Vintage Politics Interrupted
By Guest Contributor Mimi Thi Nguyen, originally posted at Threadbared
I do mean to return to questions of vintage in the future –beyond that one great conversation I had with Minh-Ha– but I find right now I’m unable to devote much time or thought to its multidimensional, multifunctional phenomena. (More on my overstuffed schedule later.) However, I do want to address the aftermath to those first posts on the “color” of the vintage imaginary, as well as its feminist potential. These were republished on Racialicious and picked up by Jezebel, and a good portion of the reactions suggestively point to the continued refusal to take fashion seriously — whether as a political or a feminist matter. Here’s one:
I think vintage clothing is just that – vintage clothing. I don’t feel that wearing it idealizes a certain time period, I think we wear what we think is flattering on ourselves. I most definitely consider myself a feminist but sometimes it is possible to overthink stuff. To paraphrase Freud, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
This is a constant refrain, still: “It’s just clothes,” “Fashion is supposed to be frivolous,” “Fashion is art, it’s not political,” “Fashion is commerce, it’s not meaningful.” I teach a semester-long course addressed to these cursory dismissals –and of course, this blog’s reason for being is to argue otherwise– and it can be difficult to dismantle these easy denunciations. I start the first day of class with the guest editors’ introduction to a special issue of the journal positions: east asia cultures critique, in which Tina Mai Chen and Paola Zamperini write: “Why, how, and why people wear clothing is a daily matter, a constant concern that affects and determines every aspect of one’s life. But it is also a matter of concern, control, and anxiety for the individual, society, and government. The body, its apparel, and the identity it conveys or disguises are the stuff of which fashion is made.”
Clothing matters because it is through clothing that persons are understood to matter, or not. Consider the Sartorialist’s captions for the presumably homeless man, or his driver, which attribute to these anonymous figures qualities of human dignity and pride because of what they are wearing. Consider the hijab, and all the histories and conflicts that hinge upon the presence of absence of the veil as a sign of civilization and modernity or its opposite. Consider legislation throughout the centuries to regulate what might be worn by whom: European medieval sumptuary laws forbidding the conspicuous consumption of the bourgeoisie; Dutch colonial missionaries insisting that African “converts” abandon their “heathen” clothes in order to reform their bodies and souls; World War II-era rationing bans on the material extravagance of the “zoot suit,” the informal uniform of black and Chicano youth, as “unpatriotic;” and contemporary legislation across cities in the United States criminalizing black male youth in sagging jeans.
And these are a scant few examples — there is so much more evidence that taking clothes seriously is no silly intellectual exercise. (And what’s wrong with intellectual exercise? Who wants a weakling brain?)
The strange, changing category of vintage is no exception. Vintage is a commercial designation (what signals the distinctions between vintage, thrift, secondhand, and plain ol’ used as qualifiers?) and an aesthetic and industrial evaluation (which fashions pass muster as aesthetically salvageable? how much do a garment’s conditions of manufacture contribute to its aesthetic or commercial value?). For instance, what new hierarchies between used clothes does vintage create? What marks an item of clothing as “vintage” or as simply “outdated”? Is it the body that activates its meaning as either positive or negative? On whose bodies does vintage appear “authentic,” or “period-appropriate,” or alternately unfamiliar and unknown? How did the market for vintage emerge? What are the differing retail and commercial forms (from expos to eBay) for vintage markets? What clothes, whose clothes, are dealers and buyers looking for? As Footpath Zeitgeist notes in her new investigation of vintage sizing and clothing fit, “What did fat chicks used to wear?” What are the vocabularies of vintage clothes (e.g., “individual style,” “uniqueness,” “quirky,” “original,” “one of a kind”) and how do these vocabularies produce value for the vintage-clad self? What feelings do vintage clothes and their histories inspire, in whom? What do these feelings do — to our understanding of the past, other bodies? As I consider these and further possible queries, it would appear that vintage can be about the evaluation and preservation of an item or an ideal –a beautiful dress, a beautiful woman– against the ruin of time, or vintage can be marshaled to mark ruin as important, as a significant event in the social life of that thing or ideal.
So yes, I do mean to return to questions of vintage, but for right now I want to offer some other responses to the recent kerfuffle, including Renegade Bean’s latest installment of “vintage” Taiwanese photographs:
I was surprised by some of the comments on Racialicious (which I am a fan of) and Jezebel — many were dismissive of the issues that the other bloggers and I raised. Many commenters basically said, “what’s the big deal?” or “I like vintage because it’s pretty and I don’t think it’s worth politicizing.”
I feel those responses missed the point of our posts…. The main reason I enjoy vintage clothing is because it is pretty and different from what I can find in mainstream stores. It’s not like race and identity politics are foremost on my mind when I go vintage shopping. But being able to take pleasure in the lush folds of a 1950s dress or a shimmery 1960s evening sheath doesn’t mean I can’t also devote brain space to thinking about the more difficult issues vintage collecting brings up. The two aren’t mutually exclusive. In my case, I’m taking advantage of the opportunity to be mindful about the injustices dealt to Asian Americans and other minorities in the US during the last century, as well the more difficult aspects of Taiwan’s social and political history.
I am absolutely not saying vintage enthusiasts who don’t think about those issues are shallow; my passion for vintage fashion and design just happens to intersect with my interest in social history. I’m grateful for that because it makes the past come alive in a very immediate way.
And Julie from the fabulous (new!) feminist fashion blog a ‘allure garconniere jumps into the fray with a brilliant and thoughtful response that recounts her own discovery of thrift and vintage as a working-class teenager.
i think what we need to remember at the heart of this debate is the fact that every person has a different relationship to clothing and fashion (not just vintage), depending on their gender, sex, size, culture, race, ability, sexuality and age, but more often than not that relationship is one that is filled with conundrums and contradictions. one of my favourite things to do is shock people by wearing vintage dresses, but never fussing with my hair, rarely wearing makeup, and flaunting my hairy armpits. fucking up these ideas that i am wearing something that imposes such a specific, rigid, and reductive idea of femininity and challenging that in my own little way. you would not believe how many people have made comments to me like, “you just shouldn’t wear a dress like that if you aren’t going to shave.”
The lovely Tricia of Bits and Bobbins brings to our attention Derick Melander’s secondhand-clothing sculptures, and asks us, “i love to ponder where my clothing has been, where it came from, who made it, who wore it, what they did in that clothing, why they decided to part with it….what about you? do you ponder where your things have been? is that aspect of wearing secondhand clothing attractive to you? why or why not?”
From Melander’s statement:
I create large geometric configurations from carefully folded and stacked second-hand clothing. These structures take the form of wedges, columns, walls and enclosures, typically weighing between five hundred pounds and two tons. Smaller pieces directly interact with the surrounding architecture. Larger works create discrete environments.
As clothing wears, fades, stains and stretches it becomes an intimate record of our physical presence. It traces the edge of the body, defining the boundary between the individual and the outside world.
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The above photograph features Anna May Wong in her awesome bathing suit.
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
Deaf Indian Muslim Anarchist wrote:
another good example of politicized fashion would be the keffiyeh. Or how about during the civil rights movement, many Black Americans wore the kufi (Islamic skull cap) or Pan-African clothes to reclaim their Black African identity.
one of my Pakistani friends told me that in the 20th century, many upper class Pakistani women refused to wear the sari because it was seen as a “Hindu” thing since some Pakistanis hated and despised India, so they only wore shalwar kameez to claim their Pakistani nationalism (not anymore, because I’ve been hearing the sari is making a fashion comeback in large Pakistani cities these days).
but yeah, I must admit, I was one of those commentators who quickly dismissed the idea of politicized (or feminist) vintage fashion, but now I understand. you are right.
Posted 15 Feb 2010 at 11:20 am ¶
me and not you wrote:
I think that part of the issue may be time depth. Or… well, I’m not sure how to put it. To explain: I enjoy what may be more properly termed antique clothing. Specifically I think that clothing from about 1850-1870 is fantastic (the sleeves of the 90’s put me off). It’s purely from an aesthetic point of view. I did dabble in re-enacting because of it–an interest in history helped, but I was in high school. This was part of a living museum, and so from my perspective, the purpose was predominately education. When I discovered that some people viewed this as a way to relive a ‘glorious past’–well, that’s uncomfortable.
From that perspective, it is clear that clothing is political–especially given that clothing is an integral part of defining identity. For some people, like me, re-enacting was mostly an intellectual game: how can I make my clothing as accurate as possible? How can I best represent the time period in question? As an extension of that, you start consider the thought processes surrounding that time period. In that, you start to notice that re-enactors are predominately white (there was more diversity in the cowboys, if I remember properly).
Since then, I still find the clothing beautiful, and wish that I could still dabble in the clothing making. But given that there are very few socially acceptable venues for wearing that clothing, and those venues have some very specific and strong racists overtones, I have found myself pulling farther and farther away from that. (Granted, not all re-enactors are strongly or overtly racist. But very few are really comfortable discussing the implications. And given that what many of them do is viewed as entertainment by the public–the exception being some museums–there is not much pressure to really consider the implications. Most people I encountered were interested in it for the fun factor or as an extension of an interest in history, and not as part of a greater political discourse.)
Going from that, that clothing may be (unintentionally, even) communicating a specific political commentary seems clear to me. For me, trying to create an anachronistic style may move away from that, but if you are specifically interest in re-creating a time-specific look, then you should as a matter of course consider the historical implications. But that may just be me. Incidentally, my very butch ex, who was otherwise extremely comfortable with my lack of shaving, was made distinctly uncomfortable when I wore a dress with exposed armpit hair. Since then, having moved back south, I have started shaving my hair again.
Posted 15 Feb 2010 at 1:01 pm ¶
Ladymorgue wrote:
I choose vintage fashion for the vain reason that I find them pretty but also I look good int hem. I’m petite and chubby and the clothes that look good on me. I guess it is a sort of a sub conscious f —- you to skinny jeans , thongs,bikinis that will just make me feel bad about my body. It gives me a chance to feel good and not to feel about about the body. Modern fashion makes me feel worse about my weight and my body. I can control how I look. I can show off by body with feeling ashamed about it. I have choice in the style I can wear I can go 50s inspired by day and a slinky 20’s dress by night. I don’t have to follow the rules of modern fashion. I’m not trying to say that a the hourglass ideal is a heather standard for women than the thin model type for today, it’s not. But I find as standard of beauty that’s attainable for me. If that’s not political then I don’t know what is.
Posted 15 Feb 2010 at 1:25 pm ¶
Molly M. wrote:
First and foremost, thank you for this post! Perhaps we can extend this to a discussion of cultural appropriation, which may be the arrogance of white colonial power at play. Ultimately, it seems that vintage fashion is contingent on privilege and memory. I often think about how these two concepts invariably overlap, obscure, and sometimes contradict one another in order to establish meaning, or how clothing is used to fossilize people in space and time, enabling those with power to implement a monolithic and sanitized representation of an entire culture. What I find fascinating is that “exotic” garb (or fashionable trends in the context you describe) are often marketed to affluent Western consumers who are themselves unaffected and can afford to dabble with these representations as meaningless, decorative adornment, without ever having to consider or experience the violence, racism, or class oppression endured by those whose cultural markers they have usurped.
Posted 15 Feb 2010 at 5:19 pm ¶
yeahyouknowwhatitis wrote:
Thank you so much for this post!
As a student of color at an elite liberal arts college I am well aware of the politics of vintage clothes. I love dressing in vintage styles and yet what I wear takes on a different meaning in the context of this campus. A black woman in the woods wearing a vintage dress does not feel weird to me, yet certainly looks anachronistic to my white peers.
I also think that on my campus, vintage clothes takes on a different dimension when worn by predominantly filthy wealthy white students. Vintage, becomes a way of underperforming one’s wealth. It comes off as aesthetically uncanny when you see a student step out of an Audi wearing a pair of acid washed jeans from Goodwill (Think: the olsen twins during the boho-chic trend). Second-hand clothes become another means of alienating oneself from one’s actual class reality (this is only specific to my school, I don’t know about anywhere else)….
Posted 15 Feb 2010 at 5:53 pm ¶
NancyP wrote:
I guess that I don’t see a huge amount of significance in having a vintage hat or pin or belt added to otherwise ordinary clothing. To me, it’s borrowing Mom’s (and Grandma’s) stash of haven’t-got-around-to-pitching-it-yet.
Also, acid-washed jeans from Goodwill? Don’t the college students have old jeans of their own? (yes, I know that it is a fad to have 50 year old jeans….and given a few more years, I will have a pair, earned the old-fashioned way…family hand-me-down, plus time, equals vintage?).
Posted 16 Feb 2010 at 12:13 am ¶
Vidya wrote:
Vintage clothes are definitely political.
As a very fat woman, wearing vintage clothing is really not an option; it’s simply not available (heck, even contemporary clothing is hardly available in my size). This is particularly true of clothing from the early twentieth century, when women wore tight corsets, many people suffered from growth-stunting diseases in childhood, and anything even remotely ‘plus-size’ had to be sewn oneself.
Thus, the ability to wear vintage clothing is itself an expression of thin privilege.
Posted 16 Feb 2010 at 1:07 am ¶
ourname wrote:
Thanks so much for this article and for the link to Julie from the a ‘allure garconniere! One of the original blog posts Julie was responding to was on fatshionista where the “I think vintage clothing is just that – vintage clothing. I don’t feel that wearing it idealizes a certain time period, I think we wear what we think is flattering on ourselves. I most definitely consider myself a feminist but sometimes it is possible to overthink stuff. To paraphrase Freud, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” comment was originally made. And my response now is exactly what I responded over there: “(I say this as a vintage fan) I think it’s incredibly important to actually think about what we wear. It might be “just a dress” but I can’t imagine putting no critical thought into it whatsoever”.
My mind is literally boggled at the whole “a pretty dress is just a pretty dress” mindset. Certainly one of the reasons that I love vintage is because I love pretty old clothes, but to me there is something deeply empowering about reclaiming the past through fashion. I can’t say whether or not this is how I would feel if I was a conventionally pretty, thin, straight, white woman but presenting these very traditionally “pretty” vintage styles on a fat, queer, tattooed, brown body does have a certain subversive element to it. For me, looking “pretty” or “fashionable” isn’t as important as challenging people’s assumptions about what someone should look or dress like.
Posted 16 Feb 2010 at 2:26 am ¶
ourname wrote:
@Vidya
I have to absolutely disagree with you that vintage=thin privilege. One of the reasons I buy old clothing is because new plus size clothes are EXPENSIVE and not very appealing. Fat girl vintage is out there but you have to be absolutely vigilant to find it since most vintage clothing stores don’t stock it. I don;t know your size but if you’re dying to wear vintage clothes you can. I once found a huge cache of late 50’s/early 60’s dresses at a thrift store that would fit modern sz 28-32.
Posted 16 Feb 2010 at 7:22 pm ¶
miga wrote:
Yeah, I can’t help but feel like I’m sticking it to the man when I wear vintage-style clothes (I can’t fit into most actual vintage clothes because of my hips) and I feel a connetion to my mother and her mother and my dad’s mother (and sometimes my dad and granddads) when I wear their old things. Vintage styles are more flattering to my figure (and my parents’ stuff I can actually fit), and in the case of the former I feel like I’m reclaiming something from an era that was meant to keep my people down- my way of saying I rule over it in some way. “COLONIZE THIS!!!” If you will. Does that make sense?
Posted 16 Feb 2010 at 9:05 pm ¶
ambre wrote:
One of the things I love most about vintage/used clothing is the experiences and lifetimes that come with them. I like the idea that when wearing such garments, I’m carrying these experiences with me as well as adding my own. My most treasured vintage items are things I have gotten from family members and family friends, and I like to think that I’m taking care of things that they loved, and giving them new life.
That being said, I do think that there are people who are surprised that some of these vintage items belonged to relatives of mine – being a PoC, many people’s first thought of what my grandparents would have worn back in the day would be something “ethnic” even though they were born/raised in the US.
Posted 16 Feb 2010 at 11:57 pm ¶
Pasithea wrote:
I’m a Black girl who’s been re-enacting since high-school. I’ve dabbled in Civil War and Revo War, but mostly do WW2 USO re-enactments. I started wearing vintage full-time (for the most part) sometime about two summers ago after reintroducing myself to EBay. I have to admit, I love it. I do 50s for everyday mostly, and I’ve discovered that the Shirtwaist looks good on me and it’s for that reason, as I’m constantly explaining to friends, that I wear the dresses as much as I do. It’s not about harkening back to the housewife ideal or forgetting that life was insanely different back then… I just know what I look good in and thus, I choose to wear it. It’s flattering.
(And sometimes it’s nice pulling out a designer piece from the 60s that I paid 15 dollars for, knowing that the same designer goes for hundreds now)
That said, there are politics involved, certainly. I have a hard time putting into words why I enjoy Civil War and Revo War era clothing and reenactments and people often look at me askance when I say I participate in them or they see me working on outfits for my kit. Explaining that I’m a history enthusiast doesn’t always do it.
Posted 17 Feb 2010 at 7:01 pm ¶