Daniel Miller - Stuff

Why Clothing is not Superficial

When I began my career as an academic, committed to the study of material culture, the dominant theory and approach to the study of things was that of semiotics. We were taught that the best way to appreciate the role of objects was to consider them as signs and as symbols that represent us. The example that was most commonly employed to illustrate this perspective was that of clothing, since it seemed intuitively obvious that we choose clothing for precisely this reason. My clothing shows that I am sexy, or Slovenian, or smart, or all three. Through the study of the differentiation of clothing we could embark upon the study of the differentiation of us. Clothes might represent gender differences, but also class, levels of education, cultures of origin, confidence or diffidence, our occupational roles as against our evening leisure. Clothing was a kind of pseudo-language that could tell us about who we are. As such, material things were a neglected adjunct to the study of language: an apparently unspoken form of communication that could actually speak volumes once we had attuned ourselves to this capacity. Anthropological discussions by Mary Douglas and Marshall Sahlins, amongst others, that advocated this approach seemed to suggest a whole new significance to the study of stuff.

There is no doubt that material culture studies was significantly enhanced by the arrival of this semiotic perspective; but ultimately it became as much a limitation as an asset. This chapter aims to repudiate a semiotic approach to things in general and to clothing in particular. Consider one of the best-known clothing stories. The Emperors New Clothes is a morality tale about pretentiousness and vanity. The Emperor is persuaded by his tailors that the clothes they have stitched him are fine to the point of invisibility, leaving him to strut naked around his court. The problem with semiotics is that it makes the clothes into mere servants whose task it is to represent an Emperor the human subject. Clothes do our bidding and represent us to the outside world. In themselves, clothes are pretty worthless creatures, superficial, of little consequence, mere inanimate stuff. It is the Emperor, the self, that gives them such dignity, glamour and refinement.

But what and where is this self that the clothes represent? In both philosophy and everyday life we imagine that there is a real or true self which lies deep within us. On the surface is found the clothing which may represent us and may reveal a truth about ourselves, but it may also lie. It is as though if we peeled off the outer layers we would finally get to the real self within. But what was revealed by the absence of clothes was not the Emperors inner self but his outward conceit. Actually, as Ibsens Peer Gynt observed, we are all onions. If you keep peeling off our layers you find absolutely nothing left. There is no true inner self. We are not Emperors represented by clothes, because if we remove the clothes there isnt an inner core. The clothes were not superficial, they actually were what made us what we think we are. At first this sounds odd, unlikely, implausible or just plain wrong. To discover the truth of Peer Gynt, as applied to clothing, we need to travel to Trinidad, from there to India, and then to use these experiences to re-think our relationship to clothing back in London.

Trinidad

The problem with viewing clothing as the surface that represents, or fails to represent, the inner core of true being is that we are then inclined to consider people who take clothes seriously as themselves superficial. Prior to feminism, newspaper cartoons had few qualms in showing women as superficial merely by portraying their desire to shop for shoes or dresses. Young black males were superficial because they wanted expensive trainers that they were not supposed to be able to afford. By contrast, we student academics at places such as Cambridge were deep and profound because frankly we looked rubbish, and clearly didnt much care that we did. When I met my wife as fellow students, my trousers were held up at the top with string and their hem at the base with staples. She must have thought I was deep, because there certainly wasnt much to attract her on the surface. Such assumptions are fine within the confines of Cambridge but a problem for an anthropologist going out to Trinidad. Because the point of anthropology is to enquire empathetically into how other people see the world. Dismissing them as superficial would represent a rather disastrous start to such an exercise. For Trinidadians in general were devoted to clothes, and knew they were good at looking good. Colourful prints and butterfly belts were a priority.

I worked much of my time in Trinidad with squatters who had neither a water supply nor electricity in the house. Yet women living in these squatters camps might have a dozen or twenty pairs of shoes. A common leisure activity was to hold a fashion display, on a temporary catwalk, along one of the open spaces within the squatters encampment. They would beg, borrow, make or steal clothes. It wasnt just the clothes, it was also the hair, the accessories and the way they strutted their stuff; knowing how to walk sexy and to look glamorous or beguiling. Movements were based on an exaggerated self-confidence and a strong eroticism, with striding, bouncy, or dance-like displays. In local parlance there should be something hot about the clothing and something hot about the performance. On evenings I could spend three hours with them, waiting as they got themselves ready to go out and party, trying on and discarding outfits until they got it right.

This association is hardly new for the region. Early accounts of slave society in the Caribbean include references to the particular devotion of slaves to clothing. A. C. Carmichael stated in 1833: Generally speaking, the coloured women have an insatiable passion for showy dresses and jewels The highest class of females dress more showily and far more expensively than European ladies. This desire was still more forcefully expressed during the 1970s oil boom in Trinidad when both seamstresses and their clients suggested that purchasing two new outfits a week was quite common for women in work. We do not necessarily condemn a population just because they show some devotion to stuff. Anthropologists celebrate, rather than demean, the devotion of Trobriand Islanders to canoe prows or of the Nuer to cattle. But curiously a devotion to clothing, as one can see from these descriptions by outsiders, was always viewed rather more harshly, especially for those without wealth.

As evident in the description of the local catwalk, what mostly concerned Trinidadians was not fashion that is, the collective following of a trend, but style that is, the individual construction of an aesthetic based not just on what you wear, but on how you wear it. There used to be a term saga boys for men who combined sartorial originality with ways of walking and talking that never let up from conspicuous display. Another local term gallerying gets it just right. Trinidad style, in turn, has two components, individualism and transience. The individual has to re-combine elements in their own way. The source of these elements is unimportant. They may be copied from the soap operas or the fashion shows which appear on television, sent from relatives abroad or purchased while abroad. They may simply re-combine local products. But the various elements should work together, be appropriate to the person who carries them off well, for ideally just one particular occasion. It didnt matter what clothes cost or even whether the clothes worn on the catwalk belonged to them or were borrowed for the occasion. This wasnt about accumulation, but about transience. The stylist may learn from fashion but only as the vanguard. Then they must move on. Trinidads best known cultural export, Carnival, enshrines this transience. Individuals may spend weeks, if not months, creating elaborate and time-consuming costumes. But these must be discarded and re-made annually. What is celebrated is the event, the moment.