Carrie Hertz
THE UNIFORM: AS MATERIAL, AS SYMBOL, AS NEGOTIATED OBJECT
Like all clothing, uniforms mediate interactions between individuals and groups; they offer
observers visual clues that lead to expectations of the wearer’s behavior and social status.
Like all clothing, uniforms operate at a symbolic level; most importantly, this genre of
clothing raises interesting questions about individuality and conformity, self-control, and the
visual representation of identity.
This article will thematically synthesize much of the scholarship on uniforms from a
variety of fields, including anthropology, folklore, history, sociology, fashion theory,
psychology, and art history. The works addressed do not represent a completely
comprehensive bibliography on the uniform. Although excellent information about uniforms
can be ascertained through histories or ethnographies of uniformed groups, I have
concentrated mainly on scholarly books and articles written in the English language that
present the theoretical consideration of the uniform as their main focus. Largely absent from
this treatment is the array of specialist and amateur works that deal with the uniform,
especially those associated with the military. Such collections usually offer meticulous
descriptive detail and magnificent visual information through photographs, reproduced
paintings, and sketches.1 They are invaluable resources to (art) historians, historical
reenactors, theatrical costume designers, and collectors. However, this article will
concentrate on the trends of academic and theoretically directed scholarship.
Currently, the most pressing and enigmatic element of uniform scholarship is a lack of
workable and consistent definitions. Therefore, I will first offer a definition of the uniform
before addressing many of the common themes within the current discourse.
Towards a Definition of the Uniform
Clothing is a silent but visual marker of social identities and relationships. It has the ability
to communicate multilayered messages that embody different meanings for different
audiences simultaneously. It seems only logical that this would hold true for any individual
genre of clothing. However, uniforms are commonly essentialized in scholarship as emblems
of power, authority, and masculinity, most likely because they are readily connected to
militarism and military history. In reality, uniforms are not only designed to serve a number
of functions, their meanings can also be interpreted and manipulated by both wearers and
viewers.
Since the uniform is a genre of clothing, its distinction from the larger category is
predictably one of degree—a degree of formality, restriction, and external control. Whereas
social etiquette and other consensual ideas about dress are tacitly accepted and inconsistently
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enforced through any number of disparate sources or modes of social pressure, uniforms are
overtly regulated through precisely outlined and disseminated visual (and often written)
codes. These codes dictate an “official” symbolic reading for individual elements of dress
(and often appearance) and are made available to all members of a recognized and selfproclaimed group. Ideally, successful membership within the group (whether or not
membership is willingly sought) is contingent on at least the superficial acceptance and
adoption of the code. Furthermore, adherence to the code is theoretically regulated and
constructed by an identifiable hierarchy. Sometimes the uniform is only part of an entirely
regulated environment (for example, prison, boarding school, or the military) in which
appearance, language, behavior, and gesture are also subject to a high level of hierarchical
control. Therefore, while society exerts pressure on the dress choices of all its members,
groups that enforce uniforms do so explicitly, precisely, intentionally, and officially. This
regulation does not, however, automatically constitute the negation of individual choice,
interpretation, or identity, as many scholars have concluded in their classifications. A
uniform, simply, is a type of standardized clothing that is overtly and officially within the
control of a group hierarchy. Uniform codes differ from less structured dress codes in that
uniform codes dictate a narrow parameter of what must be worn, whereas dress codes specify
what may not be worn (Brunsma 2004:15).
The following sections address some of the major themes raised in the scholarship of
uniforms.
Functions
Uniforms may be designed to fulfill any number of functions, many of which may work
together in a single uniform: to distinguish insiders from outsiders, reinforce the presence or
absence of certain hierarchies, encourage particular types of behavior or feelings, encourage
or discourage recruitment, impress en mass (as in military parades or marching bands), stand
out in a crowd (such as service personnel), disappear (as in camouflage), facilitate the
carrying out of necessary duties by authorities (such as police officers, clergy, or flight
attendants), encourage cooperative behavior within groups (as in the military, schools, or
Boy/Girl Scouts), fulfill practical physical needs (for example, temperature control or
protection from chemicals), punish or demean (as in mental institutions, addiction
rehabilitation centers, or prisons), and so forth.
Due to a scholarly emphasis on the total uniform environment of the military, the
common definitions of the uniform used by scholars reflect the attempted control and
regulation of human bodies and minds through clothing. This objective to gain disciplined,
external control over members is as much a factor of military training as it is about uniforms
as symbolic markers. The use of uniforms in less structured or disciplined environments may
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45
not express identical functions. In fact, within complicated bureaucratic hierarchies,
collaborative policy makers may have different agendas when conceptualizing the functions
of their uniforms.
A more nuanced view of differing uniform policy agendas surface in Daphne Meadmore
and Colin Symes’s 1997 study in which they compare the uniform policies of several
Australian schools with the rhetoric espoused by the Australian government. They
discovered that the government characterizes the use of school uniforms as a way to address
issues of equity, health, and safety. The schools, on the other hand, focus on discipline and
obedience. Meadmore and Symes conclude that individual schools, because of their need to
differentiate themselves from each other and answer to communities and parents, tend to be
strict and conservative, while governments that must answer to a “progressive” liberal
agenda remain vague to avoid impinging on individual freedoms.2
While attention to regulations can reveal much about the perceptions and functional
intentions of policy writers and uniform designers, this approach cannot account entirely for
how uniforms function within the world. Uniform scholarship tends to focus on the stated
“regulations” of uniform codes while assuming that individuals both follow these regulations
precisely and lack personal motivations or interpretations beyond what is intended by the
uniform designers or regulators. Thus confusion arises between uniforms (worn garments)
and uniform codes (regulations on the production and wearing of garments). The two do not
always meet up as closely as many scholars have presumed.
Code Deviations
A number of scholars focus on the rationale of the uniform code or its development over
time (Ewing 1975; Parker 1993; Brunsma 2004; Holloman et al. 1996; Meadmore and
Symes 1997; Synott and Symes 1995; Gullatt 1999; West et al. 1999; Keenan 2000;
DeMitchell et al. 2000; Stevenson and Chunn 1991; Woods and Ogletree 1992; Rafaeli and
Pratt 1993).3 This essentially historical or policy-centered approach contextualizes uniforms
within larger sociocultural frameworks or sheds light on the image-management efforts of
organizations. At the same time, this methodology tends to neglect the real in favor of the
ideal.
Scholarly works that emphasize either historical development or policy objectives rely
primarily on written uniform codes, the idealized paintings and sketches of uniformed
individuals, or material examples of uniforms stored in museum collections. While both
approaches have their merits, exclusive use of either (i.e., the tracking of changes through
time or the analysis of written policy) can lead to incomplete visions of uniforms. Artistic
representations and museum holdings exhibit a disproportionate number of ceremonial
military uniforms belonging to officers or other high-ranking individuals; rarely are combat
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uniforms of the average soldier or non-military uniforms represented. Uniform codes and
idealized depictions can reveal how designers or artists conceptualized the uniform, its
purpose, and the way it should be worn; they cannot illustrate how they were actually worn,
enforced, or viewed by wearers or outsiders.
Deviations from a uniform code may exist for a variety of reasons. They may be
intentional (out of defiance or necessity), unintentional (out of sloppiness, inexperience, or
misinterpretation), or unavoidable (due to insufficient supplies, finances, or communication).
K. Tsianina Lomawaima (1993), for example, demonstrates how uniformed female students
in federal Indian schools implemented creativity and subterfuge to resist the authority of
school leaders over students’ bodies and clothing. By cutting off the legs of their anklelength bloomers and wearing the detached pieces in the presence of their supervisors, the
girls were able to give the illusion of conformity long enough to pass inspections.
Afterwards, they removed the dissected garment legs and hid them in the bushes until it was
time to return to the dormitory.4
Examples of individual defiance are readily available through letters, eyewitness
accounts, diaries, memoirs, and personal interviews. Sandra Weber (2004), recalling her time
in school uniform, sketches some of the ways she and her peers resisted uniform codes—
from subtle rule-breaking (as when the students wore non-regulation items) to full-blown
protest (as when, on one occasion, a group of students refused to wear shoes).
Other examples of resistance to uniforms, however, are far less dramatic, such as the
subtle but impudent tilt of a hat (Fussell 2002:31) or the crushed-down back of a shoe
(McVeigh 2000:99–100).5 Some defiant gestures, moreover, may not be meant as public
displays of autonomy at all. In her examination of uniforms held at the Musée de l’Armée in
Paris, Alison Matthews David (2003) reveals that nineteenth-century French military officers
often had their uniforms tailor-made so as to incorporate discreet interior embellishments
such as luxurious silk lining.6 This type of modification may never be seen by anyone else
but could reinforce one’s unique and self-controlled identity.
Uniform scholars have long understood the visual presence and communicative nature of
uniforms but have rarely addressed the physicality of the garments. Art historians, fashion
theorists, and exhibition curators are far less detached from the aesthetics and materiality of
uniforms. These scholars are keenly concerned with the reciprocal influence of fashion and
uniform design as well as with the response of groups to uniforms fabricated by couture
designers (Samek 1993; Lovegrove 1998; Parker 1993; Hoare 2005; David 2003; Bonami et
al. 2000; Dion and Puett 2003; Cumming 2004). However, an important question remains:
How does the tactile existence of uniforms affect their acceptance by wearers? It is not
always enough that an individual accept the value structure of an organization. The uniform
is still a physical object that may be rejected or altered for reasons other than symbolic
disjoint,7 such as reasons of practicality, comfort, or personal aesthetics.
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47
While uniforms may regularly be altered physically for a variety of reasons, their
symbolic communications may also be manipulated, thus calling into question exactly who
has control of a uniform, its meanings, purposes, and messages.
Uniform as Symbolic Communication
Scholarly neglect of uniforms as worn garments has led to the assumption that uniform
designers and enforcers have exclusive control over the messages transmitted by the
clothing. This approach ignores the complexity of changing contexts as well as the ongoing
negotiations among wearers, designers, enforcers, and audiences.
Philip Mansel’s (1982) interesting discussion of the appearance of uniforms within
European royal society during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries traces a
number of disparate interpretations of the military uniform by government officials, wearers,
and viewers that divide along national, political, class, and personal lines. For instance, while
monarchies across Europe welcomed military uniforms at court as a sign of servitude to the
ruler, Louis XVI banned the wearing of uniforms at Versailles as unpatriotic. (Fashionable
court dress at the time was made of French silk and thus supported the national industry.)
Certain military personnel, on the other hand, unconcerned with the political statement of
their uniforms, could wear them to mask their low economic status or reject wearing them to
highlight their economic capital in fine silks. Mansel presents a complicated negotiation of
sartorial messages in which the intended communications were not always received intact.
The interpretation of uniforms by non-uniformed outsiders has been of great interest to
behavioral psychologists and sociologists (Bickman 1974; Volpp and Lennon 1988; Singer
and Singer 1985; Gundersen 1987; Mauro 1984). However, these laboratory experiments
performed to determine the perceptions of viewers tend to divorce uniforms from their
relevant contexts and to focus on uniforms associated with authoritative organizations
(police, guards, military personnel) while ignoring less honorary uniforms (garbage
collectors, prisoners). Furthermore, these studies on perception, in an effort to construct large
generalizations, rarely address the diversity of viewpoints present among different groups of
people. Jack Santino’s work with African American Pullman porters offers an interesting
example of how one uniformed group was interpreted differently based on the economic and
racial background of the viewer. Santino concludes, “To whites, the porter represented
service and luxury; to blacks, he represented status and mobility, both physical and social”
(1989:8). Like a servant’s livery, the porter’s uniform communicated to passengers both a
display of wealth and subservience; within the black community, that uniform, influenced by
military motifs and upper-class men’s fashion, symbolized working-class dignity—in
contrast to denim overalls, associated with farm labor and, by extension, slavery (8–15).
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While the symbolic communications of uniforms may be interpreted differently by
various individuals, they may also be purposefully manipulated by actors other than policy
writers and viewers, namely the actual wearers. Individuals may consciously choose to
embody the official ideal of the uniform, or they may decide to subvert the ideal in a number
of personal ways. For example, one intended message of the schoolgirl uniform may be
sexual innocence. However, Sharon Kinsella (2002) has suggested that young girls in Japan
have exploited—and ultimately perverted—this association by prostituting themselves or
posing in suggestive photographs while in their school uniforms. The policy writers of
Japanese school uniforms may have intended certain symbolic messages to be transmitted
through their designs and rules; students, on the other hand, had their own ideas.
Studies like Kinsella’s call into serious question assumptions of top-down control within
uniform organizations in which uniform wearers simply accept or reject the code. A few
scholars have noted the unofficial use of patches or other insignia within elite factions of the
U.S. military, donned to highlight more intricate differentiations among members; often
these unofficial alterations are eventually recognized by the government and made official
within the uniform code (Fussell 2002:13; Joseph 1986:96). In their documentation of the
clothing-related negotiations among hospital employees within a nursing unit, Michael Pratt
and Anat Rafaeli (1997) clearly illustrate that members of an organization or group often
have conflicting or multifaceted perspectives about not only the messages sent by their
uniforms but also the identity of the organization and the individual’s role within it. Some of
the nurses saw themselves as part of a larger professional identity that went beyond their
immediate organizational identity.8 They disagreed with the managerial position on dress
because it did not align with a related, broader status. Organizations do not exist in vacuums
isolated from larger social processes. Nor must all uniform wearers turn to simple
acquiescence or disobedience: instead, they can instigate change within the uniform code as
these nurses successfully did. Examples such as these, in which uniform wearers effect
official change through their own active involvement, weaken the dominant argument that
uniforms control the minds and bodies of their passive wearers by stripping them of
individual status, motivation, or desire.
The Illusion of Uniformity
Insufficient definition for the uniform has led to a general conflation of uniforms with
everyday clothing or any unified appearance, thus rendering the concept of uniform
irrelevant. Scholars are correct to see similarities between everyday clothing and uniforms.9
However, if no distinction can be made, the uniform as a term and as a concept is simply
redundant and meaningless.
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The scholarship on dress quite clearly illustrates that everyday clothing mediates human
encounters and guides human interactions and expectations. All clothing—whether uniforms
or any other genre of dress—operates at a symbolic level within society, allowing individuals
to position themselves either in connection with or opposition to any number of perceived
social categories. Typically, the main criteria for labeling any item of clothing as a uniform
have revolved around the idea that a critical mass of people wears it, thus creating a uniform
look and uniform identity. Nevertheless, all societies have notions of appropriate and
inappropriate clothing for various contexts and for various types of people. These notions are
consensually held, though not always followed or regulated, and are often contested.
Therefore, simply sharing the same aesthetic, social, and symbolic system should not
indicate that all members of that culture or group wear the same uniform. To an outsider, the
members may certainly appear similar because of this shared semiotic system. Internally,
however, individuals may recognize a wide range of stratification and diversity. The
“uniformity” is only an illusion to the casual viewer.10
Scholars have not agreed on how much of an outfit must be regulated in order to identify
it as a uniform. Does every item of apparel from hat to shoes need to be mandated and
standardized by the organization or group? Can a uniform consist of a few key articles worn
in conjunction with individually selected items? Restricting vision to a total uniform
environment has resulted in the preoccupation of scholars with the military over other, more
loosely uniformed institutions, such as fast food or other commercial establishments.
Similarly, an insistence on a complete uniform, coupled with the notion that uniformed
groups only exist in large numbers, has led to the assertion that the uniform is a product of
modernity dependent on the technology of industrial mass production (Craik 2005; Fussell
2002).
Ernst H. Kantorowicz (1961) claims that we can trace Western military uniforms back to
the Hellenistic period; he outlines the remarkable continuity among depictions of Roman
uniforms within ancient art and on coins or daily objects.11 Elizabeth Ewing’s historical
discussion of early schools for nursemaids reveals that the Norland Institute in England
maintained a sewing room for producing its own uniforms in-house (1975:53). Factory
production certainly is not a necessity for small institutions. But even more importantly,
dependence on perfect uniformity is false.
The assumption of visual uniformity ignores the historical, social, and economic contexts
in which uniforms actually operate. Uniformity is commonly compromised by miscommunication (like misinterpretations of code specifications), conflicting motivations, multiple
manufacturers or channels of command,12 or material restraints (like unstable dyes or
shortages). Such factors may lead to a variety of effects: substitutions or deficiencies in
uniforms, varying levels of strictness from uniform enforcers, necessary adaptations to new
contexts, and individualistic alterations.
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Because of their bureaucratic nature, uniform codes do not always quickly or easily
respond to environmental or contextual shifts. Individual wearers, therefore, find ways to
adapt uniforms when necessary. Thomas Abler (1999) reveals that British troops stationed in
the frontiers of the empire found their uniforms impractical for the climate or circumstances
and commonly made individual material modifications. Metal helmets became too hot in the
heat of India and were covered in light-colored fabrics. The white summer uniforms, though
practical for the heat, made the wearer a visible target to enemy fire and were regularly
stained with mud or tea.13
The context of warfare is commonly absent from accounts of military regalia that tend to
favor the uniforms of parades and military balls. Realities of shortages during times of war,
and of deterioration on the battlefield, often require creative compensation, which in turn
affects uniformity. For the Confederacy during the American Civil War, Union blockades
hindered acquisition and transportation of raw and manufactured materials, leaving soldiers
without standard-issue uniforms. Southern women rallied to the cause by producing their
own versions of the uniform. These creations varied according to the identities of their
makers, since makers had differing access to regional dyes, qualities of textile fibers, levels
of skill, and artistic preferences for embellishment (Oates 1961; Lord and Wise 1970; Jensen
2000; Carson 2000:22). The necessity of mending damaged garments regularly and the
boredom between battles led some soldiers to creative adaptations. Bell Irvin Wiley (2002)
details the practice in some regiments of patching uniform trouser seats with colorful flannel
patches cut in whimsical shapes like hearts and eagles.
The uniformity of a group is often directly affected by the strictness to which a uniform
code is enforced. Brian McVeigh describes invasive inspections held within some Japanese
schools in which teachers actually “check students’ underwear to ensure they are white”
(2000:70). In contrast, the Duke of Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, during his time of military
leadership in nineteenth-century Britain, was outspoken about his disinterest in uniform
regulations; consequently, the troops under his command were notorious for their mottled
appearance (Newark 1998).
The Suppression of Individuality
While variation may result from a breakdown in the adherence to a uniform code, some types
of variation are built into the code itself. Flight attendants, for example, often have a choice
of mix-and-match pieces (Lovegrove 1998). The U.S. postal carrier has no fewer than twenty
styles of officially approved black shoes to choose from (Fussell 2002:80–81).
Organizations often construct ways to highlight individuals within the uniform code
(such as with honorary badges, ribbons, or pins), or they leave room for a certain amount of
personal expression. The Women’s (Royal) Voluntary Service (WVS), a British group
THE UNIFORM
51
established in 1938 to aid in the war effort, was criticized by Winston Churchill when
members appeared on parade in uniform with berets worn at varying angles. Lady Reading,
the WVS’s founder, is reported as replying, “Here is a sense of individuality in operation, but
uniformity in pattern” (Ewing 1975:129). Lady Reading deliberately left overly precise
specifications out of the uniform code because she wanted to encourage personal passion in
volunteerism. Absences in uniform codes are not necessarily oversights but can reflect
integral values of the organization.
A number of scholars are quick to claim that uniforms control individuals (physically and
psychologically) by suppressing their individual identities while retaining and enforcing the
institutional identities individuals are meant to display (Joseph and Alex 1972; Joseph 1986;
Craik 2003, 2005; Rafaeli and Pratt 1993; Fussell 2002; Keenan 2000; Rubinstein 1995).
Uniform wearers are commonly treated as symbol bearers obliged to express the values and
projected character of the group. Nathan Joseph, for example, has argued that uniforms
convert individuals into stereotypes. He states that “since no other statuses, nor any touch of
individuality, are recognized in the uniformed individual by others, wearers are encouraged
to act primarily as occupants of their uniformed status” (1986:74).14 However, even the strict
code of the U.S. military uniform allows the wearing of wedding rings, an easily recognized
symbol that signals a status separate from the organization. Linda B. Arthur (2000) describes
the decision of Indonesia’s government to allow for variations within the national school
uniform code to acknowledge the religious mandates on dress for Muslim girls (i.e., veils,
long sleeves, longer hem lines). The uniforms of school girls, therefore, have two versions,
revealing information about the religious orientation of the wearer. Assuming that uniforms
automatically negate complexly interwoven identities neglects the room for expression often
present within uniform codes.15 It also divorces uniforms from human bodies.
Some aspects of identity, such as race, gender, and even social class, cannot be easily
masked through regulations of clothing, appearance, or behavior. Tammy Proctor (2002), in
her article on the spread of Girl Guides and Boy Scouts across the British Empire, argues
that the official uniform codes for these groups were commonly manipulated in order to
preserve ideologically comfortable (for the British) gender and racial divisions. Erin Horvat
and Anthony Antonio (1999), in their look at an elite high school in California, found that
the presence of a school uniform did very little to subvert discrimination against
economically disadvantaged or African American students. Charles Moskos (1973) likewise
outlines the presence of racial conflicts: his focus is the polarization of blacks and whites
within the U.S. armed forces from the Civil War to the 1970s: even after the practice of
segregating black soldiers into separate units ceased, integrated units continued to experience
tension, violence, and a general lack of camaraderie. Scholars argue that the presence of a
uniform can nullify differences and create organizational cohesion. However, organizations
are embedded within larger social realities. They will, to some extent, mirror the outside.
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Gender
Jennifer Craik (2005) has argued that uniforms closely fit normative masculine ideals and
thus are problematic when adopted by women. In other words, women in uniform are
anomalous and sexually ambiguous. The official presence of women in uniform has been
addressed by a number of scholars (Ewing 1975; Parker 1993; Campbell 1987; Harris 2003;
Young 1992; Samek 1993; Steele 1989; Lennon 1999). The problem is less about the
anomalous nature or sexual disjoint of women in uniform than about women entering
occupations considered to be in the sphere of men. European and North American women
have appeared in a number of uniforms throughout history that have clearly reflected
Western notions of feminine fashion and gender norms; ecclesiastical, school, nursing, and
domestic service uniforms provide good examples. These garments do not entail the crisis of
representation that is often associated with the design of women’s uniforms in the military or
police force. In these latter instances, women donning modified versions of men’s uniforms
are symbolically enacting their movement into areas of society previously closed to them,
namely the public spheres of war and occupational service. Thus, the tension that results is
far more about the negotiation of gender boundaries and symbolic markers than it is about
any intrinsic characteristics of clothes. In her historical examination of women’s police
uniforms in the United States, Valerie Steele (1989) suggests that feminized uniforms
reflected the marginal status of women within police forces, who were routinely assigned
limited duties. The women’s specially designated tasks were consistent with the stereotypical
skills attributed to women and usually involved clerical work, attending female prisoners,
and caring for endangered children. With more complete integration of women, women’s
police uniforms became identical to those of men. Men’s uniforms were simply the most
physically practical and psychologically functional for a wide range of police objectives.
Steele’s example illustrates how a conventionally masculine group sartorially marks the
incorporation of expanded gender roles. There are historical instances, however, in which the
style of uniform presented a more unisex conception and thus offered a seemingly smoother
transition. For example, Elizabeth Ewing argues that the academic robes of English
universities posed low sexual anxiety for both female wearers and male viewers when
women were admitted for study (1975:65–66). An alteration of the garments was
unnecessary; whether women were immediately accepted as intellectual equals is another
matter entirely.
The culturally constructed and negotiated nature of gender is often neglected in
discussions of the masculinity or femininity of particular uniforms. Furthermore, design
elements of men’s uniforms have consistently been incorporated into mainstream women’s
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53
fashion since well before the American Civil War. Many women have consciously adopted
and worn these styles without apparent personal conflict with their gendered identities.
While some scholars have argued that the donning of uniforms by women masculinizes
them, a few scholars have suggested that uniforms can have a feminizing effect on men by
creating male dandies (Hoare 2005) and “fashion plates” (David 2003).16 The colorful and
decoratively ostentatious French military uniforms of the late nineteenth century appeared
flamboyant and effeminate among the increasingly somber palette and simple silhouettes of
civilian men’s dress. Henri Bouchot, a French scholar of uniforms writing in 1898, described
the Hundred Guards regiment as “‘pretty women’, marked by their refined shapeliness”
(Bouchot 1898:294).17 Uniforms—as symbolic and material garments—may be surprisingly
more sexually malleable than some scholars have proposed.
Conclusion
In their construction of a definition, scholars writing on the uniform tend to rely on an
idealized depiction of the garment and its functions. This uncomplicated characterization
ultimately leads to a breakdown in the definition and a misrepresentation of the object.
Rather than focusing on idealized states of control and conformity, future studies should
consider the potential for collaborative interactions within and outside uniformed
environments. How are uniforms, as both physical and communicative articles, coconstructed among various participants? How do individuals operate within the semiotic
system of uniformed groups? Scholars writing on the uniform have provided interesting and
valuable data on the perceptions of uniform-policy writers, uniform designers, and outside
viewers. Future studies should also address uniform wearers, to prevent their depiction as
passive bearers of others’ agendas and assessments.18 The function of uniforms is
polyphonic. Uniforms take their meaning not merely from the intention of designers and
code writers but also from other crucial sources: the organization or group bureaucracy that
interprets and enforces that intention; the wearers who either conform with, deviate from, or
negotiate that intention; the viewers inside and outside of the uniform system who make their
own judgments; and finally, the immediate context of any given uniform encounter.
Notes
I wish to thank Karen Duffy for her meticulous and insightful reading and rereadings of this text. I am
especially grateful for the patient and dedicated guidance of Pravina Shukla, a brilliant mentor and friend.
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1. Pakula 1960, Schick and von Halem 1983, and Barnes 1960 are excellent examples.
2. Malcolm Young (1999) offers an interesting example in which the official rhetoric of a single
organization is in direct conflict with the imagery of its uniform. Although the police of England publicly stress
their service role as defenders and protectors (to justify public financial support for their presence), the police
uniform increasingly incorporates militaristic symbols of physical force and domination such as body armor,
riot gear, and submachine guns. Young argues that the disparity between visual and rhetorical communications
has created a failure of policy and image making.
3. Philip M. Coupland (2004) presents the rationale and development of the British Union of Fascists’
black shirt while also analyzing the reactions to and reinterpretation of the fascist symbol by other British
groups.
4. Interestingly, Lomawaima reveals that these willfully rebellious acts actually brought the students
emotionally closer together in their effort to protect each other from detection. The altered uniform thus
accomplished what the official and unaltered one could not: it facilitated the intended uniform functions of
inspiring camaraderie and cooperation.
5. During McVeigh’s investigation of uniformed Japanese students, he discovered the trend of crushing
down and walking on the back of required lace-up footwear. This act was part rebellion against the code, part
utility (the shoes could be easily slipped on and off without tying), and part fashion.
6. This is an excellent example of the fruitfulness of museum research when it is applied with other
methods of scholarship.
7. Nathan Joseph theorizes four categories for the rejection of the uniform: 1) rejection of the symbolic
message of the uniform when it hampers the performance of organizational responsibilities (such as when a
clergyman wishes to seem less divided from his congregation); 2) rejection of the homogenizing nature of the
uniform; 3) rejection of the organization’s control over the individual; 4) rejection of the organization itself
(1986:87).
8. For their earlier discussion of external influences on organizational dress, see Rafaeli and Pratt 1993.
9. Joseph suggests that uniformity in everyday clothing may arise from functional necessity, realistic
limitation, or tradition (1986:114–116).
10. The study of folk costume is rich with ethnographic documentation of continuity in everyday dress
within cultural and subcultural groups. Throughout the disciplinary development of anthropology and folklore,
the category of costume was regularly employed (along with other “universal” organizational principles of
social life such as types of shelter, systems of kinship, foodways, and customs) as one way to recognize and
define a unique, self-contained culture. Although current conceptualizations of cultural boundaries are far more
permeable, tenuous, and dynamic, the definition of culture continues to rely on notions of continuity through
space and time. However, ethnographers today more readily acknowledge and detail the presence of variation
within micro- and macrolevels of group cohesion. Petr Bogatyrev’s (1937) study of Moravian costumes
provides an excellent and early example of a theoretical approach that illustrates both the external unity of a
group’s dress (readily detectable to someone outside the community) and the internal variation (easily read by
community members). Similarly, Liza Dalby (1993) illustrates through her discussion of the Japanese kimono
how dominant class or ethnic groups within a culture can dictate a “national costume” that symbolizes the ideal
values and character of the population in opposition to an encroaching foreign influence; while codes of
etiquette for this national costume are rigid, Dalby demonstrates how variation is used to communicate the
presence of finer categories within the larger society such as age, gender, and economic class. As these two
studies suggest, cultural uniformity may be the product of either the retention of traditional custom (dictated, in
THE UNIFORM
55
part, by a semiotic system and the availability of materials, techniques, and technology) or the self-conscious
display of a constructed identity to outsiders.
11. Due to gaps in archeological knowledge, I caution that we cannot be sure of an articulated uniform
code within the Roman military. Similarly, I would argue that visual depictions may be more attributable to
artistic conventions than accuracy and should be viewed within this light.
12. While adaptations may appear on an individual level, complex bureaucratic hierarchies with
independently operating units may create varied incarnations of the same policies. Yuichi Tamura’s (2004)
field-based examination of how governmental policies are implemented within individual school systems of
Japan shows that educators do not make decisions based on the interpretations of the Ministry of Education;
rather, they act according to the immediate context of their local communities.
13. Similar examples can also be found in Schick 1983 and summarized again in Craik 2005 (pp. 37–38).
Joseph 1986 has a brief but useful discussion about the physical constraints on uniformity (pp. 99–101).
14. To add further complexity to the debate concerning the extent to which uniforms control individuals or
impose organizational values on them, a few psychologists have developed a theory of behavior known as
deindividuation in which members of an individuality-suppressing group (like those that entail uniforms) do in
fact feel protected from individual identification (Festinger et al. 1952; Singer et al. 1965; Zimbardo 1970;
Diener 1977). However, rather than replacing individual motivations with organizational ones this anonymity
may encourage wearers to feel impervious to punishment for engaging in socially or even organizationally
inappropriate behavior. The uniform as understood in this theory, much like some costumes, enables the
wearers to assume roles that grant them unusual personal freedom to reject social regulations.
15. Brian McVeigh (1997) also helpfully points out that many uniform wearers are not in uniform twentyfour hours a day and may have some control over when they are seen in uniform. Therefore, their lives,
thoughts, and behaviors are not necessarily continuously monitored or permanently conditioned by their
regulated clothing.
16. The term dandy appears often within both modern language and the literature on uniforms to denote a
vain man interested in excessive and ostentatious decoration. In her book The Fashioned Body, however,
Joanne Entwistle points out that during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries dandyism entailed a social and
political movement primarily in Britain and France (2000:126–130). True dandies, as argued by contemporary
Charles Baudelaire, embodied refined restraint in dress in an effort toward perfected artifice and social
climbing. The connection between military men and dandies seems to rely on the twenty-first-century
understanding of the term.
17. Masculinizing qualities of nineteenth-century military uniforms, such as an exaggerated shoulder-width
and tight breeches, are commonly discussed within the literature on uniforms. However, examinations of
uniforms should consider not only how the historical milieu informs interpretations of gender expression but
also how individuals interpret those expressions personally.
18. Brian McVeigh (2000) offers a useful application of the theory of dramaturgy to the study of uniforms.
When applied to the social sciences, dramaturgy refers to the performative nature of social interaction:
individuals actively perform rather than simply express elements of their identities and therefore directly impact
definitions of self and group. He suggests that this approach will counteract the tendency to discuss individuals
simply as acted upon or as reacting to outside forces.
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