“Feminism would seem to be in the process of repeating male vestimentary history.”
In Silverman’s article, she posits that feminism, which is for advancing women’s rights, has become almost counter-productive in terms of fashion because of its imitation of male clothing. This not only made me question the innovativeness of feminism in terms of clothing, but it also made me question the feminist movement in general. I had never really considered women wearing jeans, slacks, or tuxedo shirts to be anything but equalizing between men and women. Not until I had read Silverman’s article did I consider feminist fashion to be something of a repeat, something hackneyed of what men have already done. This made me wonder, why have men never desired to “equalize” their fashion with women’s? Why is it that women had to be the ones to change their fashion, as well as their occupations in order to gain more rights? Probably the most feminist action that I can think of is when the father stays home to raise a child and therefore is not only “equalizing” the working spheres for women and men, but also by taking the job that has traditionally belonged to a woman. Therefore, feminism cannot truly advance in fashion until women stop repeating what a man wears, and either create a new non-degrading fashion for women, or instead taking the step to normalize men repeating what women wear. Fashion has still not become sexless, but feminism has attempted at such sexlessness by repeating men’s fashion.
On a different note, Silverman’s quote that “vintage clothing is also a mechanism for crossing vestimentary, sexual, and historical boundaries,” reminded me of my annual trips to Goodwill with my church youth group. Every year we go to church camp there is a dance on the last night that typically has a theme along the lines of “neon” or something equally gag-worthy. This past year, our youth group went to Goodwill to pick out outfits, and for some reason many of the guys flocked to the “vintage” dresses while the girls were drawn to the outrageous men’s suits. For some reason, in the presence of vintage clothing, we all not only felt the need to transcend the historical boundaries of clothing for the dance, but we also felt the need to cross sexual boundaries in dress. I ended up picking out some blue and orange striped pants, an orange dress shirt, and a white dress jacket. Reading Silverman’s article, I realized that the very presence of vintage clothing compelled me to transcend and explore such boundaries because I wanted to mock present day fashion (the “neon” trend) by not only wearing something completely outdated, but also made for the opposite sex. When it comes to fashion, the statement doesn’t have to comment on the past, but it can also be used to question the current trends. What do you find more ridiculous, a woman dressed in a colorful 80’s suit, or a girl following the trend of a neon v-neck and spandex?
Yes, that's a really interesting argument, this notion that through "going vintage" one somehow creates access to appropriate other temporalities? Refusing the mandate of the "now" through wearing the sartorial detritus of the past, resurecting the supposed-to-be-gone.
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