Uniform: clothing and discipline in the modern world

Uniform: Clothing and Discipline in the Modern World , 2019

In Hermann Broch's e Sleepwalkers (1932), the protagonist Joachim von Pasenow ponders the qualities of military uniform:. .. it is the uniform's true function to manifest and ordain order in the world, to arrest the confusion and fl ux of life, just as it conceals whatever in the human body is so and fl owing, covering up the soldier's underclothes and skin. .. Closed up in his hard casing, braced in with straps and belts, he begins to forget his own undergarments, and the uncertainty of life. .. 1

Critical Studies in Men's Fashion, 2013

embodying the military: Uniforms abstract It is difficult to disentangle masculinity from military uniforms. Amid the shifting notions of gender in the late eighteenth century, this article argues that 'techniques of the body' were employed by the military, contributing to what became the hegemonic shape of the modern male body. Framing the work within the theories of Marcel Mauss this article uses the case study of Beau Brummell to argue that this dandy based his dress on something more than the vestmentary surface. Brummell's story is rare for a male in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century: his life was described through his dress practices. Traditionally, when fashion is discussed, it is through women's fashion, although this is rapidly shifting. Very little writing on military uniforms is about embodied practice. Dressing is an embodied activity located in specified temporal, spatial and hierarchical relations. This article addresses this gap.

Africa, 2015

Through the intricate interplay of quality, form and decoration, cloth accomplishes far more than protecting the body. 1 In many African societies, cloth is a store of wealth, a means of exchange, a bridewealth payment (Picton 1995; Steiner 1985), and, when transformed into clothing, a vehicle of complex messages that relate to individual beauty and rank as well as the social tensions that exist in interpersonal relations when it is decorated with proverbs and symbols (Beck 2001; Domowitz 1992). Cloth is a complex medium that is used to both construct and contest social and individual identities (Allman 2004; Hendrickson 1996) and to bring out one's true self (Miller 2005); to mobilize politically and for camouflage and carnivalesque disguise. This themed part issue explores examples of particular types of uniforms, how people use decorated cloth, and the projects for which they use it when they wear dress with the same decoration for specific, often recurrent, events. Such decorated uniforms made from industrially produced fabrics have been observed at naming ceremonies, funerals, chiefs' installation festivities and weddings, at political and religious events, concerts, commemoration ceremonies and festivals at least since the early twentieth century. Participants at these events wear uniforms of decorated wax, fancy cloth or T-shirts, some of which also have printed photographs, brands and/or logos on them. Depending on the context, some of these uniforms resemble each other quite closely, while others allow for individual differences. With their uniforms, the participants visualize a sense of belonging to a community that reflects different degrees of association, ranging from casual gatherings at these events to more rooted and longer-term affiliations. Uniforms reduce visible differences in a group (Allman 2004; Joseph 1986). They also create difference with non-members, such as other social and professional associations and groups that wear a particular ethnic or national dress (Eicher 1995; Hendrickson 1996), regardless of whether the uniforms comprise handmade fabrics, individually tailored dresses, or industrially produced apparel. Uniforms emphasize sameness and consolidate group membership UTE RÖSCHENTHALER is a professor at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. Her research specialisms are cultural mobility, history of trade, urban studies, intellectual property, the media and advertisements. She works in Cameroon, Nigeria and Mali, and on African traders in Asia. Her most recent publication is Purchasing Culture: the dissemination of associations in the Cross

2009

This paper investigates the development and significance of military uniforms during the Cultural Revolution. Due to superior material and appealing colors, in conjunction with the ideology they stood for, the military uniforms were the clothing of choice for revolution-minded youth. Starting with the political and military elite, the fashion for military attire spread to Red Guards and Educated Youth, and eventually became popular throughout China. This reflects two ideological connotations of the military uniform at that time: anti-individualism and equality. After the Tian’anmen Incident in 1989, the military uniform ceased to be fashionable. Gone with the military uniform is not only the chaos of those years but also a certain zeal to reform Chinese society. There are three parts to this article. The first part focuses on two conditions that led to the military uniform becoming fashionable, including both economical circumstances and their effect on fabric and color and ideologi...

Midwestern Folklore, 2007

Fashion Theory, 1997

Discourse: Studies in The Cultural Politics of Education, 2021

This article asks what uniform practices in schools can tell us about how power functions through a comprehensive analysis of the uniform policies of all Scottish state secondary schools (n = 357)....