ABSTRACT
As food is the most basic to survival, clothing is the most omnipresent of the social codes included in this volume. There are very few interactions where clothing (or its noticeable lack) does not playa role. We can be in the company of others without food present, and we can stand or sit on the ground, so as to avoid the use of such taken-for-granted objects such as chairs, but we generally wear clothes. As Alison Lurie put it: "We can líe in the language of dress, or try to tell the truth; but unless we are naked and bald it is impossible to be silent" (1981). She did not take the point far enough. Being naked and bald are also revealing, for even the lack of clothes is noteworthy, also interpreted in light of the larger codeo Due to its constant presence as a factor in social interaction, clothing plays a major role in communication. 1
Clothing often provides the first information we are presented about another persono Before someone opens their mouths to speak, their clothes are available for interpretation. 2 Unlike food, clothing is most often a public matter: What people choose to wear is immediately obvious to anyone passing by on the street, whereas food can be more readily maintained as private.3 Clothing cornrnunicates information on mood, status, and role through even minor details. Though it is easy to assume different meanings require different iteros of dress, social actors need not be so explicit: Messing (1960) described the use of clothing among the Tuareg where even subtle changes in the drape of the cloth are granted significance by those familiar with the codeo
People so thoroughly take the presence of clothes for granted that they are uncornfortable when clothes are removed whether voluntarily, as in a doctor' s office, or involuntarily, as in a jail. As Elizabeth Wilson put it, dress "links the biological body to the social being, and public to private" (1985, p. 2). Clothing is the
outermost layer 01 the private self put on public display. For this reason, it sometimes has been termed the second skin. 4 People often invest themselves more thoroughly in clothing than in what they eat or in which objects they choose to utilize. People deliberately choose what they wear for the meanings it will convey to others, knowing in advance that others take meaning froro the choices. Clothing is a uniquely human product; animals do not wear clothes (the rare exceptions being pets whose owners require it of them).
