The Clothed Body

The Clothed Body
If television, or rather the exaggerated and mystifying use that politics
makes of television, has replaced the mass political rallies held in the open
air, if this lively electrical appliance has muddied the waters and created an
excessive commingling of eye, ear and brain, then we mustn’t forget that
historically there has always been a close relation between politics and
fashion. The famous case of the sobriquet sans culottes for French revolutionaries
derives from the fact that they chose to wear long trousers, and
so appeared ‘sans culottes’, that is, without the traditional garment worn
by members of the Ancien Régime. Moreover, politics has often given
names to fashions that spread far beyond restricted political groups:
Imperial and Victorian styles are so-called after, respectively, the political
regime and reign during which these dress styles were popular.
In rhetoric, a discourse genre called oratio togata recalls the oratorical
style of those who wore the senatorial toga in ancient Rome. And here the
relation between language, politics and dress is exemplary. Indeed,
Marguerite Yourcenar claims that in her novel Memoirs of Hadrian (1951)
she has the emperor speak in this way, because it embodies the ideal of
masculine dignity in Classical Antiquity; and in support of this claim she
adduces the image of the dying Caesar adjusting the folds of his toga.
The African-American scholar Cornel West (1993) has identified a
similar ideal of dignity in the black suit and white shirt worn by Martin
Luther King and Malcolm X as an affirmation of the seriousness and commitment
of their fight for black civil rights.
In these last two examples the relation between fashion and politics is
inverted: it is the politician or political stance that determines the dress
code, not vice versa; it is the way of conceiving one’s appearance style
that dictates visibly the significance of a professional commitment. Here
the politician isn’t conforming to an already established dress code,
wearing a uniform or simply wanting to look good on television, but is
making an ethical choice that belittles any flattery or clever advice a style
councillor might give. Instead of judging politicians on their ‘top model’
effect, as usually happens, why don’t we try and guess which one of
them, like Caesar, would think of adjusting his (or her) toga after being
stabbed?
Notes
1. Silvana Mangano is an Italian actress from the 1950s.
2. A monster that, even for Icelanders, comes from the far frozen north.
3. Perhaps with unbuttoned jeans, or a slit skirt.
24