Embroidered understanding — philosophical look at clothing reveals deeply human patterns of behaviour

With a few exceptions, philosophers have had little to say about clothes. Maybe this is because the topic seems frivolous, or feminine, unworthy of the attention of a predominantly male collection of thinkers. Perhaps, too, the transience of fashion, and the fact that clothes belong – quite literally – to the domain of mere appearance, also has something to do with it.

In A Philosopher Looks at Clothes, an engaging and in­­for­mative book, Kate Moran, philosophy professor at Bran­deis University in Wal­tham, Massachusetts, urges us to think again.

As Moran points out, clothing looms large in life. Every day we dress, deciding how many layers to wear and whether we need a coat – or might a cardigan suffice? We gaze critically at other people’s choices (“OMG, those shoes!”). We wonder how to rise to the challenge of an imminent Eurovision-themed party.

The original shame

From a historical point of view, also, our species-specific recourse to clothes stretches back to the earliest human society. In mythical time, it begins with Adam and Eve’s discovery, in shame, that they were naked. If fashion is transient, clothes, per se, are not.

Clothes, Moran tells us, serve three basic purposes: protection, modesty and decoration. At once, these introduce questions of deep philosophical interest. Are the purposes equally important?

Why, throughout human history, have we refused to settle merely for protection, desiring, for example, that a hat should be of some favoured colour or shape? To what extent do our decorative choices express our personal identity? Do clothes ever qualify as works of art? Why is modesty an abiding concern, given that we all know the contours of the unclothed body?

In many contexts, and especially today, clothes invite ethical and political assessment. Clothes communicate a great deal of information about us, including our social position and the causes we espouse.

We may knowingly exploit this, choosing to flaunt an obviously expensive garment or to wear our football team’s scarf. In other cases the meanings are imposed. The uniforms forced on prisoners, for example, emphasise subordination and erase their individuality.

Poignantly, research into textile history has uncovered a streak of resistance in even the most ill-­treated captives. In concentration camps during World War 2, some prisoners altered their uniforms or mended them, or added pockets. As Moran re­­marks, these actions were not just practical: their aim, too, was to “recover some sense of identity and dignity”.

Enriching perspectives

In the brilliantly conceived series by Cambridge University Press, to which this title belongs, each author discusses a general topic from a perspective that is philosophically informed and at the same time personal.

We need more books like these, to counteract the entrenched pretence of disinterestedness in philosophy. (Nietzsche, exceptionally, saw through it, denouncing philosophers as “advocates who do not want to be seen as such… sly spokesmen for prejudices that they christen as ‘truths’.”)

Knowledge of the significance, in an author’s life, of her subject matter enriches the reader’s imaginative experience of a book. Describing herself as an “ardent hobbyist” who sews her own clothes, Moran provides an additional facet to her account of today’s fashion industry and its scandalous environmental costs.

The reader knows that Moran herself has found an alternative. This lends a certain authority to her judgement that, however futile it may seem for any one person to step off the fast-­fashion bus: “There is an important moral difference between being inefficacious and being innocent.”

Moran shows how many areas of philosophy can illuminate the phenomenon of clothes: not only ethics and political thought, but also aesthetics, theories of communication, of personal identity, of gender and cultural appropriation.

For readers unfamiliar with academic philosophy, these forays offer a path into a rich conceptual landscape. Along the way, we are offered a multitude of riveting facts. Who would have guessed that pink has not always been for girls, and blue for boys? And there are pictures, too. My highlight was the “revenge dress” that Princess Diana wore to a gala dinner amid hostilities with Charles, in a successful bid to divert press attention from his appearance on television. DM

First published by The Conversation.

Sarah Richmond is an honorary associate professor of philosophy at University College London in England.

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.