Table Of Content

01 Alt. Femininities 30/4/04 3:16 pm Page i Alternative Femininities Dress, Body, Culture Series Editor: Joanne B. Eicher, Regents’ Professor, University of Minnesota Advisory Board: Ruth Barnes,Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford Helen Callaway,CCCRW, University of Oxford James Hall,University of Illinois at Chicago Beatrice Medicine,California State University, Northridge Ted Polhemus,Curator, ‘Street Style’ Exhibition, Victoria and Albert Museum Griselda Pollock,University of Leeds Valerie Steele,The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology Lou Taylor,University of Brighton John Wright,University of Minnesota Books in this provocative series seek to articulate the connections between culture and dress, which is defined here in its broadest possible sense as any modification or supplement to the body. Interdisciplinary in approach, the series highlights the dialogue between identity and dress, cosmetics, coiffure and body alterations as manifested in practices as varied as plastic surgery, tattooing and ritual scarification. The series aims, in particular, to analyse the meaning of dress in relation to popular culture and gender issues and will included works grounded in anthropology, sociology, history, art history, literature and folklore. ISSN: 1360–466X Previously published in the Series Helen Bradley Foster,‘New Raiments of Self’: African American Clothing in the Antebellum South Claudine Griggs,S/he: Changing Sex and Changing Clothes Michaele Thurgood Haynes,Dressing Up Debutantes: Pageantry and Glitz in Texas Anne Brydon and Sandra Niessen, Consuming Fashion: Adorning the Transnational Body Dani Cavallaro and Alexandra Warwick,Fashioning the Frame: Boundaries, Dress and the Body Judith Perani and Norma H. Wolff,Cloth, Dress and Art Patronage in Africa Linda B. Arthur,Religion, Dress and the Body Paul Jobling, Fashion Spreads: Word and Image in Fashion Photography Fadwa El Guindi,Veil: Modesty, Privacy and Resistance Thomas S. Abler, Hinterland Warriors and Military Dress: European Empires and Exotic Uniforms Linda Welters,Folk Dress in Europe and Anatolia: Beliefs about Protection and Fertility Kim K.P. Johnson and Sharron J. Lennon,Appearance and Power Barbara Burman,The Culture of Sewing Annette Lynch,Dress, Gender and Cultural Change Antonia Young,Women Who Become Men David Muggleton,Inside Subculture: The Postmodern Meaning of Style Nicola White,Reconstructing Italian Fashion: America and the Development of the Italian Fashion Industry Brian J. McVeigh,Wearing Ideology: The Uniformity of Self-presentation in Japan Shaun Cole,Don We Now Our Gay Apparel: Gay Men’s Dress in the Twentieth Century Kate Ince, Orlan: Millennial Female Nicola White and Ian Griffiths,The Fashion Business: Theory, Practice, Image Ali Guy, Eileen Green and Maura Banim, Through the Wardrobe: Women’s Relationships with their Clothes Linda B. Arthur, Undressing Religion: Commitment and Conversion from a Cross-cultural Perspective William J.F. Keenan, Dressed to Impress: Looking the Part Joanne Entwistle and Elizabeth Wilson,Body Dressing Leigh Summers,Bound to Please: A History of the Victorian Corset Paul Hodkinson,Goth: Identity, Style and Subculture Michael Carter,Fashion Classics from Carlyle to Barthes Sandra Niessen, Ann Marie Leshkowich and Carla Jones, Re-Orienting Fashion: The Globalization of Asian Dress Kim K.P. Johnson, Susan J.Torntore and Joanne B. Eicher, Fashion Foundations: Early Writings on Fashion and Dress Helen Bradley Foster and Donald Clay Johnson, Wedding Dress Across Cultures Charlotte Suthrell,Unzipping Gender: Sex, Cross-Dressing and Culture Yuniya Kawamura,The Japanese Revolution in Paris Fashion Ruth Barcan,Nudity: A Cultural Anatomy DRESS, BODY CULTURE Alternative Femininities Body, Age and Identity Samantha Holland Oxford • New York 01 Alt. Femininities 30/4/04 3:16 pm Page iv First published in 2004 by Berg Editorial offices: 1st Floor, Angel Court, 81 St Clements Street, Oxford, OX4 1AW, UK 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY10010 USA © Samantha Holland 2004 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the written permission of Berg. Berg is the imprint of Oxford International Publishers Ltd. Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN1 85973 803 6 (Cloth) 1 85973 808 7 (Paper) Typeset by Avocet Typeset, Chilton, Aylesbury, Bucks Printed in the United Kingdom by Biddles Ltd, King’s Lynn www.bergpublishers.com 01 Alt. Femininities 30/4/04 3:16 pm Page v Contents Acknowledgements iv 11 Growing Up but Staying ‘Freaky’: An Introduction 1 Methodological Framework 2 Theoretical Position 3 A Brief Overview of the Empirical Chapters 5 22 Background Reading 7 Femininity 7 Fashion Theory 14 Subcultural Theory 19 Identity and ‘Self’ 29 The Body 30 33 Negotiating Fluffy Femininities 35 What is Femininity? 35 ‘I Am Not a Bit Fluffy’ 37 Describing Traditional Femininity 39 The ‘Tools’ and How to Use Them 44 44 How To Be a Fairy Princess 53 Fairies at Play 54 ‘My Hair is Everything’ 59 Commitment: Time and Money 65 55 Categories of Unconventional 71 Bohemian Dress 71 Black clothing 73 Anti-fashion and Feminism 77 Defining ‘Alternatives’ 79 To Compromise or Not To Compromise 87 66 ‘More Like Torture than Love’? 95 Bodies/Image 95 ‘This is Me!’ 103 v 01 Alt. Femininities 30/4/04 3:16 pm Page vi Contents 77 Defying the Crone? 117 Age Catches Up with You 117 Policing Yourself … and Others 121 ‘Toning Down’ Your Appearance 127 You’re as Young as You Feel 132 Marking the Occasion 135 88 Reflections and Conclusions 139 Tensions and Paradoxes 139 Strategies 143 How To Do ‘Girly’ 145 Resisting ‘Girly’ 148 Women Getting Older 151 Shifts and Changes 155 Notes 159 Bibliography 165 Appendices 1 The ‘Nuts and Bolts’: Methods 179 2 Participant Profiles 201 3 Leaflet Used for Sampling 205 4 Letter and Forms Given to Participants at the Interview 207 5 Interview Schedule 211 Index 213 vi 01 Alt. Femininities 30/4/04 3:16 pm Page vii Acknowledgements First, my thanks to women who allowed me to interview them about what were often very personal thoughts and feelings. I enjoyed meeting every one of the participants of this research. I am very grateful to those people who gave general encouragement in different ways, in different amounts, and at different times (particularly when I was writing my PhD, from which this book is adapted). They are: Rik Brydson, Sally Byers, Jo Hammond, Harbie Holland, Andy Horne, Kim Pattison, and Carole Wafer. Thanks to the following for advice at various stages and/or on various drafts: Feona Attwood, Jenni Craik, Sharon MacDonald, Diane Richardson, Cilla Ross, and Tracey Warren. I also appreciate the help and input of Ian, Kathryn and Caroline at Berg. I would particularly like to thank Jill LeBihan, punctuation whiz and Izzard-fan, who inspired me to finish what had become a rather protracted activity! vii This page intentionally left blank 02 Alt. Femininities 30/4/04 3:16 pm Page 1 1 Growing Up but Staying ‘Freaky’: An Introduction This book is centrally concerned with a particular group of women. Once, long ago, my original interest lay in researching the friendships of adoles- cent girls within subcultures but, at a very early stage of reviewing the literature, I was intrigued to discover what seemed to me to be a glaring omission. Recent work in subcultural studies and in fashion theory has concentrated on issues such as spectacular subcultures or the fashion industry, but there has been a notable silence on the experiences of adult women who continue to negotiate a path between being ‘alternative’ and being feminine. Empirical studies (such as Thornton, 1995; Muggleton, 2000; Williamson, 2001; and Hodkinson, 2002) have attempted to be more inclusive of women’s experiences but have so far failed to adequately address the fact that women do not always ‘grow out of’ the appearance they adopted as teenagers. The interest in, and acceptability of, ‘alternative’ styles has become greater in the last few years, with such styles becoming more visible (for example, from an eco-warrior hippy doll called Feral Cheryl1, to scholarly tomes on the meanings of body modifications) and yet still the voic es of the women who had long been involved in this kind of lifestyle remained silent. For this reason, this research investigates the personal and complex meanings of ‘femininities’ through ‘alternative’ style and clothing, connecting work on subcultures, the body and fashion, and situated in feminist qualitative methodologies. The book theorises ‘different’, oppositional identities and looks, and examines the particular meanings these hold for the participants, asking if appearance is used as a site for critique and challenge, and drawing out tensions, conflicts and pleasures experienced by the participants. Whenever a researcher embarks on a project there is usually, in the researcher’s head, a list of aims. These aims, which may be modest, supply an important ‘map’ via which to find one’s way into the research. My aims, 1 02 Alt. Femininities 30/4/04 3:16 pm Page 2 Alternative Femininities then, were: to find out through their own narrativeshow, and particularly why, the participants construct their appearance as they do; and to explore existing work about ‘femininities’, appearance and gender. In this light I aimed to analyse themes which emerged from the interviews. My intention was to explore how a particular group of women experienced, rationalised and understood their appearance (which so clearly resisted many elements of a traditionally ‘feminine’ appearance), articulating and constructing their own narratives about being both ‘alternative’ and women. As a feminist I often despair at the rift between academic feminism and ‘grass-roots’ feminism and I also aimed for this book to remain accessible to a general audience as well as, at the least, of interest to the academic reader. Subcultural groups are studied, yes, but how often do they read the end- product? How often is the end-product written in a way that a general reader, even if the book is ‘about you’, would want to read it? This is a trend I hope not to follow. My interviewees drew on a variety of discourses such as ageing and body image, placing themselves ambiguously both within and outside dominant ideologies of femininity. But why did I choose to focus particularly on appearance? Although appearance can be seen to be a ‘slippery’ matter to try to pin down, it hasn’t stopped people from trying it. ‘Clothing in Western society is paradoxical … Clothes socialise our bodies … Our dress constitutes our “appearance”: the “vestimentary envelope” produces us as social beings’ (Ash and Wilson, 1992: 6). As Craik has argued, women wear their bodies through their clothes (1994: 2) and one of the key ways that gender is perpetuated is through the embodiment of males and females as ‘men’ and ‘women’. Because of this, as Evans and Thornton argue, ‘the practice which a culture insists are meaningless or trivial, the places where ideology has succeeded in becoming invisible, are practices in need of investigating’ (1991: 15). Such places and practices are what are investi- gated in this book. Methodological Framework I collected the data through semi-structured interviews because I wished to be able to encourage the women I interviewed to speak to me at length, and in detailed and subjective ways. I recognise that there are particular prob- lems with the participants telling me about how their appearance is main- tained through practice as they are more likely to be talking about those practices which are engaged in self-consciously. However, as Bourdieu argues, much of practice is not engaged in consciously: ‘what is learned by 2