“Mrs. Funston in Filipino Costume”: Philippine Textiles, American Fashion, and American Imperialism in the Philippines

• In Event: Material Culture Caucus Panel: Crafting Empire: Material Culture Perspectives on the Objects of Colonial Relation

Abstract

This paper studies American receptions of the Philippines, a newly acquired American territory, in the late nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries. In particular, I examine the ways in which the production and labor of textiles and dress from the Philippines were incorporated (or not) into American fashion systems. When the Philippines was an American territory (1898-1946), many Americans interacted with this distant, exotic territory through textual descriptions, photographic images, and material culture rather than real people. While some American tourists and businesspeople did travel to the Philippines (and brought back souvenirs, including textiles and garments), and some Filipinos were brought to the United States (mainly to be exhibited at World’s Fairs, along with material culture), but many perceptions of Filipinos were formed by material objects, including textiles and dress objects. I will show how Americans used textiles and dress to differentiate between different groups in the Philippines. While more Europeanized mestiza societies were seen as something to be emulated, with even a phenomenon of white American women dressing up in mestiza costumes including piña garments, dress practices from indigenous groups were seen differently.
Many indigenous groups in the Philippines were seen as uncivilized due to the lack of coverage in their clothing. The clothing of some indigenous groups, including the Bagobo and Mandaya people of Mindanao in the southern Philippines, was used as inspiration in the American textile industry as part of an initiative between the American Museum of Natural History and New York textile designers. However these clothing items were seen as a source for design elements to be extracted from, rather than something integrated into the fashion system. Philippine labor was also heavily sought after in the fashion and textile industries, particularly in embroidery and lacemaking. Filipino workers made lingerie for the American market following a decline in French industry during World War I, and many saw Filipino embroidery as superior even to the French. Importers and department stores across the country advertised the fine, delicate Filipino embroidery, and even brought over a nipa hut and Filipino embroiderers to display in department stores. The use of Filipino labor was particularly valued, because of the status of the Philippines as a territory of the United States these garments could be imported without the tariffs on foreign goods and marketed as “made in America,” all while skirting around American labor laws and paying Filipino workers low wages. By looking at the ways in which Philippine textiles, labor, and people were engaged with and exploited in the American colonial period, we can gain a clearer picture of how fashion, economics, education, and politics were entangled in the project of American empire in the Philippines.

Author

• Angela Hermano Crenshaw, Bard Graduate Center