Red, Rouge, Rojo

    The wavelengths of light that we perceive as red are the first ones we are capable of seeing, in the sense that they are the longest wavelengths of light our eyes can register.  I suppose its no surprise then that we relate red to all things primal and physical.  We associate red with food, sex, war and violence.  And interestingly, red, like its counterpart on the spectrum, violet, are both colors associated with power, and majesty.

    Red has been shown to affect our nervous systems and our internal processes.  Our heart rate ticks up a bit in the presence of red, our salivary glands increase production and our metabolism also climbs.  So we have a real time response to red.  These factors are mitigated or exacerbated by the shades and tones of red that exist.  Reds tending towards the brown or gray have less effect on us than reds that tend towards the orange.  And the closer one gets to orange the more pronounced these effects get, as orange is a color which creates discordant responses in the body and brain.
    In our current retail culture red takes a back seat to gray, black and blue, but only because those colors are just now considered neutrals.  Walk into any clothing store and you're likely to see a good deal of it.  Its the single most often used accent color. for clothing; and accessories of all sorts are frequently red.

    Why?  Well, our eye is instantly drawn to red, its very nearly a programmed response so dependable is it.  Check it out yourself sometime.  Scanning a crowd of people casually, your eye will settle on and note the red in the mix first.

   Red is of course also the color of our iron infused blood, so our connection to it is literally internalized.  We carry this subtle connection around in our psyches continually, and it informs how we respond when we see it, because we have so long thought of our own blood when we view red.
    When we observe red on others we are likely to think them potentially volatile, vivacious, and vividly expressive. Red implies action and speed.  And we have even taken red into our spoken language by "seeing red" saying our "face is red" or being "red with lust".

    Perhaps the most important way we associate with red is sexually.  As we connect red to ripeness and fecundity, it associates in our mind with procreation, and by extension all of the sex we humans get up to.  So attiring ourselves in red is a subliminal signal to others of a certain, shall we say, willingness on our parts.

    One of the interesting twists on the application of red in these latter days are the Red Hat Ladies.  By clapping emphatically red hats on their heads they are proudly stating that they ain't done yet by any means.  They have co-opted the energy and spirit of red to invigorate their stance that as mature women they still have a good deal to contribute.  I applaud them all for it.

    So, when red crosses our path, we are taken back to someplace essential and full of zest, its a place of emotional extremities and lush expressions.  Sounds like a fun place to hang out from time to time, no?
    Take yourself somewhere red, soon.

   

Reflective Perspective

    Yesterday's vid post touched on the ethics of attire glancingly, and since then I've been thinking about it a good deal.  We tend to keep our thoughts away from the vast inequities of our life, particularly those of us who are more advantaged than others.  But it really is important, if we are going to have an honest discussion of apparel and its effects, to look at the cost to others, and to the world in general.

    The first thing that comes to my mind is that textile manufacture is the single largest producer of water borne pollution on earth, untellable tons of formaldehyde and chemical dyes get dumped into our waters every year.  As yet there is no regulation on cloth manufacturing to stem this, or encourage different, less toxic options.  In addition, there is no requirement under law to make textile businesses reveal what processes they use to dye, stabilize and finish their cloth to consumers.
    Secondly, the industry produces far more fabric than is ever made up into clothing, or anything whatever, actually.  So is there enough fabric out there to clothe the world?  There surely is.

     The production of clothing is rife with abuses of every sort.  Workers are made to labor under the most foul conditions, and worked insane hours for sub standard wages, so that we, at the other end of the production pipeline, can get a shirt at Target that costs 9 dollars. Now think this through.  If a shirt retails at 9 dollars, it could be costing the store that bought it to sell 4.50.  If so, and the actual manufacturer is not gouging, then the garment cost 2.25 to make.  So that 9 dollar shirt has fabric and notions in it that could not cost more than a dollar total.  Quality?  Not in the least.

    And at the high end of garment manufacture pricing is inflated far beyond a reasonable level, simply because the expectation exists that designer clothes will have high price tags.  There is in fact a point of diminishing returns.  I recall being in a high end store looking at a knit shirt from a very well known avant garde designer.  The shirt had nothing whatever to recommend it beyond its name brand to justify the 480 dollar price tag attached to it.  Yep, 480 clams for a long sleeved tee shirt that had a small bit of detail to it.  There was nothing about the textile quality, or the garment's construction to justify this price.  Heinous, really.

    Could any of us choose to edit our wardrobes down significantly to be less burdensome environmentally, be more socially conscious, and also focus on better quality garments?  Of course we could.  
    What makes this all far more complex an issue and decision, is that an appreciable percentage of the world work force relies on textile, garment, and accessory production for their living. So consumers making a group choice to stop purchasing at the level they do would have catastrophic effects on people all over the world.  It would effect people all along the production and sales process.   
    You must see my own conundrum.  On the one hand there is this massive production machine designed to get us to consume at all costs, regardless of the wisdom of it, that should be made to work along more ethical lines.  On the other hand, there is such potential for communication, learning more about ourselves, and the sharing of beauty that I find I cannot turn away.
    So what do we do?  None of us, surely, wishes to drive someone out of work by our decision to purchase less, especially when so many of those people make so little already.  Do I have a wise and far-reaching answer for this?  No, I don't.  Should we begin, at least, with demanding that clothing manufacturers be held accountable for the pollution they produce and the way their workers are treated?  Yes we should.
    Whatever we do is surely going to have significant negative impact somewhere, but putting ethics to work in an industry that has rarely paid any attention to them is a good thing indeed.

Seven Billion Two Hundred Thirty One Million Of Us To Date

Bod Mod

    The language of Attire consists not only of those things which we put on and take off each day, but also of those semi-permanent and permanent things we do to alter ourselves from our fully natural state.  Even such simple things as a haircut, or color job, or getting our nails done are actually a part of the language that expresses our individual identity.

    As a form of adornment body modification has been with us right from the beginning.  When we noted accidentally that the juice from certain berries stained the skin, and we could apply that in patterns, or that mud rubbed into the hair allowed us to shape it in interesting ways we started climbing the body mod trail.
    It wasn't long before we learned that we could create, on purpose, the same sort of scars we got
while hunting.  And we utilized that to great effect.  From there it was a simple matter to get to tattooing, which has reached an unparalleled level of artistry in the last few years.  We have used tattooing and scarring to mark us literally as members of tribes and associations; to claim allegiance to a religion or a nation.  And as a method of personal expression it is the most broadly used type of permanent modification;  giving voice to our history, accomplishments, dreams and goals, the world over.

    Other methods of changing our shape forever have existed along side these. Various cultures have clasped rings around the neck to stretch it longer to adhere to a cultural norm of beauty.  We have compressed the feet of women to the point where they cannot walk unaided,  The people of ancient Crete bound metal bands around children's waists to keep them small in perpetuity.  We have plucked our eyebrows, shaved our foreheads, curled our beards and pierced pretty much every part of our bodies with bone, wood and metal.
    And all of this to both define us as unique individuals and to claim membership in a kind of society.

    But in the 20th century things took a different turn, one which we have never shied from since.  Surgical alterations.  With the increasing reliability of surgery, and an ever growing desire to fit the norm presented by media, women, almost exclusively, started resorting to plastic surgery to get what they wanted.  Face lifts, tummy tucks and breast implants were only the start of it. 
    Since then virtually anything one can conceive of can and is done to change the face and body.  Men get pectoral and calf implants, or shoot synthol into the body to increase apparent muscle mass. Women and men get the excess fat removed form their bodies with suction.  People can be made taller or shorter, wider or narrower, all that it requires is a willingness to endure significant pain, and the money to pay for it.

    Now I cannot claim to have any moral compass point for this; nor should I, I haven't the wisdom. I do however have a question to pose. If we as individuals feel we can only achieve a level of comfort and individuality by increasingly extreme changes to ourselves, what does that mean about our society as a whole?  Or am I over-thinking this?

Too Much! Too Much!

    The need to go wildly over the top with attire surfaces with regularity, and has as many manifestations as there are folk who indulge in that need.  As long as we have been dressing ourselves, more is more has been part and parcel of the sartorial tongue. We have used it to express power and dominion, to define a connection to divinity, to emphatically proclaim sexual prowess, to promote an image of self, and to display wealth as a means of cementing social position.
    In terms of expressing power and dominion, the ritualized, stiff and formal attire of the monarchs of history can not be superseded in their ability to visually display their might, often to the point where the reality of the person within the magnificence diminishes nearly to invisibility.  The clothing of each of these monarchs is so heavy laden with symbolism and overt signatures of power that they are almost immobilized.

    The clergy of the Roman Catholic faith in particular mastered the fine art of overstatement as cue to divine connection centuries ago, and though the panoply has diminished greatly, the meaning remains.  These men have the ear of God, or so we are to believe.  By taking such clothing onto themselves during the performance of their priestly duties, they take themselves out of commonality, and become something other, as these magnificent gold worked French clerical robes express.

    But power over others makes itself known in other realms than Court life or Church life.  The bedroom calls as well, and the desire to state unequivocally that sexual prowess is ours takes over for many of us from time to time.  Sometimes its just in clothing that is suggestively tight or brief, other times it becomes fetishized to wild extremes.  And in each case some part or parts of the body get overly emphasized in order to make our point. Whether its a pair of breasts displayed open down to the nipples, or a crotch packed high and tight, we are making our intentions plain.

    Occasionally the requirements of a successful career make it needful to adopt a persona in public that while not totally over the top viewed singly, in toto becomes nearly obsessive.  Our media stars most often work this idea, sometimes with great success, and sometimes sliding into unintentional self parody. 

    Self parody is the great danger when indulging in the more is more method of presenting oneself. Its a very tricky business knowing just how far to go, and when to stop.  Becoming a walking cartoon isn't what most people crave for themselves, nor is being an object of ridicule.

    The simplest and most often voiced part of this whole notion is the desire to display wealth, and create social standing through our attire.  Wearing fur, opulent jewels, vast skirts and myriad layers, we want others to know we have the wherewithal to purchase expensive things and parade about in them.

    Whatever our motivation, most of us in one way or another use this sartorial tool to express something about ourselves.  Sure, we can't all wear pearl studded clothes and go around in fur coats, but we all have our ways of getting a part of the more is more ideal.
     What ways do you make it so?

Color In Combination

He She Him Her You Me Us

    I have shown many images of men and women who's apparent position on the sexual line of thought is fairly ambiguous.   And as a man who has for many years chosen to wear a kilt on a daily basis, I have first hand knowledge of what kind of dissonance it can create.

    So, I think its only right and mete that I talk about cross dressing for a bit.
    I find it fascinating that among all the behaviors we express as human beings one stands out as being a profound indicator of our desire to experience something other than our own status; and the slenderness of space we are permitted to socially inhabit.  That would be cross dressing.  Of course no other living species attires itself, so we have no way to observe this phenomenon from outside.  But the need to step away from the boundaries of social convention, or sexual segregation are hard to resist for some of us.

    My own thought on this is that most of us, to one degree or another, have a curiosity about the nature and expressiveness of the other sex, which ever one that may be for us. Or, as we are finally acknowledging, there are those of us simply trying to find where we belong along that continuum of behavior set we call human sexual identity. That is made more difficult because of the constrictions of social acceptability we have to labor with in our culture as it stands.
    I can tell you that as a young gay man I had my time experimenting with, and playing with cross dressing.  I found it ultimately a freeing and revelatory experience.  It gave me a window into another part of myself I had not known existed, and allowed that same part a way to express, that had never been given voice before.  Perhaps that is one of the major forces that draws people to this mode of attire. 

                                                             -Yep, that's me, circa 1980-

    As well, there was and sometimes still is the need to 'hide in plain sight" for some, who have not found a way to come to terms fully with their own place on the sexual continuum.  The existence of cross dressing is a tool for them, that sometimes can help that self discovery along.

    There are those too, who use cross dressing as an implement of social commentary and satire, bringing our often ludicrous conventions and restrictions into sharp focus. The drag kings and queens of the world who lampoon our human silliness provide a unique and wonderful way of viewing from the outside, that which exists inside us. 

    And the language of cross dressing is a distinct dialect of the Attire language.  It has its own rules and regulations, just as the dominant tongue does.  In most cases it expresses as a certain amount of exaggeration, which can go from subtle to extreme, depending on the message being conveyed.  And those messages can be anything from a desire to entertain to a desire to seriously provoke.

    There is a part of me, to be honest, that wishes everyone could have the chance to cross dress in their life, if only for a short while.  It could be a wonderful way to break some of the barriers between us, and that can only be a good thing.