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Underground > Art, Fashion & Design >

Everyone should dress the same...

  
  

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Tryphena Absent
13:37 / 24.03.04
What size are you??? You've woken my curiosity up. 5 years ago you couldn't buy a pair of size 8 shoes for love nor money in this cruel town but now they're everywhere. It's getting far better... just never buy pointy unless you want boats on your feet. Aaah, to be taller than I could pull it off.
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
14:44 / 24.03.04
Ex: thanks for that, v interesting.

I dunno if it's size as regards women's shoes, I'm a teeny size (4/5) and they all look weird to me as well.

Looking at my own shoes they comprise: flip-flops, trainers, boots, birkenstocks. And one pair of mary-janes, for interviews. Given to me by a friend after i'd borrowed them 20 times. And my feet look bizaaarrre in those.
 
 
Olulabelle
19:53 / 24.03.04
Can we not talk about shoes? I've got far too many already.

Wasn't it Einstein who wore the same clothes everyday (not the same outfit, but indentical items of clothing) in order that he might never have to think about what to wear?

I personally think that choosing which items of clothing we wish to wear is part of being creative and certainly open and honest about who we are. I would be being less honest about who I am if I wore a black shirt and trousers everyday, principally because it would bore me stupid.

I think dressing everyone in the same clothes would be a bigger lie altogether than letting them choose what they want to look like, and as for the rich/poor divide, as BiP says this is apparent in all aspects of life already. You'd have to change a whole lot more than the clothes we wear in order to create a more open and honest people.
 
 
Ex
09:39 / 26.03.04
I'm a size nine, Ms Logardiere. And they're wide and webbed and I can walk on top of snow with them, like an elf, because they spread my wieght so evenly; but I also have furry toes, like a hobbit.

I dunno if it's size as regards women's shoes, I'm a teeny size (4/5) and they all look weird to me as well.

Yeah, part of my illiteracy is not being fucked, with a bit of cross-dressing thrown in; if I was inclined towards ladyshoes, I'd be chasing down yeti suppliers and begging, borrowing, binding and stretching. Most men's jackets don't fit me and I'm in endless pursuit of them. So I've partially been edged out, partically opted out.

I've been thinking about people who find it difficult to communicate in face-to-face exchanges of flashing wit, but have an impeccable eye for communicating through appearance - I think adopting identical clothes would be unfair to these people, because their gifts are part of who they are as much as someone else's silver-tongued charm.
 
 
adamswish
12:57 / 26.03.04
no limit on the styles available, but no one may choose their own clothes.

So we have thousands of Trinnies & Susannes roaming the country putting us all in clothes that THEY have decided suit us.
Whoever choose's the outfit there is an image choice involved. Whether it's your own or a third parties interpretation of what you should wear. Just look at some of the tragic fashion mistakes parents make with their infant children.

And with the shoe thing: as a tall bloke (6'5") the one thing I hate about shoe shops is walkibng in and asking for my size (12) only to be offered the size below it. Don't they teach the staff just how important your feet are. I mean we all know how important it is (on a purely good health stage) to get the right bra size and that's only for 50% of the population.

Sorry for the rant, but it does get to me
 
 
Z. deScathach
18:52 / 26.03.04
The real question to me is, do we really want MORE social control. In the states, after the Columbine shooting, there was a huge push for school uniforms, and it was not about promoting equality. It was about promoting conformity. No matter how hard people may try, it is simply impossible to get people to not be creative with themselves and their personal articles. Even in regiems with enormously violent and repressive systems, there still has to be huge expenditures of energy in order to force conformity. The real question is, do we want more of that or less of it. In terms of myself, I was quite poor. I decided to glamour on that and play the "crazy shaman". Was I actually crazy and a shaman? Probably, but that's not the point. The glamour worked exactly as I wanted it to. People stopped screwing with me. So in that case, clohing for myself had a rather empowering effect, at least in enabling my intent to manifest. Human beings are enamored of power and rightly so, as it is the ability to do things. They will, IMO, consistently try to modify their environment in order to produce an effect. If the state tries to control that, it invariably has to use draconian measures in order to produce the kind of fear necessary to counter-balance that desire. State by definition is a body of both organization and control. The answer to the question, "Who would choose the uniform?", IMO, is obvious. The state would. Then of course the question, "How to force said individuals to wear the same clothing?", would come up. There has only been one emotion that can really be used in order to force persons to go against their natural proclivities.... fear. Fear works well because it is an emotion that is produced to avoid pain, which counter-balances pleasure, and expressing oneself through clothing is pleasurable. I have no doubt that there are males in my community that express themselves through cross-dressing. Still, you do not see that in my community expressed publicly. I have no doubt that the reason that you don't see that is due to the fact that a gay male was beaten to death awhile ago. The message that was sent was clear.... stay in the closet or you'll be killed. Personally, I would prefer a world where there was less of that, not more.
 
 
raelianautopsy
20:01 / 26.03.04
I think everyone should be forced to wear grey Mao Chinese unisex outfits. Girls look really cute with those Mao hats.
 
 
Saveloy
09:45 / 29.03.04
adamswish:

"So we have thousands of Trinnies & Susannes roaming the country putting us all in clothes that THEY have decided suit us."

You could do it that way, but I would prefer to keep it amateur, and to ensure that whoever chooses the clothes has as little information about the wearer as possible. Everyone would be responsible for choosing one other person's clothing (a bit like the old 'chopsticks in Heaven' story). Ideally it would be completely anonymous and none of those involved would knowingly meet each other, in order to avoid collaboration or fights. God knows how it would physically work, I shall have fun thinking about that.

"Whoever choose's the outfit there is an image choice involved. Whether it's your own or a third parties interpretation of what you should wear."

Oh of course, but the fact that the wearer of the clothes can take no credit/blame for making that choice makes all the difference. This scheme doesn't aim to eradicate choices, it aims to make them useless as clues to / statements of identity or personality - unquestionably useless (as opposed to the arguably useless status that they currently enjoy). That is why it is important that the person choosing the clothes has as little contact with the wearer as possible.

"Just look at some of the tragic fashion mistakes parents make with their infant children."

I'd like to see more of those tragic fashion mistakes, in fact they're the main source of inspiration behind this idea. I was thinking about how when I was a nipper, none of us gave a toss what we or - more importantly - our peers wore, partly because there was very little media pressure on us to use clothes to establish our position in the heirarchy and partly because we knew that:

a) our parents made all the decisions and

b) our parents had no fashion sense whatsoever
 
 
adamswish
13:03 / 29.03.04
Actually savaloy I was thinking of the "trendy" parents who enforce the logos and brands on their little nippers from an early age. Or worst when you see a little kid, maybe not yet out of the pushchair, and they've got their ears pierced and you just know it's the parents who have decided that for them rather than it be something the kid can ask for later on in life.
You're right kids don't care what they've got on their back until they start mixing with other kids (mainly at school) or become aware of the media's influences on them.
The secret dresser idea sounds kind of fun, but there is a level of information that is needed. If you were to pick out an outfit for me for instance then you need to know my height and body shape at the very least. Also there is the blind faith of the intended wearer of the clothes. Would I have the confidence to wear what others pick for me? Somehow I doubt it.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
13:18 / 29.03.04
(I approve of small kids having their ears done mostly because I hated having my ears pierced at 18, wanted them done but hated looking after them and I don't heal like I did when I was small. I wish my mother had let me have my ears done the first time I asked when I was 7.)
 
 
adamswish
14:01 / 29.03.04
But at least you asked Anna, the ages I'm refferring to can just about say "mommy" and "daddy"
 
 
grant
19:17 / 29.03.04
I attended two high schools; went to a school without uniforms first year, transferred to one with the subsequent three years. I found the one WITH uniforms to be far more cliquish and arbitrary/exclusive, socially, than the one without.
So fashion signification may not play as much of a role in social division as one might assume.
 
 
diz
19:34 / 29.03.04
Actually savaloy I was thinking of the "trendy" parents who enforce the logos and brands on their little nippers from an early age. Or worst when you see a little kid, maybe not yet out of the pushchair, and they've got their ears pierced and you just know it's the parents who have decided that for them rather than it be something the kid can ask for later on in life.

i used to be on this boat, until my girlfriend pointed out that anyone who's raising a kid is essentially imprinting them from the time they're in the womb with all sorts of cultural values, ways of thinking and evaluating information, etc. essentially, parents imprint their kids with the basics of the paradigm with which they start out life, and there's no way not to do that. parents, by nature, are constantly making decisions which will affect their children's lives forever, and there's no way they can avoid getting their own values in there. even if you were to make a conscious commitment to make all decisions with an eye towards the child's future autonomy, essentially preserving as many decisions as possible for them to make later, that in and of itself is reflective of a certain mindset and set of values which are certainly not neutral.

i always used to say that i would raise my kids with no religion, and that if they wanted to explore that later, they could. she pointed out that if we were to be raising this hypothetical kid together, the child would be raised by two athiests who strongly value a sort of pragmatic, scientific, and rational worldview that really has no place for a God. under such circumstances, it's unlikely that the child in question would later end up "choosing" to be religious, and so in a very real sense i'm making a decision about religion for them, and there's no way to avoid doing so.

that said, seeing as how parents are inevitably making a massive impact on the development of the child into the person they become in arguably the most crucial aspect of defining their being (i.e. how they think), it seems kind of silly and arbitrary to make a big stink about ear piercings and such. it's like "well, my parents raised me in such a way that it was basically inevitable for me to become a semi-artsy techno-positive athiest with left-wing politics, but hey, they left all the important decisions like ear piercing for me to make myself."
 
 
Saveloy
12:47 / 31.03.04
adamswish:

"The secret dresser idea sounds kind of fun, but there is a level of information that is needed. If you were to pick out an outfit for me for instance then you need to know my height and body shape at the very least."

Yeah, I'm picturing a list of size requirements (eg: Hip: 34", Leg 32", hat size: 14 etc). Or you could pair up people of similar build. What about items where a good fit is essential, though - namely shoes and bras? What about gender, would that be known? Hmmm. It would be interesting to see how the increased likelihood of size mismatches would affect clothing/textile design - would there be more stretchy, one-size-fits-all fabrics, or more horrible baggy stuff?

I think the biggest problem would be who pays for it, and how? If you could pay for your own clothes and put in an order to your secret dresser as often as you liked, then the whole point of the scheme would be undermined as people would still be able to use clothing to show off their wealth (even if the clothes you had to wear were ridiculous). The only way around this that I can think of would be to have the clothes paid for by the secret dresser, and their budget would have to be a percentage of their income. So everyone would be spending more or less what they could afford normally, but they might get clothes bought for them by someone with a radically different income.

"Also there is the blind faith of the intended wearer of the clothes. Would I have the confidence to wear what others pick for me? Somehow I doubt it."

Your only other option would be to go naked, make your own or borrow some from a friend who happened to be the right size and had been given clothes you liked (and we would have to put a stop to that!) This would be the most interesting bit, I reckon - what sort of clothes would people buy for complete strangers, people they would never knowingly meet, and how would this affect the general look of the population? Would people go for 'boring but practical' or 'I wish more people would wear this sort of thing' or 'ha ha, wait till they see this!' ?
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
13:03 / 31.03.04
heh. I'd probably do a combination of 2/3. And if i had measurements, I'd start thinking about what I'd think would be likely to suit that shape.

fie to yr restrictions.

Actually, i can see the value of being 'illerate' in this way from time to time. When I was in India, I found it interesting to be somewhere where I had very little idea what was good quality/cheap/tacky/fashionable...

Buuuuut I still think this thread reeks of odd prejudice against costume/clothing/visual/tactile signifiers. I'm presuming very few of the people on this thread would think it would be good to be *verbally* illiterate?
 
 
adamswish
13:14 / 01.04.04
and to add to your idea saveloy: how would the secret dresser/buyer react if they saw one of their outfits pass them by on the street?

oh and just to clarify nudiety would not be an option for me my friend :O
 
 
Tryphena Absent
13:48 / 01.04.04
But no one is visually illiterate. Sure you might not understand the full weight of the clothes you choose and wear but often when we speak things are misunderstood as well. What we're discussing is the difference between someone who dropped out of school after their GCSE's and someone with a doctorate.
 
 
Miyakochann
01:43 / 13.04.04
Wearing the same clothes... is like Anthem by Ayn Rand. It takes away from individuality. It's a form of control. Slowly it takes away from who you want to be or how you want to present yourself.

And what would happen to all those amazing designers?
Clothes are an artistic outlit.

If you ask why don't we wear the same clothes... then why don't we have all the same hair colour and the same cuts and the same skin colour and the same houses?

~Kat
 
 
Tom Coates
09:55 / 14.04.04
I think you're missing the point. My question is not how would we stop people wearing the same clothes or whether or not it would be a terrible form of social control to restrict people's freedoms in this way, it's a counterfactual thought-experiment - if everyone decided to wear the same clothes and cease to compete on those grounds, would it make the world a better or a worse place.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
13:47 / 14.04.04
Worse because it would be boring and life is quite mundane enough already.
 
 
Saveloy
14:09 / 15.04.04
Anna de Logardiere:

"Worse because it would be boring and life is quite mundane enough already."

I dunno, visually it could be quite spectacular. Imagine a busy high street full of people in 18th Century Admiral's uniforms. And the fact that we are used to everyone wearing different clothes would make a uniform-clad population extraordinary - the very opposite of mundane. Until we got used to it, of course. At which point, the uniform could be changed to something radically different.

This way, we would all be equal participants in one huge spectacle - far more inclusive than the current 'system' (or rather, non-system), in which novelty can only be achieved by a few individuals, who depend upon a boringly clad mass to lift them out of the mundane. It would be a redistribution of the visual wealth!
 
 
Saveloy
14:32 / 15.04.04
BiP:

"Buuuuut I still think this thread reeks of odd prejudice against costume/clothing/visual/tactile signifiers."

I don't know if you could call it a prejudice, but I'm certainly irritated by signifiers in general, and the idea of clothes being used as signifiers in particular. There are a few reasons for this:

- it's a lot like spam. Unsolicited communications on subjects you have no interest in 99% of the time (the subject in this case being the person wearing the signifier), broadcast willy-nilly to all and sundry. Worse, because the message tends to be unclear. I'd prefer for people to convey their messages in straight-forward text, eg: a bill-board or badge that says "I earn £50000 quid" or "I'm interesting" or whatever.

- slightly melodramatic, this, but: signifiers are anti-visual. It is the visual tamed and put into service (I hate symbolism in painting even more, for the same reason). I wish I could explain it better, but for now: it's a limiter. It pushes you down a specific route. It bothers me when people who are into fashion put signifiers and associations at the top of the list of reasons why people should take it seriously, because I think aesthetics should be all the reason you need to take it seriously.

"I'm presuming very few of the people on this thread would think it would be good to be *verbally* illiterate?"

No, because the spoken/written word is a the best, most efficient way we have of conveying complex messages. Try asking your question in socks or jumpers! *

*okay, sometimes text isn't enough
 
 
Tryphena Absent
14:30 / 16.04.04
Imagine a busy high street full of people in 18th Century Admiral's uniforms

But after 3 weeks?
 
  

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