Clothes and Character
Part 1: Books
In books that bother to describe their characters’ clothing, readers are generally assumed to be learning from the fact of the fine silk, smooth and deep red, or from the well cut suit that has been worn heavily, or from the pink crop top. Words ostensibly can’t be wasted on such details as the color of the ribbon on the sun hat or the cashmere blend of the baby’s hand-knitted blanket in shades of forest green. No, if we know that the elderly gentleman in the front row has just divested himself of an ill-fitting black raincoat in the cloakroom, it’s either a plot point or a judgment on his character or his finances. When we’re learning that the young woman is, say, dressed appropriately for the weather, it is something far more significant than dressing for the weather is in typical life conditions. If she is, that is probably a good sign. Your character is paying attention to the right things or is perhaps meant to be read as prudent, practical, smart. Or just lucky, though in my unscientific observation, this is not likely.
Perhaps your character is a beautiful young woman, which is unfortunate for her because beauty is as beauty does. Perhaps, your character is like the most beautiful but rather boring oldest Bennet sister Jane in Pride and Prejudice. Jane Austen lets her be beautiful because she is not as interesting, not as clever, and not as central to the story as Elizabeth.
One of my favorite literary characters in terms of clothing as a means of characterization is Helga Crane in Nella Larsen’s Quicksand (or a free PDF). “In vivid green and gold negligee and glistening brocaded mules,” Helga is beautiful and loves beauty. She is more interested in aesthetics than those around her in the earnest yet vicious and prescriptive Naxos and it damns her, first simply to banishment from that particular place and movement. Eventually, as the aptly named and therefore inevitably downward and smothering tale progresses, of course, that aesthetic sense is lost. As the bitter end of the novel approaches, “Herself, Helga had come to look upon as a finicky, showy thing of unnecessary prejudices and fripperies.” So which is it? Is Helga damned because she cares too much about beauty or damned when she abandons this essential part of her being?
Of course, in Quicksand, it’s both: Helga is the quintessential damned if you do and damned if you don’t character. That’s because this is a book that is most obviously about race and class and gender. And beauty is as beauty does, or something not quite like that. Beauty at least means way too much, whether the character’s beauty or that of her negligee.
In part two, I’ll consider what quarantine clothes say about us. If you’re not seeing anyone, or rather no one is going to see you, what do you wear and how does it matter?
