Racializaiton of Dress: How Race Acts as a Structuring Ideology for Fashion and Dress

• In Event: 2352 - Racialization and Colorblindness: Intersection of Institutions and Identities

Abstract

The intersection of race and dress is often is dominated by how either resist or to conform to dominant constructs of beauty through hairstyling and emblematic clothing to achieve a defined social aim, such as a political agenda or social cache and capital. My research on contemporary dress practices of a diverse group of women at a large Midwestern university challenges this dichotomy and poses a new theoretical framework for the intersection of race and dress. Interviews with 36 collegiate women revealed that although they did not use dress to challenge racialized beauty norms or dress in ways to maximize social gain, race impacted their dress behavior in myriad of other ways. Race was evident in their clothing choices, impacted the spheres of influence on their dress behavior, shaped how they viewed dress, expectations for dress, and how they assessed the appropriate attire. As a result, I posit that race has a much more insidious relationship to dress behavior than dressing to achieve an explicit agenda. I argue that race acts as a structuring ideology for how women experience and perceive fashion and dress. Race not only has a discursive relationship to clothing but also creates symbolic boundaries to define spheres of influence.

Author

• Angela Nurse, University of San Diego