ABSTRACT
As material religion, sacred dress has a long, venerable lineage as a corporeal mode of proclaiming religious identity and belonging. Contrary to the standard ahistorical gaze on such sacra, real sociological histories of ‘the garments of God’ manifest considerable conflict and change. This archive-based sociological exploration of the nineteenth-century origins of the dress tradition of the Marist Brothers Institute highlights various foundations for and occasions of aggravation, tension and dispute within a religious dress culture consecrated to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Illuminating the founder power struggles and personality rivalries within such a ‘little tradition’ serves to demystify and demythologize a significant sartorial seam of material culture of religious life. The Marist case serves to demonstrate that there is a certain fashionability about material expressions of faith around which religious virtuosi are fated to exercise some degree of freedom of expression.
