Lisa sent me a link to The Brown Dress Project, which I found very interesting. Alex Martin, an artist/dancer/mother in Seattle, made a brown denim dress that she has been wearing every day for nearly a year.
Her artist's statement says that the project is "one small, personal attempt to confront consumerism by refusing to change my dress for 365 days." And, in her FAQ, she says:
But on a feminist note, let's stop agreeing that the best way for women (in particular) to "express themselves" is by purchasing new wardrobe items and putting together daily outfits.
Whoa! When did I miss the memo that the best way for women to express themselves is through their outfits? Because, really, I should have been on the distribution list for that one, right? You'd think I'd be right up near the top! Dress is ONE way for women to express themselves, certainly, but I feel you'd be hard pressed to find consensus that it's the BEST way. Even *I* don't believe that and I write a blog about dresses.
It's confusing to me that an artist who has spent a year living a project that involves clothing (in other words, expressing herself through dress) could make a statement like that. Perhaps the key word in her statement is supposed to be "purchasing", but, if so, it could have been clearer. And what's with the "feminist note"? I am proud to call myself a feminist, as I believe in equal opportunities for women and men. Last time I checked, feminism didn't have a dress code, and, in fact, now that we're on the subject, I am fed up with people who claim that women who enjoy wearing dresses can't be "real feminists". Yes, dresses are traditionally feminine, but really, part of being a feminist, in my opinion, is finally internalizing that "feminine" does not equal "bad" or "weak" or "unworthy."
Elsewhere, in her blog, Ms. Martin says:
Since I am continuously engaging in conversations about my attire this year, I have become really sensitized to our cultural slant towards giving "compliments" on each others' daily outfit. "Oh, I just love your (fill in the blank – bag, hair, shoes, socks, sweater, dress, earrings, jacket, bracelet, hat, scarf)" – and tragically often, this is the intro to a conversation about where the item in question was purchased, a perfect segue back into our place as consumers in this economy. These conversations are not out-and-out evil, but I do think they are a symptom of the insidious fashion culture that keep us, and here I mean ESPECIALLY girls/women/ladies, so ridiculously busy consuming. waxing, accessorizing, and beautifying to perfect our wardrobes and fashion alignments that we can't possibly find the time to accomplish anything more revolutionary or important.
The scare quotes around "compliments" are odd — does she think such remarks are insincere? Not actually compliments? I just don't get it. I think she's cavalierly dismissing the communal, aesthetic, human pleasure of creating something beautiful and finding it appreciated. What artist doesn't want to be asked about their process of creation? If we consider that we all have the daily opportunity to create sartorial art (even if we don't always take it), why begrudge us a few simple responses?
As for dressing and accessorizing interfering with "real" accomplishment — this is a strawman argument, I'm afraid. When I think of the women I know who are interested in clothes, they're not people whose accomplishments tend to the lighter end of the scale. They're not bubbleheaded dilettantes brainwashed by the glossy magazines, unable to lift anything heavier than a charge card; they're writers (novelists, journalists), they work in public policy, they are doctors and lawyers and artists and mothers; they run their own businesses and they work for causes they believe in. (And I have to say that I don't see male activists calling each other out for being under the sway of the consumerist sports industry.) Sure, there are things in life more important than clothes, but to say that an interest in clothes is irreconcilable with achievement is both ridiculous and wrong.
The Brown Dress project is interesting (although I have to say I'm more intrigued with Martin's nebulous plan to spend next year wearing only things she's made herself) but I feel the artist's assumptions as to what are valid and invalid ways to express oneself through clothing need to be questioned as strenuously as she herself is questioning consumerist culture.
Ms. Martin is right to have problems with unbridled consumerism; I do myself. But a blanket condemnation of taking pleasure in one's appearance does nothing to further anti-consumerist agendas–if anything, it sets them back. She's painting with too broad a brush. People who feel fast food is soul-killing and planet-damaging don't say "don't eat"; people opposed to throwaway fashion and consumerist culture shouldn't say "don't buy clothes." The appropriate, more nuanced tack would be to discuss how to fully enjoy what you wear, where it came from, the story behind it; a kind of slow food movement for clothing, but one that allows for joy and creativity and yes, even has room for fashion.
A Dress A Day 
I have managed to restrain myself from emailing the artist and asking: “Nice pattern — wheredja you get it?”
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PREACH IT SISTER! I get very tired of feminists telling me what and who I should be for the “common good”.Common sense like this just makes me feel like all is right in the world.Even Camille Paglia is smiling on you.Diane
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I think it’s interesting that the best way she’s found to express herself (and promote herself) is through an outfit.
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Didn’t Mao already do this experiment? The impulse to adorn/decorate one’s body is as old as humanity. Seems pretty ridiculous to say it comes only from today’s consumerist culture. I think the “refashioning” movement gets the “do more with less” point across in a much more real and less intentionally provocative way.
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..dress must be a little whiffy by now surely?..
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Brava! Thanks for this. My brand of feminism is all about choices, you know? A woman shouldn’t have to look a certain way to be accepted, but neither should she be written off as a reactionary sell-out for wearing pretty clothes.
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I wonder how old this woman is… I went through this extremist phase myself, throwing the baby out with the bath water, then you realize that aesthetic pleasure and self expression are gifts that are rare enough in this world that you need to do your part, both for yourself and for other human beings. The most creative dressers I know are not slaves to the fashion industry and care little for what is “in” or “out”, but combine vintage, homemade, thrift, Target and rare special retail-price purchases to leave Vogue and W pages in the dust!
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Interesting. I agree with both you and the brown dress lady. Thanks for some good commentary.
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I find it most interesting that she chose a brown dress. And is it really temperate enough in Seattle to wear one style year-round?
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well said.
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I have been lurking on your blog for some time, charmed by your sense of style and dazzled by your writing. Your eye for fashion and range of references fascinates me. (I felt a positive thrill when I read your reference to “Zip,” and got it). I felt I had to respond to today’s post. I love it when someone deconstructs a facile argument and exposes its logical fallacies. I, too, am a feminist, and I am concerned about both rampant consumerism and the unhealthy emphasis that modern culture places on physical appearance. Sometimes it’s hard to reconcile these concerns with my bone-deep love of clothes. In the end, I have reached a comfort level by distinguishing between admiration and acquisition, and realizing that the clothes don’t make the woman. Which, come to think of it, might have been better points for Martin to make with her brown dress project. I echo some of your other posts when I confess it just irritates the starch out of me when any traditional aspect of womanliness is considered anti-feminist. I’m not quite ready to adopt a buzzcut-and-overalls uniform with the assumption that the boys will forget I’m a woman and let me join the club. Anyway, thanks for your wonderful blog and especially your post today.
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For someone who wants to deconstruct consumer culture, she finds an awful lot of ways to accessorize that dress. I love the idea, but I don’t quite think she makes the point she’s going for.
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hello..really curious of the site…as being featured as “blog of note” in blogger 🙂
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why wear a dress why not wear a potato sack it would be a better talking point?
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I don’t know what more I can add– you said this so well. As another feminist, it’s nice to know I’m not the only one ashamed to like girly things!
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Feminism has nothing to do with the way you dress and whether or not you choose to wear a dress, nor does it mean that you have to be a Femi-Nazi Hairy Lesbian (there’s nothing wrong with being a Femi-Nazi Hair Lesbian if that’s what you like, so don’t email me or start a flaming war on my blog). Feminism is about choices and I choose to care about what I wear.
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I’m new here, but I really like the concept of your blog, thought I’d leave a fingerprint.
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didnt andrea zittel already do the “wearing-the-same-dress-for-a-year” thing? not that that would make it any less interesting, but you know…
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Sing out, Sister!”although I have to say I’m more intrigued with Martin’s nebulous plan to spend next year wearing only things she’s made herself”–has she spent this year growing cotton or flax or hemp or sheep and spinning the fiber herself?I’m not sure her entire project is any more than a vacuous attempt at self-aggrandizement.
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Yes, Andrea Zittel. Been there, done that. Very original.-another person named Andrea (not Zittel, though)
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Here’s a description of Andrea Zittel’s project…http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/zittel/card2.html
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Thank you for expressing you opinion so well! I too always thought feminism was about choices.
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How I love, love, love reading your blog! I cringe a little when people start thinking most Seattleites are like this (we aren’t, *I* am not anyway)What I want to know is — what are “Guerilla Alterations?”I take a long time creating my wardrobe, and once I have them, I alter them myself so they fit perfectly and I don’t want some brown-dressed ‘artiste’ touching me!(To quote Le Robe Brune Blog – ) “”I’ll be doing guerilla alterations to the clothing of audience members, and I’ll be dancing a solo based on my Brown Dress research, with original music composed by Mark Clem and lighting design by Ben Zamora.””(Or as my stylish yet very practical yet fashionable yet independent late grandmother would say “Someone needs some therapy!”)
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Well put. Some still confuse femine and feminism. We all have a choice …My choices always includes lipstick.
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Hi, I was randomly blog hopping and stumble across your interesting blog. I am quite taken with your latest post. Being a feminist does not mean one has to deny oneself of simple luxuries. Well said =)
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I can agree with what Ms Martin is saying, but I have heard similar ideas expressed better. Still, I applaud anyone who tries to not consume in order to highlight our society’s excessive consumtion patterns. And I can see what she means when she claims that the constant focus on what to wear, how to do up your kitchen, what new mobile phone to get etc. distracts us from other things, like political involvement. I read the “compliments” thing like this: by giving positive feedback so often on superficial things, like what we wear, we encourage people to measure their self-worth in such things. Nothing is cut-and-dry though, is it? There are always shades of grey.It might interest you all to know that there is a Swedish artist who has already done the “make your own clothes” project too. Her name is Elin Wikstrm, professor at the Ume Academy of Fine Arts, and the project was entitled Cool or Lame?
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Lame. The feminist movement is about choices! Choosing not to wear a dress that looks like a POW-camp uniform is pretty darn high on my list. 🙂 As an aside, I wonder what is involved in dancing a solo based on one’s Brown Dress experience…
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I love how you noticed the meaningless quotation marks around the word “compliments”.That, to me, says it all about who this woman is and how she thinks. Uhm – not very clearly. Great post. Very very refreshing to read. 🙂
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Thanks for this post! What a great analysis of the politics and poetics of clothing and their mishandling by artistes.
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Hear, hear! Fantastic, Erin. Thanks for expressing yourself in such a way this morning.[Another proud and life-long feminist who adores dresses both made at home and purchased!)
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Wow, it seems like you’ve thought about this even more than she has! You said all the perfect things, and I especially agree with you that expressing yourself, in dress, as being feminine isnt anything to be looked down on as hypocritical or indignant. It is, like youve said, very ridiculous and too broad to be called a redeemable philosophy. But it is a very pretty brown dress and I commend her on having skill to build her very own wardrobe.-J
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Hear, hear!This reminds me that my mother had a friend at art school in London who would wear the same dress for an entire semester at a time. This was in the late 1950s or early 1960s. My mother interpreted it as functioning like a man’s suit–of very good quality, but neutral, practical, unremarkable. Of course, it was remarkable, obviously, as Mom was still talking about it thirty years later.She did not ever mention the friend’s going on to do anything particularly “revolutionary or important.”
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Hear, hear!This reminds me that my mother had a friend at art school in London who would wear the same dress for an entire semester at a time. This was in the late 1950s or early 1960s. My mother interpreted it as functioning like a man’s suit–of very good quality, but neutral, practical, unremarkable. Of course, it was remarkable, obviously, as Mom was still talking about it thirty years later.She did not ever mention the friend’s going on to do anything particularly “revolutionary or important.”
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To msbelle: It is temperate enough in Seattle to wear the same dress all year, especially if you can add some layers. The winters are never all that cold, and here we are on June 19 and it will hit a high of about 65 today. The weather is nice in many ways, but if it were warmer here, I would wear more dresses. =)
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Yea!
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Hmmmn, so I suppose it would be entirely inappropriate to say that I think the dress is darn cute?There is enormous pressure, in some communities more than others, to conform to a certain standard of beauty. However, I don’t think the fashion industry is the big bad wolf any more. I’d nominate the plastic-surgery industrial complex — when I hear of women — and sometimes girls — feeling compelled to get gynecological plastic surgery to get the right “look” I despair.Ahem — yeah, cute, cute dress.
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Hm, interesting that almost all of you seems so very upset about one person not buying new clothes for a year. Someone stepped on a sore toe, maybe?
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Nobody’s upset about someone not buying clothes for a year — that would be cool, actually, and I’d love to try it. What people are taking issue with is the notion that it’s un-feminist to care about how you look, or to express yourself through your clothing.
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I LOVE THIS BLOG!! Last week I wrote about how I’d like to be the type of lady who wears a dress and heels everyday, then the same night I stumbled upon your blog in “blogs of note.”Back on-topic, that woman is so typical. I am a feminist and I am a lawyer and I am also probably the girliest girl you’ll ever meet. I have never had an issue reconciling the two, because feminism for me is about choice. Sure, I admittedly play into what societys notions of feminine qualities are. But, that’s my darn choice. I’m not going to go out of my way to not be “feminine” in order to liberate myself, only to be constrained by the other side.I find it tres interesting that she picked a dress (albeit a handmade brown one) to rage against the feminine machine …
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Erin is right in her response to anonymous.I object to this part… that we can’t possibly find the time to accomplish anything more revolutionary or important.I don’t like to be put in a little labeled box. By the way, inspired by this blog, I have finished, yes with my own hands (and sewing machine) my new dress and wore it to work today. It is not brown, it is more reddish-pinkish-orangish, real bright and summery (digicam broke down, sorry no photo). I like dresses and skirts and pink and bright jewel like colors. I wear makeup, if I want or not if I don’t. I like to shop too. Work consists of software engieering, my last project was an AI for a computer game. That is the part of the game code that mimicks an other player and tries to be as human as possible. For most of my university years and at the companies I work for, I am the only woman in a group of men. I have a master degree in theoretical physics, mathematics and astronomy. And I still like dresses, I don’t wear high heels, because they slow me down, but I can choose. Which is the important part. I don’t have to, I can. By the way at the moment, I sew little golden beads on a cami, I bought. Because my brain sometimes needs a timeout.
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An interesting book about this: “Fresh Lipstick: Redressing Fashion and Feminism” by Linda Scott. Lots of interesting historical and economic perspective about the politics of dressing. (More fun than it sounds!)
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Cathy, thanks! I *love* books like that. Adding to my reading list now …
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To the brown dress wearer I say, WHATEVAH.If she wants to wear the same outfit everyday, she’s welcome to join the Marines (there’s feminism for ya) or the Amish. (And btw, is brown dress lady making money in any way from wearing the brown dress? If so, then she’s encouraging consumerism. I hope she knows that.)I’m tickled pink when people compliment me on my dresses. I recently wore a crisp white vintage dress with turquoise flowers and trim to swing dancing camp and got a ton of compliments from men and women. Everyone would smile and notice. What that dress created was a kinship, not consumerism. (It didn’t make me want to run out and buy ANOTHER dress, in other words.)Recently a man complimented me on my 1940s style wedgie sandals. That led to a 45-minute conversation about mid-century modern furniture and the Sputnik era.Clothing has many different functions. it’s not just a way to cover up. Whether it’s a grass skirt or a Duro dress, it’s a way to express our personality and communicate and connect with others.
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Hmmm, yes Henry David Thoreau turned me off instantly with his diatribe in Walden against new clothes.I am a feminist.I am also anticonsumerist.But I love clothes! I love my old clothes, I love making clothes, and I love buying clothes at every type of shop. I try not to do it very often, though. I’m much more down with dress-a-day than brown dress lady. Choice is better.Good post!
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I like the project in that it suggests that one can do more with less – she looks nice in one dress; she has kept it more or less clean and unstained. People used to do that all the time, dress in the same clothes day after day, and no one ever questioned it.Also, the fact it is a homemade dress intrigues me. I may have the time next year to make my clothes, which would be such a nice alternative to shopping, which I hate. So there’s that lesson.Otherwise…well, I don’t really think it’s an ‘anti-cosumer culture’ movement as it is a call t return to an older consumder culture, where people took pride and care in their clothing and nothing was thrown away.
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Andrea Zittel has an interesting take on the dress-as-uniform… alas my post on this went blooey last night, so I don’t remember what I said that I thought was so relevant, so instead I’ll point you to her website: http://www.zittel.orgThe Brown Dress Project seems, at first glance, derivative, to me. Her argument is less nuanced than Zittel’s, certainly. However, I think perhaps too many are taking her project as a condemnation of their own behavior – which I do not think it is. It is instead an exploration. I think I’m more interested in the idea of a uniform – like a men’s suit – for professional wear, because it would certainly simplify my closet and my mornings. Taking the brown dress, multiplying it with variants – color, sleeve, length – and accessorizing, would allow for uniformity without boredom. Would anybody even notice if I did this? It took me a year of working on and off with a consultant to realize that she always – ALWAYS – wears black pants, a white t-shirt, and a black linen overshirt. Do you really ever know whether a guy’s navy suit is the same one he wore last week? Anyway – check out Andrea Zittel, who explores these ideas in design for living in clothing, housing, furniture, and even chicken houses.
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Good
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I think Erin’s blog is definitely not about wearing a uniform, which is why many of us feel rubbed the wrong way by the Brown Dress. The fact is, if you wear a dress, you really DON’T have to think about pulling a look together. Just put the dress over your head, grab some heels or boots, and that’s it, you’re DRESSED!As far as whethere it’s meant as a condemnation, I think saying “These conversations are not out-and-out evil, but I do think they are a symptom of the insidious fashion culture that keep us, and here I mean ESPECIALLY girls/women/ladies, so ridiculously busy consuming.” clearly IS a condemnation. Jesus Christ! She considers people who discuss clothes as practically evil! Gimme a break!And does she think that only women care about clothes? She sounds totally out of touch, misguided, ignorant about the role clothes play in EVERY society and gimmicky. (This is why I hate performance “art.”)
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Interesting topic today. What I wouldn’t give for it to be 65 degrees here!!! Sometimes I miss home in summer.
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Some people are simply uncomfortable giving a compliment unless it is an impersonal, intellectual one. And because personal philosophies tend to stem from a reality rather than realities stemming from personal philosophies, I think that such people create, after the fact, philosophies about why it is shallow to compliment on clothes, etc. -Kismet
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