What do you think?
Rate this book
Clothing: A Global History
In virtually all the countries of the world, men, and to a lesser extent women, are today dressed in very similar clothing. This book gives a compelling account and analysis of the process by which this has come about. At the same time it takes seriously those places where, for whatever reason, this process has not occurred, or has been reversed, and provides explanations for these developments.
The first part of this story recounts how the cultural, political and economic power of Europe and, from the later nineteenth century North America, has provided an impetus for the adoption of whatever was at that time standard Western dress. Set against this, Robert Ross shows how the adoption of European style dress, or its rejection, has always been a political act, performed most frequently in order to claim equality with colonial masters, more often a male option, or to stress distinction from them, which women, perhaps under male duress, more frequently did.
The book takes a refreshing global perspective to its subject, with all continents and many countries being discussed. It investigates not merely the symbolic and message-bearing aspects of clothing, but also practical matters of production and, equally importantly, distribution.
The first part of this story recounts how the cultural, political and economic power of Europe and, from the later nineteenth century North America, has provided an impetus for the adoption of whatever was at that time standard Western dress. Set against this, Robert Ross shows how the adoption of European style dress, or its rejection, has always been a political act, performed most frequently in order to claim equality with colonial masters, more often a male option, or to stress distinction from them, which women, perhaps under male duress, more frequently did.
The book takes a refreshing global perspective to its subject, with all continents and many countries being discussed. It investigates not merely the symbolic and message-bearing aspects of clothing, but also practical matters of production and, equally importantly, distribution.
- GenresHistoryFashionNonfiction
359 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2008
About the author
Robert Ross
15 books2 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Robert Ross is a British historian, a Professor Emeritus in African Studies at the Leiden University Institute for History.
He earned his Ph.D. from Cambridge in 1974 on the history of the Griquas in central South Africa. His special interest is South-African history.
Robert Ross is a British historian, a Professor Emeritus in African Studies at the Leiden University Institute for History.
He earned his Ph.D. from Cambridge in 1974 on the history of the Griquas in central South Africa. His special interest is South-African history.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 24, 2011
Clothes are, in many cases and contexts, a taken for granted – I teach in a sports studies/science programme never having owned a track suit seem out-of-place (not having owned one being a sign of a certain non-sportiness). This taken-for-grantedness is most obvious when clothing becomes an issue – such as in cases of subcultural style, school student resistance against uniforms (a modern form of sumptuary law), or dress-down Friday (as we used to do in the government Ministry I once worked in – but kept a suit in the closet just in case we got called to the Minister’s office). Yet we don’t need to look far as we travel to see that clothing around the world seems uniform, consistent, standard, or whatever else we want to call it: basically, folks all over dress the same.
Robert Ross’s Clothing is an excellent instance of broad sweep synthetic history that attempts to make sense of how and why this came into being. His approach is inclusive, but concentrates on two major developments between the 16th and early 21st centuries. In the first, he explores the spread of European clothing styles and forms, while in the second he explores the uneven adoption and take up of those styles centred on the paradoxical tension between European clothes as a marker of individual modernity and ‘indigenous’ clothing (through actual or invented traditions) as a marker of nationalism (and therefore of collective modernity). He is aware of and able to present the subtle ways that individuals and groups negotiate new and adjusted sartorial rules, and of the awful gaffes that may result, of the subtle and not-so-subtle ways that clothes mark gender and ambiguity or paradox – consider the case of men who dress in western clothes to depict themselves as modern, but insist that women under their control/influence retain ‘traditional’ dress as a way to protect their individual and collective cultural purity. This, he notes, is only one of many strands in the complex contemporary debates over Muslim women’s dress. He also has a good sense of the arbitrary aspects of sartorial rules: before the emergence of the Chinese Republic in 1919 many local dress codes in effect had the women wearing trousers, and men skirts – with the effect that the ‘traditional’ dress of Chinese women, the qipao, may be seen as an early 20th century attempt to emulate men’s clothing.
In all, however, this is a case for the importance of the ordinary and the banal. He is critical of elements of the discussions of colonial mimicry and the politics of rejection as emphasising the exotic, failing to treat those who emulate (by, for instance, wearing European clothing) with respect and the benefit of free will (as he calls it), and failing to recognise the subtle ways that globalisation works. It is not that he rejects the usefulness of these discussions of mimicry, but that they are not the whole story. All in all, a rich and sophisticated empirically grounded exploration. My principle gripe being that there is not enough about the economics of production, distribution and exchange: the one good chapter that does this centres on the 19th century, with some seepage into the early 20th. More would have been helpful, have enriched the text, and made it a little more useful as a teaching tool with students beyond those in cultural and imperial histories.
Robert Ross’s Clothing is an excellent instance of broad sweep synthetic history that attempts to make sense of how and why this came into being. His approach is inclusive, but concentrates on two major developments between the 16th and early 21st centuries. In the first, he explores the spread of European clothing styles and forms, while in the second he explores the uneven adoption and take up of those styles centred on the paradoxical tension between European clothes as a marker of individual modernity and ‘indigenous’ clothing (through actual or invented traditions) as a marker of nationalism (and therefore of collective modernity). He is aware of and able to present the subtle ways that individuals and groups negotiate new and adjusted sartorial rules, and of the awful gaffes that may result, of the subtle and not-so-subtle ways that clothes mark gender and ambiguity or paradox – consider the case of men who dress in western clothes to depict themselves as modern, but insist that women under their control/influence retain ‘traditional’ dress as a way to protect their individual and collective cultural purity. This, he notes, is only one of many strands in the complex contemporary debates over Muslim women’s dress. He also has a good sense of the arbitrary aspects of sartorial rules: before the emergence of the Chinese Republic in 1919 many local dress codes in effect had the women wearing trousers, and men skirts – with the effect that the ‘traditional’ dress of Chinese women, the qipao, may be seen as an early 20th century attempt to emulate men’s clothing.
In all, however, this is a case for the importance of the ordinary and the banal. He is critical of elements of the discussions of colonial mimicry and the politics of rejection as emphasising the exotic, failing to treat those who emulate (by, for instance, wearing European clothing) with respect and the benefit of free will (as he calls it), and failing to recognise the subtle ways that globalisation works. It is not that he rejects the usefulness of these discussions of mimicry, but that they are not the whole story. All in all, a rich and sophisticated empirically grounded exploration. My principle gripe being that there is not enough about the economics of production, distribution and exchange: the one good chapter that does this centres on the 19th century, with some seepage into the early 20th. More would have been helpful, have enriched the text, and made it a little more useful as a teaching tool with students beyond those in cultural and imperial histories.
November 8, 2012
I found this really difficult to get into, so I ended up only reading parts of immediate relevance to my research and barely skimming the rest. Might try again someday.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews