When did the term “fashionable” become part of our vocabulary? When did dressing a certain way express your personality and judging a person based on their outfit became natural? Although The Invention of Wings is set nearly 200 years ago, Kidd places a key emphasis on women’s fashion in order to convey a larger meaning about the time period and characters. Kidd first shows the importance of clothing during the 1800s when she writes how Handful and her mother are both seamstresses and, therefore, worth more money than some of the other slaves. She goes into great detail about the elaborate dresses of wealthy women, using specific examples such as “a shawl of flounced tulle” or “an imported van-dyke cap” (215). These details provide an image of fashion during this period—it was much more decorative, stuffy, and it allowed wealthy families to boast their prosperity. Another example is when Kidd first introduces Quakers. Sarah’s first reaction is to contrast “the women and girls clad in dismal, excoriated dresses” and the “almost flamboyant” attire of Presbyterians (192). Society judged and identified Quakers with their simple, plain clothing. When the Guard stops Sarah and Nina in the street, his attention “was not on the turnip in [her] hand, but on [her] dress” (252), which shows how society solely identified Quakers by their clothing. In this way, Kidd connects a character’s clothing to their beliefs or identity. Sarah’s clothes were her only connection to her home and family, they were her identity, and that is the reason why she struggles with abandoning them while in the North. Kidd writes of fashion similarly to how it is thought about today, a way to learn about a person’s personality or beliefs before knowing them completely. Although I do not find fashion as important as other people might, I appreciate the way she emphasizes apparel during this time as well as the importance of it in establishing one’s place in society.
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Charlsea, fashion always has been and always will be a marker of identity, more so for women than for men. We hear little about what Sarah's fathers and brothers wear, but, as you point out, we find lots of detail concerning what the women wear. Because "Invention" is a work of historical fiction, Kidd needs to provide these sorts of detail to make the book come alive for us. However, as a gifted writer, she turns the clothing into a symbol, which you also point out. As Bedford St. Martin's website points out, "A symbol works two ways: It is something itself, and it also suggests something deeper." A symbol does not make an implicit comparison between two things (as does a metaphor). So, then we can think about what that clothing symbolizes, and certainly that has something to do with gender, class, and identity.
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Charlsea
Welcome to my blog about The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd!