CLOTHES are to us what fur and feathers are to beasts and birds; they not only add to our appearance, but they are our appearance. How we look to others entirely depends upon what we wear and how we wear it; manners and speech are noted afterward, and character last of all.
Emily Post
There's been much discussion in the Pagan blogsphere lately about how Pagans dress, what our choices in fashion communicate about us as a community, and whether Pagans would get more respect from others if we dressed more like the mainstream. The debate boils down to two major issues: gaining respect for the Pagan minority and whether Pagans even care to be accepted in mainstream society. There are no easy or obvious answers but some wise and well-spoken members of the Pagan community have had some interesting things to say.
Diana Vreeland
In her post Pink Is The Navy Blue of India (the title of which is a quote from Diana Vreeland, the twentieth century's greatest arbiter of style and elegance) Hecate tells us:
I know witches who wear Hermes and Jimmy Choo, witches who wear jeans and t-shirts, and witches who are Goth beauty queens. They're all serious about their religion and all of them belong to a religion that "others" don't respect. Maybe Uncle Gerald was onto something with all that skyclad business.
Well, as Mark Twain said, "Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence in society." And in her post On Clout, or the Lack Thereof Anne Johnson makes an interesting point:
Pagans are not going to be taken seriously, no matter what they wear. In order to be taken seriously in America you need to be numerous, well-heeled, and organized.
From a political point of view I agree with Anne but the shoe-hound in me wants to return to the "well-heeled" part of her comment. I think those who argue that modern Pagans would be taken more seriously if they gave some thought to how they dress have a point. The fact that what we wear conveys a certain message is just a fact of our culture.
In my opinion, one of the best posts on this whole matter of Pagan dress is Diane Sylvan's essay On Pagan Conformity. In it she asks the question: "When all is said and done, is it our outfits that are going to keep us from being taken seriously, or is it what we represent?" Read the whole thing; it's brilliant. But this statement most completely states the argument for nonconformity:
Ideally, Paganism represents a fundamentally different way of looking at the world from the mainstream's materialistic commercialism and environmental degradation. Why should we dress to fit into a status quo we don't want to be a part of? Becoming Pagan isn't something that tends to attract conformists; why look like everyone else when you aren't like everyone else?
In many ways we're not like everyone else, I agree. But whether we like it or not, unless we have a trust fund, most of us still have to work and pay rent just like everyone else. There's a time and a place for everything. My personal belief is that at home, in coven, at a ritual, and even at a festival people should wear whatever they want and whatever the occasion suggests and public opinion be damned. I'm not telling someone else what they should be wearing to worship. But Pagans who stubbornly insist upon dressing like "Renaissance-festival reject freaks" at work, in court, or in any other mainstream public arena shouldn't be surprised if they don't get the promotion, the judgment or the respect that they want.
Of course, being the smart ass that I am, my favorite part of Sylvan's essay is this:
We've had hundreds of years to get used to clerical collars and saffron-colored Buddhist robes. If I show up for an interfaith council dressed in a Gandalf cloak with prosthetic pointed ears and a six-foot staff tipped with a $300 quart point, well, I pretty much waive the right to be surprised when they laugh at me. Do I have the right to dress how I want to dress? As far as I know, as long as my bits are covered to the satisfaction of state and local laws, yes I do. Do other people have the right to think I look like a moron? Oh yes, and I promise you, they will.
The part for which I admire her the most is this:
I wish I could say I agreed completely with either side of the debate, but the truth is, I can see both points. I too have been embarrassed by my co-religionists. I too get tired of being looked at as a kook because of other people's wardrobes. Yet I too want to rage against the society that demands I dress and act a certain way and sink my hard-earned dollars into being just like everyone else.
The only thing I can say with certainty is this: my duty is not to dress like a Pagan or like a Christian or like anyone. My duty is to be 100% myself 100% of the time, and not apologize for who I am or what I look like.
I loved Hecate's post on high-fashion with a pagan twist, Speaking Of What Witches Wear. Alexander McQueen dedicated his dramatic Parisian presentation of his Autumn/Winter 2007/2008 collection to a distant relative, Elizabeth How, one of the Salem witches, and Jason at The Wild Hunt thinks McQueen's Pagan Fashion could be the start of a new "Pagan chic." Imagine the thrill!
Golden witch: one of Alexander McQueen's Salem inspired witches, Photograph by Heathcliff O'Malley © Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited
Honestly, I'm most likely to turn up for ritual in a favorite pair of Yohji Yamamoto pants. That's just me. And I'd be tickled pink to find a bunch of sister witches who wanted to start a coven devoted to that goddess of fashion Coco Chanel. Okay, I'm kidding. Mostly.
How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something, but to be someone.
Coco Chanel
Posted by Angela-Eloise at 5:13 PM
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