpless to fall in love with her anyway).  I told you it was all very annoying.  The other reason he holds this plain coat in such high esteem is that it is a representation of the real, uncorrupted TRUTH of the Country, etc. And Werthur is ever so happy to be rid of his Court finery when he is fired from his position in the Ambassador’s employ. I think you get the point. Not that he stops making it for another hundred pages, or so.

The thing I found most striking is that while we no longer have ‘Courts’, this attitude is still prevalent in our own society. Perhaps it is even reflected in the fact that what we call simply a pump or a high heel in American English, is referred to as a “Court shoe” in British English.  Though I’ve not done enough research there to say for certain.  It is still true, though, that to care about your clothes and appearance, or fashion in general, and especially both deems you superficial and frequently stupid. You don’t have anything better to do with your time, so you go shopping, etc. The film of The Devil Wears Prada seems to bear this out, the plain, practical but passionate young journalist gets a job at a fashion magazine so she can make rent and is corrupted by shiny, pretty clothes, finally making her way back to ‘true’ journalism at the end.

There is a sort of reverse vanity among certain people that is expressed through intentionally NOT paying too much attention to your clothes. When I was in Oregon this time last year (and admittedly, I was in Portland for less than 24 hours, so I might be doing that lovely city a disservice), I swear everyone was in hiking or all-weather gear of some sort. No doubt proving they were down-to-earth, no-nonsense sorts of people. Or maybe it was just that it is almost always raining or misting up there.  But do you have to wear Northface nylon parkas and hiking shoes? Couldn’t even just a few people wear excellently cut trenchcoats and a nice pair of Wellies or riding boots?

I knew a young woman who had a history of being actively mean to people she ‘no longer had to see everyday’ during chance meetings (if she didn’t like them), of being rather nasty to others about their clothes while being extremely sensitive about her own, and who declared that she was lucky to be so ‘low maintenance’ because it made her such a good girlfriend. Her interpretation of low maintenance being that she didn’t wear make up or spend a lot of money on clothes. There is so much wrong with that entire situation that it would make for a book, not a blogpost (all human beings are high maintenance, full stop), but the fact remained that she didn’t adjust her conduct or her attitudes, but her closet. Why did she feel the need to neglect her appearance, rather than alter the part of her that thought it was okay to bully others? How did that prove she was ‘low maintenance’? Is it that we are such a visual society? Do things like this happen in other cultures?

I have sat in coffee shops listening to friends discuss how much they have spent on their clothing, trying to outdo each other with who had the lowest price tags. Why? I am possibly prejudiced, but I assumed it was to prove that they were far to busy being deep and intellectual to bother with things like clothes. Or maybe it was just one of those senseless competitions students will enter into for no actual purpose.

I do find myself wondering as I do my research what, precisely, says that because you care about your appearance, your clothes, or just clothes in general that you must not have anything else in your head? Whether you live in the eighteenth century, or the twenty-first. Yes, there are people who go over the top when it comes to shopping and appearance. But isn’t there an equivalent at the other end of the scale? Who’s to say that the man or woman dressed to the nines in New York City doesn’t have as much of an appreciation for nature as the rugged hikers of Oregon? Who’s to say that just because a woman loves make up and clothing that she’s not a deep thinker?

The eighteenth-century Court versus Country debate, that’s who. But I think it goes deeper.

In France, if a female politician dressed in the dowdy way most American and British women in politics do (Nancy Pelosi being an exception), she wouldn’t get elected. The French attitude is that if a person doesn’t take care of themselves and make an effort to present their best self to the world, how on earth can they be trusted to take care of a country?

Is it Protestant eighteenth century, then, that gave us these attitudes? Am I being too sensitive because these are criticisms of something I love? Is it possible that those who are so dismissive of clothing are dismissive out of insecurity? They are unsure and awkward about their clothes, so they belittle those who are not like the child who derides the toy of a friend that he actually covets. Or are they genuinely unconcerned and reacting to a world that, no matter how many philosophical treaties we write or read on the subject, does still judge based on appearance? That seems to be what David Mitchell is doing in this Soapbox rant:

You can’t judge a book by its cover because appearances can be misleading. Even carefully ‘unconstructed’ ones.

Feel free to weigh in.

Fairy Tales

I haven’t written any creative fiction since 2009 or shared any of my fiction publicly since 2000, when I won an award at a local young writer’s conference.  This is my first short story since then.  All rights reserved.

~

He was standing with his hands in his pockets in the archway where the castle’s portcullis would have been had it still had one when she first saw him. His posture was relaxed and casual, full of a seeming-self assurance she often craved for herself. There were holes in his jeans. His tee shirt fit well but not closely. There were imitation converse on his feet. It was not an outfit that had had much thought put into it, but it was an appearance that had been thought about enough to give the impression of not having been thought about.

She didn’t think any of this at the time. Thoughtfulness, analysis, and attempts at description and explanation would come many, many months later. After the first kiss. After the last.

No. At the time she didn’t really think anything at all. She’d been too locked in her own self doubting, unhappy, lonely, jetlagged thoughts to have any space left in her mind for anyone else. It was not until he began explaining to some of their wider-eyed fellow international students that queuing was practically a national past time in Britain that she even realised he was on the tour.

“Have you seen the movie of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?” she asked. He seemed cautious and a bit surprised as he turned to look at her through dark-rimmed spectacles. She noticed his eyebrow ring then, and another piercing in his left tragus. She noted under her rising level of uncertainty that they somehow didn’t look incongruous or particularly shocking on him. But, she was too busy feeling as though she was interrupting. That this interruption was being judged to do more than simply observe his appearance.

“I’ve read the book…” he replied warily. Before, his voice had been that of a seasoned performer. Not a professional, merely the confident tones of someone accustomed to attention and delivering comedic anecdotes to mates – or even strangers, she would learn later – down at the pub.

“Oh, so have I, it’s infinitely better,” her own voice was almost apologetic now, and she hated herself ever so slightly for it. “But there’s a scene in the movie where they’re dealing with the Vogons and Arthur steps forward and says ‘I’ll handle this! I’m British. I know how to queue!’”.

She could never remember afterwards if that was the first time she heard him laugh, or even if he did. But she had clearly passed the first test, because there was the shaking of hands, and the exchange of names, courses of study, places of origin and guarded anecdotes of why they’d come so far to do postgraduate work. A rather mundane, ordinary conversation. One that had already been gone through a few dozen times with other students. One that would be repeated many times again. But this one was different. More important and thus more cautious. At least for her.

Their tour group assembled then, the international university students mixed in with the regular tourists, foreign and British alike. Their guide had that same performer’s confidence, but with a professional’s flair, a Scottish accent, and a love of quotations. “It was a plan so cunning you could –“

“Pin a tail on it and call it a weasel,” she and her new acquaintance said in unison. There was a pause, they looked at each other and it was then that she realised how absolutely wonderful his smile was. And felt a flutter that it was directed at her. The potential in the moment was almost overwhelming. She would never know how she lost it.

The rest of the tour was fairly ordinary. But even two years later she could describe it in detail. The Stone of Scone did turn out to be rather dull and unremarkable. The tour guide quipped about how happy fathers were when their daughters announced they wanted to be married in St Margaret’s chapel, “because it’s a very small church”. She was the only one on the tour who knew Charles II had been the last king to have a Scottish coronation. The great hall was now an armour display room with a magnificent wooden ceiling. The War Memorial was poignant, and particularly arresting due to the names of the recent dead in Iraq and Afghanistan being daily updated in a simple three ring binder.

He never left her side.

They walked back to the university’s main campus together. It was a way she would come to know by heart in the next year, but that day she was oblivious to how she got back. They stopped at the University Shop to get drinks. He mentioned wanting to try Irn Bru, and explained it as the Scottish national soda, to which she replied that she knew that and had been meaning to try some, but had forgotten the name what with the jetlag and her visa issues. It sounded fake to her own ears, even though every word was the absolute truth.  He picked up a paper as well in order to do the crossword, “Later, though”.

It was a beautiful and completely un-Scottish day. The sun was out and it was quite warm… for Scotland. It was probably only about 18°C (65°F). At the end of her year she would consider it almost hot, and also be thinking in metric and Celsius as though she had done it her whole life.

But that day she was thinking that the weather was nothing like what she had expected it to be. That she was glad she had worn a dress, but wished it hadn’t been a sweaterdress – even a cotton one. They sat in George Square for hours, talking about everything and nothing. A couple – friends or lovers, it was hard to tell – sat doing a joint meditation a few feet away that ended in hugging. She kicked off her shoes to feel the grass between her toes and the grass was soft and greener than she believed possible. The air was clean and clear. There was a crispness to it that kept the chill from biting and the sun from oppressing. Their sodas were sweet, but still accustomed to American tastes, she did not yet find it too sweet.

She did not yet find hope a burden. And though she would have flatly denied it – and believed herself to be telling the absolute truth as she did – she still believed in fairy tales.

That night, at a university residences-organised pub crawl, they would learn they had the same favourite comedians. She would learn about his love for music and just how much she loved his laugh. And she would wish, and wish, and hope and wish. And she would ecstatically write all her wishes and hopes down and send them back to where she had come from. Three months later she would experience that first, priceless kiss.

Two years on, almost a year after it all ended, at the end of her more exhausting days she would look back, torn by pain, loss, loneliness, and regret and wonder where she had gone wrong. Sometimes cursing the day she ever thought of going on the castle tour. Sometimes questioning whether things could have, would have been different if only she’d had the confidence, self knowledge, the certainty she now possessed. Knowing she had only won those qualities through surviving the emotional turmoil and aftermath of The End.

She’d read Lao Tzu, Emerson, Dickenson, even Douglas Adams and JRR Tolkein, and embarrassing self help books borrowed from the library so that no one would see them on her bookshelves later. She finds the most comfort in an obscure poet, Yehuda Amichai.

And she goes to sleep, and dreams of a casually confident young man, with a bewitching smile and an enchanting laugh, standing in the stone archway of a Scottish Castle, asking her her name.

“They dismantled us

Each from the other…

A pity.  We were such a good

And loving invention.

An aeroplane made from a man and wife.

Wings and everything.

We hovered a little above the earth.

We even flew a little.[1]“

---

[1] Excerpt from ‘A Pity. We were such a good invention.’ by Yehuda Amichai.

久しぶり

The Clark Centre for Japanese Art and Culture is a small cluster of buildings set back from the road,  in the centre of a walnut grove outside of the small, central San Joaquin Valley farm town of Hanford.  It is very easy to miss if you don’t know to look for it. Once you find it, it is hard to believe you are in the Dairy Belt of California.

Photo by Elliot Kallen for Google Earth

It was founded in 1995, and I started going in late 2001 or 2002, after I’d started university as a Japanese language and culture major. It was at the Clark Centre, though, that I attended one of the most fascinating lectures I ever heard as a student of Japanese culture. There was a trunk show for kimono fabrics, with an accompanying talk from the man selling the textiles about the history of the kimono-making industry in Japan.  He discussed the proper way to wear the garment. He explained the history of sumptuary laws, particularly those relating to the Edo period.  It was the first time I’d ever even heard of sumptuary laws.  And there was the fabric…

I particularly remember a gorgeous, uncut bolt of fabric designed to be specially and precisely printed, in just the right amount for a single kimono, thus ensuring a unique garment.  The ingenuity required for this astounded my then-nineteen-year-old mind. It astounds my nearly twenty-nine-year-old mind, for that matter.  The bolt was a soft purple. Somewhere between lilac and lavender, with an asymmetric white and pink plum blossom pattern on it.  My mother offered to buy it for me, since custom- milled and printed silk was far beyond the budget of a university student.  Looking back nearly ten years later… I wish very much that I’d let her.

I forgot about the Clark Centre somewhere along the way. The same way I forgot my resolution to return to Osaka as soon as possible after I boarded my plane home at the end of my summer living there.

The Clark Center is a wonderfully unique museum.  I can say this for a fact, having been to a number of Asian Art museums over the years. Some of them in Asia.  It is set in a Zen garden with raked pebbles and carefully, asymmetrically placed stepping stones.  The museum space is modelled on a Japanese temple.  Indeed a temple piece depicting a dragon holding a pearl (symbolic of the Buddhist search for enlightenment) even adorns the ceiling after you enter the museum proper. You are only allowed to see it after you remove your shoes in a separate antechamber with two sets of doors that are not opened at the same time.

This serves to conserve the art pieces by regulating temperature and humidity levels, but it has a second purpose.  By imitating the practice performed at Japanese shrines, you are almost forced into a different mindset. One that prepares you to properly take in the beautiful pieces you are going to see, and which readies you for contemplation and meditation, a crucial aspect of Japanese art. The rooms of the museum — only two — are open.  There is no glass between you and the art.  But then again, you never wander through the museum alone, you are always accompanied by a docent or a curator.  This however is not as oppressive as it may seem, but instead enhances the feeling of intimacy.  The display platforms are tatami covered.  The walls are not actually rice paper, but they are the same colour.

I rediscovered the Clark Centre on Friday completely by accident.  Brainstorming about a possible CSA regional symposium paper idea — and spurred on by a conversation with Heather Vaughan, who explained that the paper could even be about collections of Eastern dress, or the influence of those styles on European/American clothes — I checked the Clark Centre website, and low and behold, not only are they hosting a two-part clothing exhibition, there was a lecture that night, from Seki Masumi on the wearing of kimono.

I have worn — and even danced in — yukata on multiple occasions. Living in Japan for an entire summer meant I experienced most of the annual matsuri. My mother purchased a yukata for me from a proper shop in San Francisco before I left, and then one of my host families actually gave me a yukata and obi, both of which I cherish and have dragged with me from place to place over the last decade. Two years before my summer abroad I had worn yukata for a performance put on by the Japanese Student Association at my university.  But I have never worn actual kimono. Even when I wore the yukata, my obi was always tied for me. For those who do not know, the obi is tied in the back, and has many, many meanings and can be extremely ornate. Or so I’d been told. I have never seen an obi tied in anything other than a butterfly bow by those walking in front of me to matsuri or during the dance recital.

Ms Seki is a master of the tea ceremony, which has very rigid rules about what can and cannot be worn. But it is one of the few areas of Japanese life where kimono is still required. She did a wonderful job of briefly explaining the history of kimono to an audience that was mostly ignorant of the garment’s traditions.  Later on, she answered questions magnificently.  There was some new information for me, though, despite all my courses and papers on Japanese culture and language.  According to Ms Seki, a graduate of San Francisco State University currently residing in Tokyo, most Japanese are actually terrified of wearing kimono in public because of all the rules regulating how it is worn: certain colours, patterns, and fabrics can only be worn during certain ceremonies and certain times of year; how you tie your obi, or your accessories, or the fabric you choose determines the level of formality which is extremely important depending on where you are going and what you are doing; cross the wrong part of the kimono in front of the other and you have dressed yourself as though you are a corpse (very, very bad luck).

There are now even academies and schools instructing people in how to wear the kimono, both because there are occasions where traditional dress is needed, and to preserve an art that is fading due to the ease, comfort and thus prevalence of western clothing. I knew from my time in Osaka that kimono were rare.  I did not know why until Friday.

Ms Seki did two demonstrations. The first, featuring curatorial assistant Virginia Soenksen as a model, was very traditional. As seen in the above photo, and in this one, which shows Ms Seki tying Virginia’s obi:

I do not have complete stage-by-stage photographs, but Virginia started out in cropped yoga pants and a tank top, and gradually, piece by piece, dressed herself (with Ms Seki explaining and demonstrating certain techniques along the way) from undershirt, to under-kimono, to kimono, to obi.

Virginia is largely responsible for the current exhibit on dress, very knowledgeable on the subjects, and took kimono-wearing classes while she was living in Japan for two years after university.

It was so much more informative to see rather than simply read the process for dressing in kimono.

The second demonstration was more “experimental”. Ms Seki’s one objection to the kimono schools was the way they bring uniformity to kimono-wearing.  Everyone is so terrified by the rules that they will not experiment and this saddens her, because everyone looks the same.  So, with her friend Sharon as a model, she dressed Sharon in a less traditional way: With the kimono more open in front to show off a silk blouse and the jewellery she had worn, pinning up the front of the kimono to reveal the beautiful burgundy lining, and adding a shawl and heels instead of the usual hapi or haori and zori.

My only criticism would be that this lecture pertained to mainland Japanese dress and how it is worn, while the current part of the exhibit is about the Ainu and the Okinawan traditional dress — two minority groups, often neglected in Japanese studies.  Surrounded by such contrasting aesthetics some sort of short explanation would have decreased confusion, and made the evening that much more educational.  However, as a demonstration of kimono and how to wear it — which is admittedly all the event professed to be — it was a fantastically informative evening. Even despite my own basic knowledge I came away feeling that I finally understood the place and the proper way of wearing the traditional garments of a society I dedicated the better part of my undergraduate career to studying.

The Clark Centre staff were indescribably helpful. Virginia, and the Head Curator, Dr Mark Andreas, were wonderfully patient and friendly.  More than willing to talk to me about the way in which kimono, like eighteenth-century European clothing, forces you into perfect posture, and comparing the aesthetics of the Ainu embroidery to the carvings done by Pacific Northwest First Nations.  They even promised a tour of the exhibit either on a Saturday when they are running curator-led tours, or a private tour by personal appointment if they have time (ie, look for an exhibit review in the coming weeks!).  I purchased the catalogue and look forward to reading it on my flight to Seattle tomorrow.

I’ve pulled my copy of the catalogue for the Museum at FIT’s exhibit, Japan Fashion Now out of the storage box in which it’s been living.  Looking through its photos is like I’m twenty years old again. Except the clothes I saw (and coveted) on kids in Harajuku that July are now on runway models and major museum mannequins.  My adolescence and early adulthood made museum-worthy. I thought I was just a misfit nerd.  Turns out I was cutting edge.  But there is more than nostalgia that has caused me to revisit these fashions and the memories they invoke.

Driving out of the walnut grove that night, I realised I had reconnected with something that I had loved with the all-consuming passion that only a sixteen- to twenty-year-old can possess, but from the perspective of someone who has reached adulthood.

I had forgotten about kimono, and that lilac fabric I’d wanted but wouldn’t ask for because it was so expensive, I’d forgotten my promise to myself to return to Japan. Somewhere along the way the dreams turned into day jobs, bills, and rent to be paid.  Then there were new countries to visit and cultures to explore.  The last fortnight seems to have been one in which I reconnected with myself, because for the second time in as many weeks… I seem to have found my way home. 唯今!

So this is what serendipity feels like…

When I applied to my master’s programme in 2009, I can safely say that the last thing I expected to be doing a year after graduation was working part time, for minimum wage, in the small, conservative town where I had been born.  I genuinely thought that when I got on the plane to Scotland I was embarking on a new life, in the wide, cosmopolitan world of international cities, and art, and all the things one dreams of when one is 26 and still believes in fairy tales.  I never expected to even look back, let alone come back.

But life is rarely what you expect. And it hardly ever turns out the way you plan.

What I have learned this week is that sometimes, that is a very good thing.

I have a new job. It is only part time.  It does not pay much. But it does pay me enough. And it makes up for it in time. Time for reflection, for fun, for family, for writing.

I work for a local yarn dyer, as an assistant in her studio.  I empty and scrub dye pots, then refill them again. I rinse yarn and soak yarn and skein it. It is the most physically exacting job I have ever held. But it is also the happiest. My coworkers are wonderful, friendly people. My boss is kind and generous with her knowledge (though not her dye recipes, of course!).

And I spend almost every moment of my working day in direct contact with fibre and textiles. I’ve been inspired in my own experiments, and expanded my understanding of the creation of two of my favourite things on earth: fabric and colour.

Serendipity is loosely defined as a happy accident, or as an event or ability to stumble upon good fortune.

I was standing barefooted (because with all that water about and having not yet purchased Wellies, I thought it best to preserve my shoes) in the yard — in the British sense of the word — behind the warehouse, which catches the sun and dries the newly dyed wool. I was turning those which still needed to dry, and twisting the dried colourways into hanks so they could be reskeined.  The concrete beneath my feet was gritty and warm. The sun was intensely bright in the way it only can be in central California in late summer. But there was a breeze that tousled my hair.  I had a loop of brightly coloured yarn in my hands, which was warm and trully sunkissed. I twisted it, took a deep breath and there it was: a moment of pure, unadulterated bliss.

I didn’t want anything more. I didn’t want anything less.  I was standing in the sunshine, twisting beautiful, brightly coloured, warm yarn around my wrists, with a soft wind dancing through my hair and across my arms.

I am in the last place I thought I would be.  I am in the last place I wanted to be.

But it feels like home.