Monica L. Miller

On her book Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity

Cover Interview of October 15, 2009

In a nutshell

Slaves to Fashion is a cultural history of the politics of black fashion and dress since the creation of the black diaspora, from the slave trade to the present. Dress has been (and continues to be) one of the most important ways in which we project a sense of self, a class status, and a place on the spectrum of gender identities, sexuality and nationality. This has been the case especially for black people who—though materially deprived in the West throughout history—have made the presentation of their bodies (hair, dress, gesture) a key component and signal of their self-definition and political, social and cultural possibility.

Slaves were dressed by their masters; clothing was used to define black people as subservient. Almost as soon as a slave was issued a piece of clothing, he or she understood that the garment served not only to protect him or her from the elements, but was also part of a power struggle over black identity. Refusing to be defined by others, blacks have countered their representation sartorially, by pointedly playing with their clothing, manipulating it to better express the complexity of who they are.

By examining cultural moments and artifacts that highlight the ability of dress, especially fancy dress, to both dictate and define identity, my book examines this power struggle between masters and slaves, free blacks and whites, upper and working class blacks at key moments and locations in black diasporic history. I look at the ways in which black people, once slaves to fashion, have made fashion their slave.

history / sexuality / gender / 19th century / race / africa / social mobility / markets / performance / representation /

[T]he Holocaust transformed our whole way of thinking about war and heroism. War is no longer a proving ground for heroism in the same way it used to be. Instead, war now is something that we must avoid at all costs—because genocides often take place under the cover of war. We are no longer all potential soldiers (though we are that too), but we are all potential victims of the traumas war creates. This, at least, is one important development in the way Western populations envision war, even if it does not always predominate in the thinking of our political leaders.

Carolyn J. Dean,
Interview of February 01, 2011

The dominant premise in evolution and economics is that a person is being loyal to natural law if he or she attends to self’s interest and welfare before being concerned with the needs and demands of family or community. The public does not realize that this statement is not an established scientific principle but an ethical preference. Nonetheless, this belief has created a moral confusion among North Americans and Europeans because the evolution of our species was accompanied by the disposition to worry about kin and the collectives to which one belongs.

Jerome Kagan,
Interview of September 17, 2009