Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

In a short article on jeans Umberto Eco demonstrates the dialectic between depth and surface which essentially dictates the lifestyle of a given moment in history. Summarizing his argument: worn as a type of armour, clothes have influenced the behaviour, hence the external morality, of civilization (Eco, 1983). Moreover the examples he quotes show that morality per se , in other words customs, are determined by how the body covers itself. Let us dwell on two major points of Eco's analysis. ‘Epidermic self-consciousness’ on the one hand (see also I dentity ), and the concept of the body as a ‘communication machine’ on the other. This is not the place to go into the crucial role Eco attributes to the aggregation factor, that is, the way diverse types of uniforms come to be adopted by people living in an urban civilization. What is certain is that the anthropological structure constituted by the body is both cause and effect of the intensification of social activity. The concern with body image which is expressed in fashion, body-building and so on is not simply a gratuitous or superficial display, but is part of a vast symbolic game and expresses the ways in which we can touch one another, form relationships and ‘socialize’, that is, create society. This is the lesson which the sociology of the body draws from dress fashion and from the various ways of endowing the body with value ... log in or subscribe to read full text