Sterne’s study brings to light a significant obstacle in the investigation of sound in clothing that is rooted in its innate ephemerality. Historian Leigh Eric Schmidt notes, “Almost all of history is eerily silent, and so to evoke those stilled and faded voices, the historian must act as a kind of necromancer.”8 Moreover, analyses are time specific, that is, what is notable to record is entirely subjective, and must always be understood as such. The acoustic
with his own experience.”9 All forms of literature, from heavy prose to popular short stories, can be especially significant and successful in evoking the multisensory aspects of dress as it tones down the dominance of the visual properties, and in doing so highlights the other sensual expressions. The corporeal characteristics of sound point to a constant action of consumption, the act
the complexity of this study then is perhaps not finding a link between the clothing and sound, but learning how to investigate history so as to experience it audibly. historian must always be cognizant of this fact, and must continually seek out imaginative forms of research to draw forth the veiled resonances and undulations of the past. One of the most effective sources is, ironically, that which displaced sound as the Western world’s primary ordering sense–the written word. Anne Hollander explores the strength of literature in the interpretation of clothing through the secondary senses. She states, “How garments are visually designed and how they look when ordinarily worn is the part of the image that is nearly always missing from the literary mirror when it is held directly up to nature. [...] In fiction, clothes are generally treated less as visual phenomena and more as aspects of emotion, to be similarly communicated to the reader, often in terms of behavior and so assumed to be recognized by him as having kinship
of attainment that is so quickly associated with sensuality, sexuality, and lust. This instinct runs counter to values of higher civilization, the dichotomy of civilized man vs. natural instincts, of societal structural pressures vs. the development of the individual are dilemmas that play out throughout the history of the modern era. Like so many other factors of culture, sound in clothing reflects this struggle, and continues to evolve in post-modern times. To hear sound in clothes is natural because the body itself is sonorous. What occurs in fashion is that this natural sonic state is continually manipulated, suppressed, or amplified depending on social conditions. One needs only to image the muffled rhythmic taps of the gloved hand to conceptualize this ongoing struggle. >>
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