Eloquence and bad taste

Between cliche and madness in the language of dress are all the known varieties of speech: eloquence, wit, information, irony, propaganda, humor, pathos and even (though rarely) true po­etry. Just as a gifted writer combines unexpected words and images, risking (and sometimes briefly gaining) the reputation of being deranged, so certain gifted persons have been able to combine odd items of clothing, old and new, native and foreign, into a brilliant eloquence of personal statement. While other people merely follow the style of the age in which they live, these men and women transform contemporary fashion into individual expression. Some of their achievements are celebrated in the history of costume, but here, as in all the arts, there must be many unknown geniuses.

Unfortunately, just as there are more no-talent artists than there are geniuses, there are also many persons who do not dress very well, not because of lack of money but because of innate lack of taste. In some cases their clothes are merely monotonous, suggesting an uninteresting but consistent personality. Others seem to have a knack for combining colors, patterns and styles in a way that - rightly or wrongly - suggests personal awkward­ness and disharmony. In Henry James's The Bostonians (1886), the bad taste in clothes of the heroine, Verena Tarrant, fore­shadows her moral confusion and her bad taste in men. Verena, who has bright-red hair, makes her first public appearance wear­ing “a light-brown dress, of a shape that struck [Basil Ransom] as fantastic, a yellow petticoat, and a large crimson sash fastened at the side; while round her neck, and falling low upon her flat young chest, she had a double chain of amber beads.” And, as if is this were not enough, Verena also carried “a large red fan, which she kept constantly in movement.”

Like any elaborate nonverbal language, costume is sometimes more eloquent than the native speech of its wearers. Indeed, the more inarticulate someone is verbally, the more important are the statements made by his or her clothes. People who are skilled in verbal discourse, on the other hand, can afford to be somewhat careless or dull in their dress, as in the case of certain teachers and politicians. Even they, of course, are telling us something, but they may not be telling us very much.