One Sling-back at a Time (I)

"Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society."

Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)
"Sling-back (or slingback): shoe with strap for heel; a woman's shoe that is open at the heel and is held on the foot by a strap."

Encarta

I have a keen interest in fibers, textiles and costuming. My interest runs so deep that I once spent a summer in a stifling hot, dusty wool shed in West Texas measuring the relative diameter of mohair fibers in microns. This led to a graduate degree and, for reasons that are lost to me now, I went so far as to enter a Ph.D. program in textile studies.

Thankfully, I abandoned it when I found myself writing a paper in my first semester on the symbolic meaning of brass buttons on navy blue blazers. I realized that if I didn't jump off that particular academic trolley, I could easily spend the rest of my days teaching button theory, researching comparative button technology and publishing increasingly esoteric papers on the brass button prior the Industrial Revolution.

Despite my pleasure in the ancient arts of textiles and costuming, I wasn't quite ready for a career spent looking through a microscope at a snippet of fiber retrieved from a desiccated bog person. I wanted a little more excitement.

Still, the education added to my rather large Catalogue of Non-Marketable Skills and if you ever need to know, I am happy to tell you the difference between a weskit and a wimple, or a blouson and a bliaut. I am doing all of this fascinating sharing to establish my credentials as a costuming commentator. Like anyone trained in a field, the world for me isn't just filled with people who are dressed; the simple act of dressing is saturated with levels of meaning and signals and I never tire of parsing out the nuances.

I look at the middle-aged woman tottering up Court Street on a slippery sidewalk in boots with heels so high they are generally reserved for women in the "trade", or adolescent girls going through a provocative costuming phase, and I pause for an analysis. I see the guy with the $3000, three pound dive watch manacled to his wrist when he is, clearly, not in the water and I think, to quote Dan Neil, writer for the Los Angeles Times, that a watch "guaranteed watertight to 300 meters, or 984 feet, …means that at that depth, [his] lifeless corpse would know what time it is."

I do not judge. (Well…maybe I judge a little. Don't get me started on pants worn under skirts. Like my friend Kim said, "Once I've got my pants on, I'm pretty much dressed."). But I do like to ponder the "why" of it all. Given the vast panorama of costuming possibilities, why do men and women make this choice or that? What possesses swarms of tourists to tour in satin sweatsuits, and men of a certain age to embrace the zippered jumpsuit? Why do women who aren't trolling for a client wear the sort of clothing that suggests that they are? Why do men who don't actually play professional sports wear jerseys that indicate they do, or what possesses them to wear cowboy boots and a Stetson if riding the range is never a part of their professional activity?

I know! I know! I have my hand up! Ask ME!

You see, beyond the need for protection and utility that clothing provides, almost all of us have the simultaneous social need to blend in with our pod AND stand out as an individual from it. We are walking transmitters sending out signals that say, to one degree or another, "This is who I am; these are the ways that I am like my cohorts and these are the ways that I distinguish myself from them. Please find me interesting, impressive and attractive. Or, in the alternative, please notice that I don't give squat about what you think and I am dancing to the beat of my own bongos." Or, in some cultures and religious traditions, the message is "through my dress, I express my conformity."

This is hardly confined to Western or modern behavior. Back in the Roman day, the color purple (squeezed out of a recalcitrant mollusk found exclusively in the Mediterranean) was reserved, on pain of death, for Cesar; totalitarian regimes place a high value on conformity of dress (see Mao and the Cultural Revolution and Nazis); around the world costuming is used to interpret class, status, profession, wealth, caste, rebellion, gender, and dominance as well as religious adherence (we are all familiar with the level of costuming control that authorizes the execution of women who resist the clothing police).

A complete lack of interest in clothing and appearance (outside of the restrictions imposed by poverty) is generally associated with depression or mental unwellness. You cannot wrap a sheet around yourself and tie it with a bungee chord and expect to be accepted wherever you go. Regular society will flex to some degree to your costuming whims which may become standard over time (see the Utilikilt or Goth crypt-wear), but if your outfit isn't within a range of what is recognized as "normal" against the background of your culture or social strata, you may find it difficult to find acceptance, employment and friends.*

All of that said, dramatic shifts in costuming often parallel (or even predict) dramatic shifts in the social/political landscape. As the newly formed America lost its European ties, and the French Revolution brought its own reforms, men rejected the velvet waistcoats, knee-breeches and ruffled shirts of the French court. Skirts came up and corsets came off after WWI, and the frivolous revealing Jazz era costumes that followed reflected the loosening of the previously strict moral and political code (women won suffrage in 1920 with the 19nth Amendment). Women began wearing pants during WWII out of necessity (it's hard to rivet in a skirt) and a fabric shortage. They then embraced the ultra-feminine, fabric-indulgent fashions of the 50s when their welding services were no longer in demand, while men shed their suits and hats in favor of sport shirts and casual trousers. These were more comfortable times, and Americans felt themselves relaxing.

The costuming pendulum reached its modern extreme in the 60s when non-conformity became the New Conformity and people embraced costume in order to reflect personal mythologies: "I am a Bohemian Free-Spirit Artist"; "I am an Earth Mother"; "I am a Seeker of Eastern Enlightenment"; "I am Jack Kerouac"; "I am a Disenfranchised Person with Revolution in my Belly"; "I am on a Heavy Psychedelic Trip"; "I am Aligned with the Native Peoples"; "I Embrace Peace, Love and Understanding." For costume historians, the 60s are complete Nirvana.

Since then, costume trends have been swinging, slowly, more to center. There was some flamboyance in the 70s and 80s mirroring trends in music and film (Thriller, Flashdance, Saturday Night Fever), but that was offset by the sobriety of more conservative politics. Women put on suits, men put on Dockers and oxford shirts and the fringe vest vanished from normal reality. Despite a few efforts to reintroduce velour (AGAIN! I believe that I'm on my Fourth Velour Revival and Third Gaucho Pant Epoch), and the Goths notwithstanding, costuming innovation has been relatively inert, mirroring, I think, a period of status-seeking, and cultural anxiety. Until now…now we are witnessing the Dawn of a New Costuming Age and I am aquiver.

We are wading into the pool of Consciousness Costuming and, from what I can tell, we are about up to our knees. It all started with alternative fibers. Fiber technology has exploded in the last 15 years and those of us who get all misty-eyed when we pet a new fabric have had plenty to keep us enchanted. The advent of Tencel, synthetic fleece, and microsuede has all made me grateful to be alive. I remember when I first fell in love with Tencel. What a great fabric…soft and drapey like heavy, heavy silk, yet washable and sturdy. Made from renewable trees on Tencel farms. Tencel…the fabric of the gods.

Then synthetic fleece came along. Millions of Northern Dwelling Children no longer suffered 26 layers of itchy wet wool, rendering them virtually immobile (and cold) out of doors in winter. Fleece, made from recycled plastic soda bottles. It's washable; it comes in gorgeous colors and dozens of textures and weights. Cozy, cozy fleece. It's a much better world since the microsuede couch came along. It looks something like suede, but the back of your legs don't stick to it in summer. It's stain repellent and can be wiped down with a damp cloth. It's sturdy, it's attractive and it's made from your old plastic Pepsi bottles.

Beyond the utility and comfort of these fibers is the call to provide the market with textiles that reflect a new awareness of environmentally degrading evil. Consumers of the past did not require any special environmental friendliness from their fabrics (with the possible exception of animal fur) - they were purchasing on the basis of comfort, convenience and appearance. A certain rekindled romance with natural fibers (wool, silk, linen, cotton) began in the 60s-70s when synthetic fabrics felt horrible and rayon still looked cheap. This was offset by the convenience of polyester and polyester blends for people (mostly women) who had entered the work force and no longer had an entire day to devote to ironing the family sheets. But consumers did not agonize over the impact a pima cotton shirt or a non-sustainable harvested silk scarf could have on Mother Earth.

Until just after WWII, cotton was still produced in the old fashioned, organic way. The population explosion of the last century, however, increased the demand for cotton, and, simultaneously, new chemical weapons were developed to destroy the pests that attack it. The list of the environmental evils that conventionally grown cotton produces is boggling. Many of the pesticides sprayed on cotton are likely carcinogenic, and about 25% of insecticides used worldwide are applied to cotton. The resultant run-off can go directly into water systems.

Additionally, cotton is used primarily for fiber and is not regulated as a food crop. But cotton oil is used in processed foods, and cotton straw and cottonseed meal from the gin is added to the feed of beef and dairy cattle, which, in turn, emerges in the food supply. It gets even worse when you consider that the drift from aerial spraying ends up far from the cotton fields. Cotton creates an environmental mess, for sure, and concerned consumers are creating demand for alternatives.

So, here's the set up. For purposes of discussion, let us agree that people make clothing choices out of both necessity and a need to express themselves psychologically and aesthetically within relative societal norms (can you believe I went to grad school for this nonsense?). If this were not the case, the thong swim suit could never find a willing backside to wedgie, the 4" inch heeled boot would never be seen teetering along in a remote coastal village in the Pacific Northwest, and the snapped-front Western shirt would never find an extended belly to span, etc.

Times and attitudes change and shift and the relative desirability of a Members Only jacket or a tube top waxes and wanes accordingly. Clothing norms become more or less rigid as political and social beliefs come and go (for the most part, female American students were not allowed to wear pants to elementary school until around 1970). And ideas of what is culturally acceptable and decent (see whalebone corsets, bifurcated pantaloons and the Speedo swim trunk) are constantly being revised, not because of fashion designers, but as a reflection of current values.

An emerging "green" consciousness that began with alternative energy, building materials and agriculture has begun to blossom in textile and clothing production that, somehow, has gotten blended with the veganism, the practice of yoga and Buddhism - both Zen and Tibetan. After all, the market place abhors an unfulfilled consumer impulse. And, predictably, this has all fulminated in some erstwhile and hilarious examples of yet another consumer trend that started out with good intentions and now is going wildly astray. And that is exactly where we will pick up the fascinating topic of Consciousness Clothing next time (or the time after that).

But, until then, let me reassure you that the problem is being addressed. You will be relieved, no doubt, to learn that designer Stella McCartney only works with organic materials. According to the ad in the March 2007 edition of Domino Magazine (page 144) Stella "never sacrifices quality of style, or strays from her vegan beliefs."

Thank Gaia McCartney's new line of summer sandals are made from organic rubber and natural jute. These sandals are so organic that I presume that when you tire of wearing them, you leave them in a dark closet and there, they spontaneously compost themselves. The pair pictured, however, is not entirely organic as its deep peacock blue color is not found in nature unless the dye was obtained by juicing actual peacocks. The shoes cost $545. Stella, bless her, is striving to save the planet one pair of sling-backs at a time.

* As an example of counter-costuming, young New York drug runners are advised to wear ball caps, cloth jackets, Eddie Bauer jeans, moderately priced sneakers, short hair, eyeglasses and collared shirts to avoid notice.

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Ingrid divides her life between the San Juan Islands (where her heart lives) and Austin, Texas (where her paycheck is generated). While Ingrid is spiritually promiscuous, she credits her guru, Jimmy Buffet, for her mantra ..."If we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane."

Ingrid is an old-school Libra and believes that the Revolution should be a catered event.

Her column appears every other Thursday in San Juan Islander. To contact Ingrid, send emails to ingrid@sanjuanislander.com

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