Review of: Mode, Kleidung, Kunst. Rezensionsessay zum Schwerpunktthema

Abstract

Two new studies dedicate themselves to the relationship between clothing and gender, or rather, clothing and body. The cultural studies scholar Cordula Bachmann examines how women and men in their daily practice of “dressing themselves” must deal with fashionable images of masculinity or femininity. She evaluates recent interviews on dressing behaviors of women and men and places the perspective of the dresser, who must “dress” daily to fulfill a primary social demand, in the center of the interest. The art historian Cora von Pape examines the sensational artistic approach to clothing in the form of textile art objects that concern themselves with the human body and the manner in which the body is represented or transformed through clothing and textiles. In her analysis of interviews, Bachmann thematizes the common female chaos of dressing: the daily challenge of having to decide for or against a dress as also having to decide for or against a women’s role. This appears also in the performances and textile art objects of many of the artists of the latter half of the 20th century introduced by von Pape. Here, the theme is of course artistically-experimentally worked into impressive (self-)performances, which get to the heart of the tremendous symbolism of dressing. Clothing is a body sheath or a relic, which appears in place of the missing body.