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Everyone should dress the same...

  
  

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Tom Coates
22:58 / 19.03.04
So here's my theory. Basically everyone at present uses their clothes to "express themselves" in some way. But realistically, clothing is one of those places where it's more than possible to lie and where the rich and the shallow can lie more convincingly. So my question is why do we let this continue? Why aren't we all wearing exactly the same clothes? Wouldn't that make it more simply to actually start forming impressions upon people based upon who they are and what they do/say rather than on how expensive their shoes are?
 
 
gravitybitch
03:07 / 20.03.04
Since we're all different people, how would wearing the exact same clothes be honest?
 
 
gravitybitch
03:11 / 20.03.04
Not trying to be flippant, there....

But it seems deeply flawed to "blame the clothes" rather than the {potential} liar wearing them or the assumptions you make about someone based on their clothes.
 
 
beelzebub jones
03:24 / 20.03.04
everyone that isn't blind relies on visual clues to suss out other people. it's natural and we all do it. clothes are just a part of it. okay, lets say everyone starts wearing gray flannel jumpsuits or moo moos with a zipper up the front. that's pretty egalitarian. the ones with beautiful faces or the ones who fill out their jumpsuits nicely are going to have an edge. i think that in the future, when we're all augmented by visual enhancers, we will look upon others and not see a physical representation of them, but more like a logo that they've chosen. some may appear as a bright green triangle, others may look like a t-rex and still others may float in a bubble like glenda the good witch. true equality will come when people see us as we would see ourselves. until then and probably after, when you look at my feet, they will scream prada.
 
 
Tom Coates
08:59 / 20.03.04
I suppose to answer that initial question, I'd propose an analogous situation - we're all different people but at present some people judge other people on the basis of their regional accents. We do not - however - tend to judge people on the basis of their eye-color or blood-type or group people together by generic groups of 'good at music' vs. 'good at painting'. Each of these things could be considered a criteria for establishing the uniqueness and difference of human beings, but they're not normally that obvious to people as we pass by them in the street - they're not advertised characteristics. My feeling would be that the characteristics of ourselves that we advertise through clothing are too easily gamed and skewed towards the advantage of certain groups - they're not expressing aspects of our bodies or fundamental aspects of our character (how honourable we are, how fun we are or how creative we are). So why wouldn't it be better if bumped down the importance of such criteria down to the level of eye-color or 'more musical' vs 'more arty' or eye-color - ie. basically invisible? By having everyone's clothes the same people would come to completely ignore them and look for information about the person in other places - like (for example) actually how they behaved.
 
 
Jack Fear
15:16 / 20.03.04
Hm.

Anybody here have any practical experience with this--e.g., go to a school where uniforms were required? Or serve in the military?

The school uniform case, in particular--the levelling effect of uniforms is often used as an argument for requiring them in US schools: the thinking is that it would break down social barriers between rich and poor kids, and force them to judge each other on the content of their character.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmaybe.

I dunno: it sounds rather simplistic to me. But then, I've no practical experience in a uniform-required environment. Anyone?

Perhaps more important, from an aesthetic viewpoint: what clothing should everyone wear? Black rubber mini-dresses? Jumpsuits? Russian Army greatcoats and kilts? Crotchless leather chaps and bustiers?
 
 
Tom Coates
15:52 / 20.03.04
I have to confess - I went to a school with school uniforms and I hated them completely. But I dont' think that's necessarily a function of wearing the same clothes as much as it is to do with the really nasty quality of them and how badly assembled they are.
 
 
Jack Fear
16:22 / 20.03.04
Dude, you have like the most meta ficsuit name EVER.
 
 
gravitybitch
16:34 / 20.03.04
Being artistic isn't a basic portion of someone's personality?

I'd rather hang out with artists than investment bankers, and it's rather easy to tell the difference; I'm still not convinced that there's a problem with the clothing of each.

How about treating clothing as an indicator? If somebody "lies" with their clothing, they're likely to be dishonest elsewhere?
 
 
Phex: Dorset Doom
16:55 / 20.03.04
I also went to a uniform wearing school, several in fact, and having a uniform is only effective for promoting equality for about a day. After that everybody's smelt out the people they're going to be hanging around with for the next six years. I'm surprised some post-straight-edge style movement hasn't evolved that actually does have a uniform in order to be judged by who they are instead of what they wear. (Don't know why, but this thread reminds me of that story about how on the set of Planet of the Apes the people dressed like chimps only hung out with other people dressed like chimps and the same for the gorrillas and ourangutans) As for what, I would think some sort of jumpsuit, biege or brown, not too baggy.
 
 
gravitybitch
18:20 / 20.03.04
Beige jumpsuit?

I think I'll go commit suicide right now!!!

[foils suicide barrier on Golden Gate Bridge]

EEEE

EEE

E

e


**SMACK**

(blurpp)

(O)

(o)


(.)


Seriously, I think there's a basic mistake in trying to equate behaviors like "honesty" with cultural signifiers (what else is clothing?? Calling Deva and Haus...)
 
 
Tom Coates
09:58 / 21.03.04
Oops. Should apologise to all. The Barbelith user name is one that I occupied very early on, basically to stop other people pretending to be 'official'. I use it for testing still (I keep them logged in on two different browsers to make things work for both members and admins) and on occasion I accidentally post using the wrong one.
 
 
gingerbop
13:51 / 21.03.04
How to you propose, Tom, that they make a standard uniform for 6 billion people, of suitable quality and assembly? Cause that'd be a big factory, and what if there began elitism of which factory yours came from?

But personally, if it were to be, we should all wear something like my new hot-pantsuit. Suitable for all occasions.
 
 
adamswish
15:55 / 21.03.04
how creative we are

surely the combination of clothes reveals a little about this portion of a human.

And the bigger question to gingerbop's "how do we make so many uniforms?" is "Who decides what the uniform is to be?"

Not that it matters. A persons sense of theirselves will show though the uniform. Speaking as another casualty of a school with uniform you quickly get signals and signs. From the few who stick to the full uniform throughout the five years; to those sneakily adding named brands (but in school colours) into the mix, to those who flount the rules totally. Whether clean-cut and shiny or slobby/slacker kids personalities will shine through.

Or I could just take the piss and reply that if you hadn't noticed Tom the majority of people do wear the same clothes already
 
 
Tom Coates
20:29 / 21.03.04
Hm. Without wanting to sound kind of ridiculous, I'm not sure talking about how ludicrously difficult such a world would be to achieve is really the point. I suppose what I was hoping or was not so much the discussion of how you might enforce a culture's universal dress code, but a rather more run-of-the-mill discussion about how/if we use our clothes to invest / create our personality, how implicated is clothing in the perpetuation of inequality and whether or not - in the abstract - we would be better off if there was less investment or interest in what people were wearing. More generally - and I suppose more tendentiously - I'm kind of vaguely interested in other kinds of 'personalisation' and 'fashion'-modularity - for example what's the difference (if any) between people using their clothes to 'express themselves' and buying some pointless snap-on cover and frustratingly awful ring-tone for their mobile phone on the basis that they'd be then perceived to be somehow "really wacky".
 
 
Trebor
10:22 / 22.03.04
My experience of going to school with a uniform is that you pick up on details alot more. One of my teachers once comented that she couldn't recognise half the school on a non-uniform day as there was a sensory overload. I guess we'd adapt and pick up more on nuances, like stroking an ear, accents, and things like that to compensate.

Another point (vaguely related) is that no matter how much effort you put into your outfit, you can never choose how other people will interpret it. I mean, if someone has a similar culture or interests, then they'll be more likely to gain the interpretation you want them to, otherwise the simulacrum of your personality that you had put so much effort to creating could be grossly misjudged and render the opposite effect in alot of people. (Not neccessarily the majority, but even if it was just 10% it would amount to a large number if you're a city dweller.)
 
 
Tryphena Absent
12:20 / 22.03.04
how/if we use our clothes to invest / create our personality, how implicated is clothing in the perpetuation of inequality and whether or not - in the abstract - we would be better off if there was less investment or interest in what people were wearing

I don't think that there's any doubt that people perceive each other through their clothes. The image that we present is important because our treatment to an extent is dependent on it. The thing is that you can never be aware of the effect that clothing is going to have on the people around you so while you might be creating a personality through your clothes you may not get the desired reaction to that personality.

Clothing in school is about popularity and there's a reason why uniforms fail- kids create their own culture around it. In my school it was all about rolling your skirt up, wearing the wrong colour socks and untucking your shirt. Some people did that, some people did the exact opposite in some lame attempt to stick a finger up at popularity thus making themselves weird. My point here is naturally that putting humanity in to identical clothing is never going to work because people will individualise it. We all need to feel different, I might suggest better, than the people around us and we do this through image and we will always do this. Clothes are a powerful tool... religion and the way it uses dress is maybe the best way to consider that power.

That leads on to the question- how implicated is clothing in the perpetuation of inequality. The answer is very implicated but the truth is that unless you turn humanity in to a bunch of mindless zombies there's nothing you can do about that inequality. You face the cause not the effect and you always get a better, long term outcome. The cause is social inequality and the clothes are only the effect.
 
 
diz
13:32 / 22.03.04
Wouldn't that make it more simply to actually start forming impressions upon people based upon who they are and what they do/say rather than on how expensive their shoes are?

your whole argument is predicated on a false dichotomy between identity in social context and some sort of truer, more authentic essential identity. the idea that there's a "real me" under all the layers of social identity is basically false. the fact is that our identities as individuals are defined by our context in a larger social network, and in that network, fashion and choices relating to appearance and presentation are part of "who people really are." we make choices as to how to present ourselves, and in the context of a society full of people wearing clothes those choices are indicative of a whole host of aspects of our identities, most immediately class and gender, but also subcultural loyalties and the like. clothing is part of communication, and it's every bit as valid a part of identity as anything else.

That leads on to the question- how implicated is clothing in the perpetuation of inequality. The answer is very implicated but the truth is that unless you turn humanity in to a bunch of mindless zombies there's nothing you can do about that inequality.

well said. in general, i don't think inequality per se is a problem that can be fixed, and i'm not sure that we should even want to fix it. i think it's a more realistic and probably better goal overall to work towards making sure that power is decentralized and bascially fluid, that the disparity between the high end and the low end of the power spectrum isn't too great, that the standard of living at the low end, and to break up aggregations of power and resources to prevent sclerosis of the system. i don't think we can get rid of power relationships, but we can try to make sure that exploitation of the less-powerful by the more powerful doesn't get out of hand, and that power centers shift around a lot to make sure that the same people aren't getting shit on all the time and that people with power at any given moment aren't able to use that power to game the system to increase their advantages.
 
 
adamswish
13:34 / 22.03.04
I may be wrong but I think Tom is edging towards the question of why fashion is used as short-hand in showing a persons character.

To add to Tom's example of the clip-on mobile covers and ringtones you could add the business man in the Mickey Mouse socks or Simpson's tie, trying to break from the image that his suit is giving off. A kind of "Hey I may be working for the man, but I'm a wild and crazy guy underneath this apperrance".

Personally I always hate those kind of guys (and they are usually blokes). Yes as a youngster I hated the suit but I've come to realise the image power a decent suit gives off and can't understand why a) they would want to dilute that power, and b) why they feel the need to show this element of their character anyway?

Of course if I've totally mis-read your last statement Tom feel free to shoot me down in flames...
 
 
diz
13:36 / 22.03.04
More generally - and I suppose more tendentiously - I'm kind of vaguely interested in other kinds of 'personalisation' and 'fashion'-modularity - for example what's the difference (if any) between people using their clothes to 'express themselves' and buying some pointless snap-on cover and frustratingly awful ring-tone for their mobile phone on the basis that they'd be then perceived to be somehow "really wacky".

there's no difference at all. both are part of the memeplay that's an essential part of the human experience.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
14:35 / 22.03.04
That's nonsense, of course there's a difference. On dressing in a certain way you are writing your body. That's a very significant thing. Clothes change the shape of you, patterns make you bigger and smaller, necklines make you top heavy. Clothes make you, they control people's perception of you. A mobile phone cover does not write your body, it's a thing you carry around with you, it might be expressive but it doesn't work in the same way.
 
 
diz
15:20 / 22.03.04
To add to Tom's example of the clip-on mobile covers and ringtones you could add the business man in the Mickey Mouse socks or Simpson's tie, trying to break from the image that his suit is giving off. A kind of "Hey I may be working for the man, but I'm a wild and crazy guy underneath this apperrance".

Personally I always hate those kind of guys (and they are usually blokes).(emphasis added)

this is actually a perfect example of why clothes matter: you're reading cues in clothing to make an assessment about someone's identity. we do these sorts of things all the time, which is why fashion and design are important aspects of communication and identity.

That's nonsense, of course there's a difference. On dressing in a certain way you are writing your body. That's a very significant thing.

hmm. i definitely see the point you're making, but i don't think i'm buying it as a hard line of distinction. i will fully accept that writing the body in the manner you're talking about is a significant aspect of identity. however, i think that it's a sliding fuzziness from clothing proper through clothing accessories (hats, glasses, purses, jewelry, shoes, etc) to designed items carried on your person (cellphones and covers, mp3 players, backpacks, etc) and further from there into things like interior design of personal spaces and the design of your car and so on and so forth, not a hard break. all of it is part of the process of situating yourself in a certain position within cultural discourse, and so are all part of the same memeplay i was talking about. though i see your point about how clothes in particular affect perception in certain ways that other things don't, it could also be said that other specific elements of this kind of memeplay also have specific effects in certain contexts that clothing does not.
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
15:53 / 22.03.04
Okay, to go back to Tom's original point:

But realistically, clothing is one of those places where it's more than possible to lie and where the rich and the shallow can lie more convincingly.

Argh. There are very few places where the 'rich can't lie more convincingly'. If I'm rich and sitting a test, I can maybe bribe the examiner, or at least get the best tutoring/hypnotise the answers into my head/etc.

And I totally disagree with the notion that says that it is necessarily the more shallow you are, the better you are at using clothes to lie (or presumably to tell a truth?)

I'd chuck the example of the Black Panthers in here. Who utilised an incredibly nuanced understanding of dress/fashion in the service of a political cause. If there's power in these things, they can be adopted/manipulated.

Several points occur to me. That a uniform is never going to be uniform unless you somehow make everyone the same shape, colour, size, gender etc. And also, who would choose it? Would it be chosen for functionality only, or to be flattering. To whom?

All of which points are to say, I don't think you can do away with dress as indicator without the danger of doing some pretty dangerous universalising.

I went to non-uniform primary and uniformed secondary schools. In both, the fashionable kids stood out a mile, and childrens who's parents couldn't or wouldn't buy them fashionable clothes were bullied for it. Unless you enforce a regulation haircut, force people to move their bodies in the same way etc, you can't erase those differences. And to me, that's far too much interference with my body by an outside authority.
 
 
diz
16:36 / 22.03.04
Tom Coates:

But realistically, clothing is one of those places where it's more than possible to lie and where the rich and the shallow can lie more convincingly.

i second bengali in platforms' point here (i.e. show me an area of life where the rich don't have an advantage). also, i don't accept any real distinction between "shallowness" and its opposite (presumably "depth" or "authenticity"), since "depth" and "authenticity" are just as much social constructions as anything else.

bengali in platforms

I went to non-uniform primary and uniformed secondary schools. In both, the fashionable kids stood out a mile, and childrens who's parents couldn't or wouldn't buy them fashionable clothes were bullied for it.

ditto here. i went to a uniformed primary school, and a non-uniformed but semi-strictly dress-coded secondary school where i associated strongly with students at uniformed schools. there are always status and subcultural markers which pop up. accessories and hair are key here. also, different people wear the same uniforms differently - maybe the skirt rides a little lower on the waist here, maybe the top button is a bit more likely to be unbuttoned there, etc. that doesn't even begin to touch body language or voice cues (accent, tone, etc). inevitably, these differences become loaded with associations.

Unless you enforce a regulation haircut, force people to move their bodies in the same way etc, you can't erase those differences. And to me, that's far too much interference with my body by an outside authority.

well, even if it were possible to enforce such things, you'd still get drift and variable enforcement and differing prioritization and so on and so forth, which would inevitably give rise to variation, which in turn would inevitably become loaded with power issues.
 
 
Ex
09:51 / 23.03.04
I'm with the dizfactor - (or I'm hopelessly misunderstanding the dizfactor) - removing the options of clothing available wouldn't get us closer to perceiving people's authentic selves, any more than stopping people using adjectives would.
The "inner self" doesn't exist separately from "clothes". Clothes don't just lie or tell the truth about the inner me; they provide a range of available options for being with which I negotiate - and I come into existence in that process of negotiation. I'm not explaining that well. Umm, example: if I'd grown up in a world without anything that occupied the precise intersection of gender, class, sexuality and style that men's three-piece suits have in my neck of the woods, I'd be a totally different chap.

Oddly, I assumed I disliked and resented clothing, but since Tom started this thread, I've realised how much I enjoy and appreciate the opportunity to communicate with visual signals. Ta for that.
The money-thing is awkward. I was initially thinking, well, we could make all clothes the same price. But then that would remove the ability to communicate the sentiment "I feel that wearing this garment is worth this amount of my money." Which is an important statement also.
And I'm personally crap at reading many kinds of information provided by clothing - I can't recognise designer labels, I never know what's up to date. I could learn to read that kind of thing, and I try to make an effort if it's a friend, but I rather like being illiterate in that respect.
 
 
Saveloy
11:29 / 23.03.04
Accepting the fact that people make assumptions and snap judgements about each other based on visual clues etc - how seriously do people take their own assumptions, once they get beyond the hormone-poisoned teenage years? I tend to think of such assumptions as being products - prejudices, mostly - of the lizard brain, which must be assessed and dealt with appropriately by the more sensible higher brain. For instance, my instant lizard-brain reaction to someone wearing massively baggy jeans which reach to pavement level so that they soak up the puddles is "what a f---ing idiot." The more civilised bits of my brain will say: "it's only a pair of trousers and you've spoken to more than enough people in silly trousers to tell you that it isn't necessarily an indicator of their character, status or personality and that even if it is, it might only be a very weak indicator. Best put these assumptions (however sophisticated the structure supporting them is) in the recycling bin. If proven correct you can always fish 'em out again and crow about it."

Does everyone else only listen to their lizard brain? Or: am I wrong in my belief that the lizard brain is the origin of such assumptions?
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
11:56 / 23.03.04
"well, even if it were possible to enforce such things, you'd still get drift and variable enforcement and differing prioritization and so on and so forth, which would inevitably give rise to variation, which in turn would inevitably become loaded with power issues. "

Yep, and yep. And even if it were possible to do away with these cues, i don't think it'd be desireable, as variation is also what gives rise to individuality, creativity and identity.

Ex, are you illiterate in this respect? I don't personally think it's neccessarily a question of being able to identify designer labels. There's a whole set of 'grammar' (hear the sound of an overstretched metaphor about to snap!)/vocab etc. Designer labels are one set of terms/a dialect in the visual language of costume.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
12:24 / 23.03.04
Ah, it's that old fashion vs. clothes argument again!
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
12:45 / 23.03.04
the oldies are the goodies...
 
 
Bed Head
12:47 / 23.03.04
First, I think the whole point of uniforms is to establish and enforce boundaries between people: separating schoolchildren from teachers, workers from managers, or marking very clear distinctions between the various ranks in the military.

Second. I like being judged on my clothes. I like the fact that I can identify anyone who’s going to judge me for having useless cheap trainers, so I can avoid their poisonous presence without having to expend more energy than they’re worth in sussing out how shallow they are. Sometimes dressing up is fun, usually dressing down is very useful. And I fail to see why it would be desirable to rid the world of all lying. Lying, whether with words or with clothes, is one of those creative acts all people do almost every other day: it’s good for us, and it’s good for us to be able to recognise it in others. It’s malice and cruelty that I object to. And that’s more do-able with a uniform than without.


..Although coming in very late here, so I've probably misinterpreted the whole thread..
 
 
Saveloy
15:45 / 23.03.04
An alternative to Tom's idea: no limit on the styles available, but no one may choose their own clothes. That way, we keep the variety but no one can take credit or be blamed for the 'statements' their clothes make, so they become meaningless.

BiP:

"There's a whole set of 'grammar' (hear the sound of an overstretched metaphor about to snap!)/vocab etc. Designer labels are one set of terms/a dialect in the visual language of costume."

I think that encouraging illiteracy (or discouraging literacy) in this particular area might be another way to satisfy Tom's quest for the elimination of statements (in a 1984 limiting of language stylee) and encourage variety and boldness of style. I strongly suspect that the more you propogate the idea that clothes make statements about people, the more self-conscious people become about their choices and the less willing they are to take risks (the majority, anyway).
 
 
diz
17:33 / 23.03.04
Or: am I wrong in my belief that the lizard brain is the origin of such assumptions?

leaving aside my general dislike for setting things up as a binary opposition between the "lizard brain" and the "rational brain"i think you're wrong in your belief that the the lizard brain is the origin of such assumptions. i think this sort of thing is very much in the purview of the huge inflated homo sapien forebrain, the part that evolved in large part to deal with advanced language and complex social relationships.
 
 
Ex
11:06 / 24.03.04
Ex, are you illiterate in this respect? I don't personally think it's neccessarily a question of being able to identify designer labels. There's a whole set of 'grammar' (hear the sound of an overstretched metaphor about to snap!)/vocab etc. Designer labels are one set of terms/a dialect in the visual language of costume.

I was trying to think of what people might want to lie about using clothes - I would imagine that having money, or authority, might be near the top, at which point I thought that expensive clothing might be relevant.
I know that being able to distinguish a Prada handbag from 50 paces is only a fragment of clothes literacy. But I think I'm generally duff. This comes in part from being too skint (increasingly, unwilling also) to shop first-hand, so I have very little understanding of what shops sell what things, and what they mean to people. I don't tend to see things in ranges, seasons and brands - usually three years later in Oxfam divided into shirts and trousers. I'm not trying to sound deliberately elderly and motheaten but most clothes are just obscure interchangeable stuff to me. People will say things like (rackbrains) "Look, it's a deliberately deconstructed urban take on chinos" and I'll be thinking, "It's beige trousers". Similarly, while I know there are 1980s and 1970s revivals kicking around, a flowery shirt is a flowery shirt.
Shoes! A fine example. I haven't bought a new pair of girl's shoes in -it might be at least ten years. Because I have infeasibly big feet, which take up several square metres of floorspace. So I haven't had to make aesthetic decisions between different kinds and styles of girl's shoes, and come to understand what a particular shop offers compared to other shops. So now all girl's shoes, I noticed last week, look indistinguishably insane to me. This is really rough on anyone who has spent time, money and effort trying to communicate through the look of their shoes. For which I am quite sorry.

I know I could get my head round all this because I've become adept at reading different varieties of goth clothes (to communicate with goths), and some kinds of tailoring (because I like the aesthetic and the associations). I can tell an fake-Elizabethan corset from a fake-Victorian corset. But most things floor me. While I have a hypothetical understanding of the differences between Emo kids, skater boys, mod revivalists, trustafarians and so forth, I doubt I could pick them out of a lineup.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
11:20 / 24.03.04
So now all girl's shoes, I noticed last week, look indistinguishably insane to me

Arrrggghhhhhh! We're going to the shoe shop missy and you're getting a lecture.

No, really, girl's shoes look insane to everyone (well, to me too) and thus the need to buy the most insane pair everytime I go shoe shopping.
 
 
Ex
13:10 / 24.03.04
[Wriggling and procrastinating] Yeah, but then I'll learn to read a pair of femme-is-the-new-butch manga-schoolgirl kitten-heel tea-dance lilac formal ankle-boots, and then come the Winter collection I'll have to do it all over again.
And I'll tell the assistant my size and she'll laugh and I'll cry.
 
  

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