Jennifer Craik: Visualising the national through clothes: Dressing Australia and constructing identity
Research Professor of Communication and Cultural Studies at the University of Canberra, Canberra, and Adjunct Professor of Fashion at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University, Melbourne, Australia.
This paper will explore how images of “the national” are constructed through clothes and modes of representation. In particular, the paper looks at how fashions in clothing and how they are depicted has changed with the globalisation of Australian culture. Australia and culture were traditionally seen as contradictory yet in recent years, diverse forms of Australian culture have been exported and re-imported. Australians now have an internationalised and cosmopolitan image of themselves which has been reflected in trends in fashion and clothing.
Nonetheless, it is no easier now to specify the elements of Australian national dress than it was, as successive Australian entrants to Miss Universe contests have found when faced with the challenge to wear “national dress” as part of the competition. Australia’s most recent entrant in Miss Universe 2006, Erin McNaught, was highly favoured by bookies but was unplaced. Yet she made her mark in other ways, in particular by her choice of national dress. McNaught wore a sexualised version of “bush” wear and “Aussie digger” (military) uniforms, namely a slouch hat, denim jacket redolent of military dress, “indigenous” patterned singlet, mini denim “cargo style” shorts with low slung leather belt and stilettos with puttees and leather straps. Through her belt, was a nonchalantly slung stock whip.
This is one version of national dress and contrasts with how Australia’s main “bush wear” outfitter, R. M. Williams, promotes their clothes in annual catalogues. Here the norm for “bush” women is plaid shirts, moleskins, leather belt, elastic-sided boots and akubra hat. This is a demure conservative look that harks back to the “bush” myth rather than urban high street fashion. In gender terms it evokes the idea that women know their place as down-to-earth pragmatists and home makers not adventuress sex kittens. While most of the catalogue features rugged bush men mustering cattle and in outback settings, the reality of the bush today is that women are managing properties while men work in jobs in town. Either way, the R. M. Williams representation of “bush wear” for women is a long way from McNaught’s provocative outfit.
But there are also other versions of Australian national dress, in particular, surf wear and beachwear; leisure wear and sporting wear; and indigenous-sourced fabrics and textiles. Meanwhile, Australia has become a multi-cultural society with many other cultural forms of dress and fashion moulding national culture. This paper explores changes in the zeitgeist of changing ideas about Australian national dress and how it is represented in the fashion press and popular culture. What are the implications for current debates about national identity and likely trends in fashion futures?
References
Craik, Jennifer. 2006. “”The Australian-ness of Australian Fashion and Dress”, Paper to the Fashion and Dress in UnAustralia Workshop, Cultural Studies Association of Australasia UnAustralia Conference 2006, 6-8 December, Canberra. Australia.
Craik, Jennifer. 1994 The Face of Fashion London and New York: Routledge.
Craik, Jennifer. 2005. “Formander av australiska kroppar och en nationell kultur” in Bo Nilsson (red.) Påklädd Uppklädd Avkladd. Om klädder, kropp ock identitet Stockholm: Norstedts Akademiska Forlag, pp.73-110.
AAP. 2006. “Aussie Hot with the Bookies and the Trump for Donald” The Australian July 24, p. 13.
R. M. Williams. 2006. R. M. Williams the Bush Outfitter Spring/Summer ’07 Adelaide: R. M. Williams Pty Ltd.
Craik, Jennifer. 2005 Uniforms Exposed. From Conformity to Transgression Oxford & New York: Berg Publishers.
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Jennifer Craik is Research Professor of Communication and Cultural Studies at the University of Canberra, Canberra, and Adjunct Professor of Fashion at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University, Melbourne, Australia.
She has a Bachelor of Arts with Honours in Sociological Research from the Australian National University, Canberra, and a PhD in Social and Political Sciences from the University of Cambridge, England. She researches in cultural studies and cultural policy, tourism and fashion. Publications include The Face of Fashion: Cultural Studies in Fashion (Routledge 1994) and Uniforms Exposed: From Conformity to Transgression (Berg 2005). Currently, she is completing Fashion: The Key Concepts for Berg.