Uniforms : Why We Are What We Wear

by Fussell, Paul

• ISBN13: 9780618067466
• ISBN10: 0618067469
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-11-01
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Summary

From Boy Scouts to soldiers, nurses to UPS workers, chefs to nuns, Paul Fussell describes, in sharp and telling anecdotes, the history and meanings of various uniforms. He reveals their secret language and unfolds their cultural significance. Focusing on the American scene, he holds up a mirror to the folks who head off to work each morning in regulated clothing and charts the fault lines of the desire for conformity and individuality. In examining the way uniforms unite and divide us, he ranges over the globe, describing, among other things, the Russian love of shoulder boards, the German obsession with black, and the Italian enthusiasm for feathered military hats. According to Fussell, we are what we wear, and sometimes our get-ups say surprising things. Uniforms is vintage Fussell - a blend of vinegar and grace, of keen cultural insight and hilarious wit, equal parts spoof and illuminating social analysis.

Author Biography

Paul Fussell is the author of, among other works, Class and The Great War and Modern Memory, which won both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award and was named by the Modern Library as one of the twentieth century’s one hundred best nonfiction books. He lives in Philadelphia.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
A Thing About Uniforms	1	(7)
Colorful Tights for Men?	8	(3)
Sturdy Shoulders and Trim Fit	11	(5)
Russian Uniform Culture	16	(3)
The German Way	19	(9)
Are Italian Men More Vain than Others?	28	(2)
Admiral Zumwalt's Big Mistake	30	(5)
Brass Buttons	35	(3)
Generals' Dress	38	(10)
Blue Jeans	48	(5)
The Rise and Fall of the Brown Jobs	53	(12)
Uniforms of the Faithful	65	(15)
Deliverers	80	(5)
Transportationists	85	(8)
Police and Their Impersonators	93	(4)
Why Aren't Grave Violations of Taste Impeachable Offenses, Too?	97	(3)
Youth on the Musical March	100	(5)
Doorpersons, etc.	105	(5)
The Pitiable Misfits of the Klan	110	(3)
Uniforms of the Sporting Life	113	(8)
Stigmatic Uniforms	121	(5)
Weirdos	126	(6)
Ernest Hemingway, Semi-Weirdo	132	(4)
Uniformity in American Higher Learning	136	(4)
Japan as a Uniform Culture	140	(2)
Academic Full Dress	142	(4)
Pretties	146	(7)
Chefs in Their Whites	153	(3)
The Nurses' Revolt	156	(3)
Little Sailor Suits, and an Addendum on Sloppery	159	(3)
Uniforming the Scouts and Others	162	(5)
Women's Nuptial Uniform	167	(3)
Broad-Brimmed Hats	170	(4)
Civilian Uniformities	174	(9)
Keepsakes	183	(3)
Notes Toward the Reader's Own Theory of Uniforms	186

Excerpts

A Thing About UniformsSociety, which the more I think of it astonishes me the more, is founded upon cloth." Thus Thomas Carlyle in 1836. Little less astonishing today are some of the cloth objects chosen by their wearers. But when such objects become, like uniforms, obligatory and regulated, with implications of mass value, they are irresistibly fascinating.All my life I have had a thing about uniforms. Although it would be pleasant to assert that as a newborn I noted that all the boys were lapped in little blue blankets, with the girls uniformly in pink, I wouldnt go back that far. But it is undeniable that as I aged I began to appear in a sailor suit (this was in the late 1920s), complete, despite the short pants, with whistle and lanyard and red sleeve insignia featuring eagles and chevrons. Next, my loving mother went into action to accouter me as an ideal Boy Scout, with the result that at troop gatherings I was conspicuously overdressed among boys who as a sophisticated gesture wore only a part of the uniform, if that, at a time. I had the whole thing, and brand-new, comprising breeches, long socks, Smoky Bear hat, official shirt, neckerchief, even official shoes. The rest of the troop appeared in blue jeans or corduroys, with perhaps a neckerchief fastened by a rubber band. (Mine was secured by a costly official slide.) The whole thing was a terrible mistake, resulting in my deep humiliation and rapid resignation from the Boy Scouts. This was all highly ironic, for, entirely uninterested in Scouting "activities," my reason for joining was actually the uniform alone. And also not to be forgotten was the invariable Sunday uniform for churchgoing, consisting of dark suit, white shirt, black shoes, and understated dark tie. This was at the time I was in high school, and attracted to the Junior ROTC, but only because those enrolled in it performed their evolutions in full dress uniform and, sweating profusely, were excused from showering afterward. (I had a horror of exposing my babyish body.) The ROTC uniform consisted of olive-drab trousers and wool shirt with black tie, the whole gloriously completed by a real U.S. Army jacket, but with bright blue lapels to distinguish it from the jacket worn by real grown-up soldiers. There was plenty of brass to convey a military look, lots of buttons and lapel ornaments in the form of discs exhibiting lighted torches (of "learning"). Keeping these, as well as the brass belt buckle, shiny was our prime military duty. There was never any other homework. Later, at college, I proceeded to join the Senior ROTC (Infantry), which meant furnishing myself at government expense with a real officers uniform of the 1940s, including pink trousers and greenish-brown jacket. But still distinguished from actuality and seriousness by the shaming letters ROTC on the cap badge and the lapel brass USs. General Colin L. Powell (U.S.A., Ret.) has testified about the way uniforms first attracted him

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Excerpted from Uniforms: Why We Are What We Wear by Paul Fussell
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