Dress codes

While living in India in 1989 to pursue her doctoral thesis, Sandra Evenson, a UI professor of clothing and textiles, got a complete manicure and pedicure once each week.

"It sounds like an outrageous way for a poor graduate student to spend money," she allows. But the nail jobsÑalong with her wearing of the traditional salwar kameez, a two-piece outfit consisting of long, fitted tunic and harem pantsÑare what it took for Evenson to look like a respectable middle class woman in India.

The cut of an Indian woman's clothes draw attention to her face, hands, and feet, Evenson explained. Her feet, exposed in sandals outdoors and bare indoors, should be rubbed clean of dead skin, have perfect cuticles, and carefully shaped and painted nails.

Evenson is convinced her attention to these details of dress eased her entry into Madras's import-export offices and earned her better quality information for her study of the 400-year-old Indian cotton madras trade between India and the Kalabari people of Nigeria.

Some of her findings from that research appear in Evenson's new book, the second edition of The Visible Self: Global Perspectives on Dress, Culture, and Society, which she co-authors with her mentor at the University of Minnesota, Joanne Eicher. An introduction to the cross-cultural study of dress published by Fairchild Books of New York, the book supports courses in anthropology, costume history, and women's studies, as well as courses specifically on dress, including one on dress and culture that Evenson teaches to undergraduates at the UI.

(Sandra Evenson wears a salwar kameez, her everyday dress while conducting research in India. Photos by Michele Kimberling)

Humans all around the world dress to communicate who they are and to receive personal satisfaction. "We all do it for the same reasons," Evenson said, "but the variety in how we do it is so spectacular." Other species may groom one another, but not a single other species dresses.

Dress, as Evenson defines it, is more than clothing: it is accessories and body modifications and the very process of grooming and dressing. In Borneo, women file down the corners of their teeth into points for beauty's sake. Muslim men in India who have made the pilgrimage to Mecca dye their beards red with henna. For tribal societies, body paint is dress.

In United States culture, we dye our hair to look younger, go to the gym to better define our muscles, apply mouthwashes and perfume to sweeten our body odors, wear brand name clothing to signify our economic resources, and make our lips fruit-flavored with lip gloss.

"Even before a person speaks, you can tell a dozen different things about the individual," said Evenson. Dress reveals gender, national origin, income, occupation, even hobbies, values, and religious beliefs.

But while it's rather easy to size up a person by his dress in your own culture, it can be hazardous to apply those standards abroad.

"In a global culture, you can't afford to stereotype people anymore. It will cost you business," said Evenson. That Indian man going to work in sandals and untucked short-sleeved shirt could well be the richest textile merchant in Bombay.

Even back home, knowing what to wear can be a trial, what with dress-down Fridays and an emphasis on individuality. "In some ways, it's the downside of living in a culture where the individual is emphasized," said Evenson. "But if you're good at dressing like who you are, and you have that confidence of dressing as you want the world to see you, you've got it made."

-Diane Noel