Fashion Culture in the Empire

Today, Erin O’Connor Garcia came to class as a guest speaker on fashion. She works in the Student Activities Office at Calvin and part of her job is to advise the student-run Fashion Advisory Board, which puts on fashion shows and publishes a fashion magazine periodically.  Erin graduated from Calvin in 2005 and has done a lot of study since then about how Christians might have a more nuanced response than the inadequate default to modesty and thrift that perpetuates unhealthy gender roles and misses out on the artistic delight of dressing ourselves.

As part of the discussion, Erin showed “On the Street: Fashion Barometer” by Bill Cunningham, which alludes to a number of ways in which clothing functions as much more than just a covering for our bodies. When we realize that basic principle, we can more readily recognize the messages the empire is seeking to communicate by the way clothing is manufactured, advertised and sold. If I can see that the current empire of global consumerism defines my primary identity as an unthinking cog in the wheel of consumption and I want to reject that false identity, I have dozens of practical options for subverting the empire: consuming less, wearing hand-me-downs, making my own clothing or having someone make it for me, buying from companies that don’t depend on sweatshop labor…

Christians in particular really are caught in a schizophrenic place. We’re pressured to assume a posture of modesty and thrift while being sold through every means available the idea that we are what we wear, so we better wear the right thing. One response is to simply ignore the tension, ala Andrea in The Devil Wears Prada. However, ignoring the problem doesn’t hurt the empire, which defines us whether we acknowledge it or not, especially when we allow a vacuum of identity through ignorance. Another response is to live in a state of constant guilt, wearing our modestly designed and priced clothing to church while blending into other social situations like well-dressed chameleons. Guilt is exhausting and as a remedy, we may be tempted to succumb to one of the extremes—an anti-matter theology that universally disdains any artistry of apparel or a pro-matter idolatry that makes peace with the imperialist consumer identity. Yet a fourth option is to dissolve the tension by digging deeper. What would it look like to clothe ourselves with a faithfulness that honors human creativity in clothing and commerce while subverting the idolatrous intentions of the empire? Good question…

Some Articles & Resources

• “Beauty Will Save the World,” an interview with designer Kate Kamphausen
  
• “Will it last? The good of well-crafted clothing” by Christina Crook
  
• “The Dress Project” by Tala Strauss (a month-long experiment with one dress)
  
• “David & Goliath” from This American Life (an episode that explores the garment manufacturing industry in Cambodia and how it’s related to some of the big names in the U.S., like Gap) 
  

Better Places to Shop for Clothing

• American Apparel (though problematic in its own way)
• Maggie’s Organics
• Fair Indigo
  
• Etsy
  
• shirt.woot!

Any other (re)sources to add? Feel free to do so via the comments.