The Latin American Fashion Reader

The Latin American Fashion Reader Regina A. Root, Editor. Oxford, UK: Berg, 2005. This brilliant collection of well-researched articles approaches fashion as a unique document in which specific elements such as style, and selective use of fabrics, patterns, designs, and color serve as distinct indicators of cultural identity. Because the variety of topics treated in this book reveals a mosaic of ethnic regions influenced by the unique combination of elements forming their historical and geographical circumstance, this text stands out in contrast with traditional studies that tend to view the region as a uniform set of countries tied by their common colonial history. As the authors show, the dress and accessories used in the customs of a given region are part of a "social experience" and communicate specific ethnicity, values, beliefs, practices, and economic status of many groups that form Latin America's cultural map. In Visualizing Difference: The Rhetoric of Clothing in Colonial Spanish America, Mariselle Melendez states that dress "has played a vital role in the process of identity construction of the different ethnic and racial groups." The dress worn by the different groups in colonial Spanish America was a visual tool to identify their place in the caste system and to reinforce the superiority of the ruling class, as evident in authors who observed the colonial societies of Mexico, Peru, and other regions of Latin America at the time. Similarly, Kimberly Randall in The Traveler's Eye: Chinas Poblanas and European-Inspired Costume in Postcolonial Mexico, explains in-depth the origin, influences, and transformation of the "China Poblana" dress in Mexico and its importance as a symbol of national identity. In her essay The Eastern Influences of Latin American Fashion, Araceli Tinajero examines the syncretic nature of Latin America's civilization, and the wide variety of Eastern products and influences visible in art, literature, and dress that combined to give it its distinct multicultural richness. In addition to these three studies presented under Part One of her book subtitled "Unraveling History," Regina A. Root presents a fascinating study of "the peineton," an enormous hair comb worn by some women in Argentina in the early nineteenth century to gain public attention and a place in the political arena. Her essay called Fashioning Independence: Gender, Race, and Social Space in Post-colonial Argentina is a valuable study of many cultural manifestations that arise in the building of a nation. Altered Traditions, Part Two of this book, is a series of three articles that explore the effects of capitalism and the present global economy on the manufacturing of indigenous garments that are being transformed by the market demands, and consequently no longer preserve the symbolic value that once connected the pieces to other ritualistic items charged with cultural value. This is the case of the "izcacles", discussed by Pamela Scheinman in Ixcacles: Maguey-Fiber Sandals in Modern Mexico; as well as the use of the color black as symbolic of funeral rituals and mourning in Caylloma, Peru, as discussed by Blenda Femenias in Why Do Gringos Like Black? Mourning, Tourism, and Changing Fashions in Peru. In Dressed to Kill: The Embroidered Fashion Industry of the Sakaka of Highland Bolivia, Elayne Zorn gives a detailed description of the culture of the Sakaka Indians and the importance of their dress as a marker of resistance, as well as the challenges they have faced in preserving tradition given persistent economic difficulties, and other phenomenon such as modernization and racism. Finally, in Representation of Tradition in Latin America Boundary Textile Art, Elyse Demaray, Melody Keim-Shenk, and Mary A. Littrell use Mayan and Peruvian textiles manufactured for the outside market to explore the question of whether an item no longer made for local consumption can preserve the traditional authenticity once intrinsic to it. …