DRESS CODES by Ruth Rubinstein
DRESS CODES
What was most interesting to me about this reading was its organized collection (assemblage) of useful and methodical systems of categorization. Whether it was Goffmans’ the front stage/back stage/ outside region interactional model or Sweat and Zentner’s female personality types, Rubenstein provides a straightforward accounting of varying histories and sign systems imbued in fashion and styles of dress. For my purposes I was most interested in the first section about dressing the public self. As someone who has always been interested in ways that people—minority cultures specifically—define and reinvent themselves it was a reminder of some basic relationships between conduct, dress, self-expression and the larger socio-cultural realm in which they participate.
I kept an archive/file folder on people who specifically recreated themselves as aliens, robots/machines—Klaus Nomi, Sun-Ra, George Clinton/Bootsy Collins P-Funk in all of its various guises, Kool Keith to name a few—and the creation myths that accompany their “rebirths”. I thought back to this list in the section in which Rubenstein discussed believability and identity fabrication. I like the above examples because they —un someone like Orlan who explores personal transformation through physical means—recreate themselves through dress, imagination and mythos alone. One of the reasons I was interested in participating in this class was the use of the term self-expression in its title. I am interested in impermanent transitions , those that allow for fluid and multiple interpretations .