(the) American (Novel of)

244 Hazel E. Barnes
so is to challenge the presuppositions we have tacitly agreed to live by
and to suggest, disturbingly, that they might be questioned.
It is noteworthy that rebels against a particular society use clothes
to express their rejection of the old and their embrace of the new.
Conformity is still required but has changed its style. The gray uniform
put on the Chinese by the Maoists is an extreme example. A more
interesting and longer lasting one is our own social revolution in the
middle of the last century, which came about without authoritarian
decree. The Beats, the civil rights marchers, the anti-Vietnam protesters,
the hippies, and so on all adopted hair styles and clothes quite different
from the usual. Contempt for the established etiquette was shown by
the fact that jeans, chosen for their association with manual workers,
were often worn dirty, patched, or deliberately torn. Paradoxically, there
were two quite different consequences. Among some young people
conformity to one fashion in dress was replaced by another, and difference
was accentuated. I remember one impecunious graduate student
refusing the gift of a tailored suit for her teenage daughter because the
girl would not wear “straight clothes.” You can still find shops which
offer only countercultural apparel. More significantly, just as the new
generation’s movement succeeded in improving the rights of minorities,
of women, of people with disabilities, so its fashions gradually came to
be close to worldwide, adapted and modified but still recognizable.
Charles Reich, in The Greening of America, took denim jeans as a symbol
of the liberating force that he thought was opening the way for a new
and improved way of life. Reich’s optimistic hopes are far from having
been fully realized. He was right in foreseeing that change in prevailing
fashions reflected the higher value placed on comfort and the blurring
of class distinctions.
Aesthetics and the etiquette of clothes are so closely connected
that they considerably overlap, without conflicting. Both are concerned
with the creation and the imposition of form, texture, and color for
their own sake. In terms of survival, they are not among our prime
necessities; both contribute to making life worth the struggle to survive.
Creativity and the spirit of play are dominant. Admittedly, there are
graver connections between clothes and economics—not to mention
such things as consumerism, conspicuous consumption, and snobbishness.
But the designing, making, and wearing of particular clothing can
be a legitimate source of aesthetic delight, both for the wearer and for