Reading Fashion as Age: Teenage Girls’ and Grown Women’s Accounts of Clothing as Body and Social Status

Lisbeth Løvbak Berg on 15. september 2005

Ingun Grimstad Klepp and Ardis Storm-Mathisen

Abstract

If you don’t follow fashion, you wear, like, sorta childish clothes

(girl, aged thirteen)

I think about my age before wearing something that seems rather daring

(woman, aged forty-one)

This article discusses the similarities and differences in how women in two different stages of life describe the relationship between fashion and age. The analytical approach is basically discursive, based on Norwegian teenage girls’ and adult women’s verbal accounts of clothing and clothing practices in conversational interviews undertaken in the late 1990s.

Prevailing discourses as to what represents a breach of clothing conventions are to be found in the ways young girls and grown women talk about clothes. When clothes are used in accordance with conventions and norms, they are not noticed much. However, when clothes are used in a way that differs from the norm, this can attract attention and provoke reactions. By comparing narratives of clothing provided by respondents of the same sex and approximately the same class background but of different ages, we gain access to material that is particularly well suited to illustrate the significance of age in conventions governing clothing and fashion.

Click here to read the full article (tandfonline.com).

Klippe, klipp, klippe: Kjønnsarbeidsdeling på frammarsj

Lisbeth Løvbak Berg on 15. juni 2005

Ingun Grimstad Klepp

Innledning

I Norge er det stor enighet om at en endring mot et mer likestilt samfunn er ønskelig. I forskningen kan et slikt ønske om endringer være et problem, fordi det som burde ha skjedd, kan stå i veien for å se hva som har skjedd. Denne artikkelen skal handle om hvordan dette ønsket og forestillingen om endring kan være til hinder for å få frem materiale som viser noe annet.

Klikk her for å lese hele artikkelen (ojs.novus.no).

English abstract

It is a widespread conception that we are heading towards a society in which men and women share work and responsibilities more equally. Such notions of change that point in one direction, can obstruct seeing what is really happening. This article is based on questionnaire material. Studies were carried out to answer the question: Are there areas within household work where gender work sharing is increasing? The answer to this is yes. In this material, men have been more active in purchasing and manufacturing clothes and textiles, and in different kinds of household work in areas defined as ”outside” in the period before 1950. The discourse in the article concerns why this can be difficult to see, and why the material offers a less comprehensive answer to the question than desirable.

The full article is only available in Norwegian.

Farlige farger

Lisbeth Løvbak Berg on 15. desember 2004

Ingun Grimstad Klepp

Abstract

What is so dangerous about colours in women’s clothes? In this article the author is looking for answers in the book Skikk og bruk (etiquette), in ladies and fashion magazines dated 1999, and in interviews with women as well as in their piles of discarded clothing.
The author found that colours are considered dangerous because they break with the level-headed aesthetics of the middle class, and because they refer to gender in the wrong way. Economical and practical reasons, as well as the notion of colours as becoming, are used as arguments in favour of this self-inflicted asceticism.


Individualism and personal expression are applied as the mantra for dressing habits, and as a camouflage for disciplining. The claim that clothes should be suitable and if possible also reflect the bearers’ personality can be regarded as a dressing norm, and thereby as something which puts structuring above the individual.

This article is in Norwegian.

Klikk her for å lese hele artikkelen (idunn.no).

Fra rent til nyvasket: Skittent og rent tøy

Lisbeth Løvbak Berg on 5. juni 2003

Ingun Grimstad Klepp

Summary

This report is an enquiry into why we wash clothes. What is it we expect when we place clothes in the washing machine? The most immediate reply must be that we want to have clean clothes. This is certainly part of the answer. But this alone does not explain either why we wash more than ever, or the manner in which we wash – and neither does it explain what is implied in the concept of ‘clean’. So what is ‘clean’ when “There is no such thing as absolute dirt” (Douglas 1997).

The material used to answer this question is drawn from various types of literature: handbooks, textbooks, surveys of washing customs, and guides on how to wash clothes. Another important source is the questionnaires sent out by Norwegian Ethnographic Surveys. A central assumption in answering this question is to look at what has been washed. Previously, washing clothes has been studied as a change in technology and time-use. But dirty and clean clothes have not formed part of these studies – with one exception: Eilert Sundt’s book on cleanliness in Norway. For this reason, the following report commences with a history of soiled clothes! Here, we trace the history of different types of dirty linen from Sundt’s study of Norway in the 1860s until the present day.

The report has given an answer to why we wash clothes, but it has not answered the question why it is we women who continue to undertake this task. The project From clean to newly-washed has not yet been completed. In subsequent work we will investigate why clothes-washing is one of the most women-dominated areas within the housework arena.

This article is written in Norwegian and you will find a link to it below.

Sammendrag

Rapporten undersøker hvorfor vi vasker. Hva ønsker vi å oppnå ved å legge tøyet i vaskemaskinen? Det mest nærliggende svaret er at vi ønsker å få tøyet rent. Og sikkert er dette en del av svaret. Men det forklarer verken at vi vasker mer enn før, eller at vi vasker annerledes – og det forklarer slett ikke hva som ligger i begrepet rent. For hva er rent når, som Mary Douglas uttrykte det, «there is no such thing as absolute dirt» (Douglas 1997:2).

Det materialet som brukes for å besvare spørsmålet er ulike typer litteratur: skikk og bruk- bøker, lærebøker, vaskevaneundersøkelser og litteratur med råd for klesvask. En annen viktig kilde er spørrelister sendt ut av Norsk Etnologisk Granskning (NEG). En helt sentral forutsetning for å svare på spørsmålet er å se på hva vi har vasket. Klesvask har tidligere vært studert som endringer i teknologi og tidsbruk. De skitne og rene klærne er ikke skrevet inn i denne historien, med ett unntak; Eilert Sundts bok om renslighetsstellet i Norge (Sundt 1975). Derfor starter rapporten med en skittentøyshistorie. I den forfølger vi ulike tekstiler som skittentøy fra hans beskrivelser av Norge på 1860-tallet og frem til i dag.

Klikk her for å lese hele rapporten (yumpu.com).

Hvorfor går klær ut av bruk? Avhending sett i forhold til kvinners klesvaner

ingridha on 24. juni 2001

Ingun Grimstad Klepp

Sammendrag

Denne rapporten handler om hvorfor kvinner slutter å bruke klær og ønsker å kvitte seg med dem. Årsakene til avhending diskuteres i forhold til kvinnenes klesvaner. Klesvaner er både hvordan vi kler oss, og hva vi tenker om dette. Spørsmålet stilles med bakgrunn i et ønske om et mer bærekraftig tekstilforbruk. Tekstiler er forurensende både i produksjon, transport og som søppel. I 1998 kastet vi i Norge til sammen 110 000 tonn tekstiler. Av dette kom 75% fra husholdningene. Hver og en av oss kastet gjennomsnittlig 19,7 kg tekstiler dette året, av dette var ca 11,2 kg klær. I følge Statistisk sentralbyrå blir bare 7% av tekstilene gjenbrukt eller resirkulert.

Klikk her for å lese hele rapporten (oda.oslomet.no)

Fra eggvendte laken til festlig lapp på baken

Lisbeth Løvbak Berg on 15. september 2000

Råd og teknikker for å økonomisere med tekstiler 1900 – 2000

Ingun Grimstad Klepp

Sammendrag

Denne rapporten tar for seg endringer i omtalen av ulike teknikker for å økonomisere med tekstiler gjennom det 20.-århundre. Materialet til undersøkelsen består av 80 håndarbeidsbøker, samt noen tidsskrifter og dameblader. Analysen får frem når ulike teknikker blir beskrevet og hvordan de omtales. Teknikkene omfatter arbeid med å forebygge slitasje, ulike former for reparasjon, gjenbruk i form av omsøm og utnyttelse av filler, lapper og garnrester.

Utviklingen går fra et mangfold av tidkrevende og spesialiserte teknikker i begynnelsen av århundret mot færre og langt enklere teknikker mot slutten av århundret. Presentasjonen av teknikken endres også. Fra det å ta vare på alt til siste trevl syntes som en underforstått selvfølge, via at dette gis et moralsk innhold til en frigjøring fra både de økonomiske og de moralske begrunnelser for arbeidet. Teknisk vises dette i en endring fra vektlegging avavanserte og usynlige teknikker som gjorde det reparerte/omsydde plagget så likt det originale som mulig, til en vektlegging av teknikkenes mulighet til egne estetiske uttrykk. 1970-tallet er en glansperiode for dette arbeidet, noe som settes i sammenheng både med antimote, formingsideologi og en voksende fritidsideologi. Mot slutten av hundreåret forsvinner teknikkene for å økonomisere med tekstiler fra håndarbeidsbøkene. Men i bladene er det fortsatt en viss interesse for garderobeplanleggning og fornying av enkeltplagg.

Klikk her for å lese hele rapporten (oda.oslomet.no).

Summary

The objective of this report is to document the changes in the way different techniques for economising with textiles is referred to throughout the 20thCentury.The material for the study consists of 80 needlework books, in addition to some periodicals and ladies’ magazines. The analysis focuses when the different techniques are described relative to each other and how they are described. The described techniques include needlework for the prevention of wear and tear, different kinds of mending, recycling of textiles through re-sewing and the utilisation of rags, patches and left-over yarn.

The development goes from numerous time-consuming and specialised techniques at the beginning of the century towards fewer and far simpler techniques at the end of the century. The presentation of the techniques is also changing. In the earliest period utilising everything to the last rag seems like an implied matter of course. Later this kind of work is given a moral significance, and at last it is liberated from economic as well as moral reasons. Technically this development is shown through a change from stressing advanced and invisible techniques which made the mended or re-sewn garment as similar to the original as possible, to a stressing of the techniques’ potential for a unique aesthetical expression. The 1970s is the golden age for this kind of work, which can be explained both by “anti-fashion”, the new ideology of art education in the schools and by a growing ideology of leisure time. Towards the end of the century the techniques for economising with textiles dis-appear from the books of needlework. Yet in the magazines there is still a certain interest in wardrobe planning and renewal of garments.

The full report is only available in Norwegian.