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beccaelizabethOkay, that's a long title and I haven't got much to go under it, but
I just scrolled past another thing complaining about fics/fiction that spends paragraphs describing everyone's clothes, as if they're important.
I did cultural studies in college, and while we didn't spend a whole lot of time on fashion because so many other topics, we spent plural lessons on it and learned some specialist vocabulary for the kind of sign systems it makes all put together. I've got to say, clothes are important.
In RL you've got whole cultural studies texts about fashions and the statements they're making.
In any film and you've got a costume designers work subtly guiding your every impression.
Clothes are culture, subculture, gender, class, ethnicity, mood, tone, inflection.
A character who kicks arse in army surplus is doing something different and making a different statement than one who does the same in a prom dress and heels, even if they're otherwise matched move for move. Someone that fights in a tabard with heraldry on it is a different person than someone in your basic brown robe. Robes are making a different impression than trousers.
Getting dressed up for a date, choosing clothes for work, or coordinating a look for a diplomatic meeting that could turn into a fight, those are all key scenes, because it tells you what matters, who they matter to, where the allegiances are. Who gets to choose the clothes is key too, because power.
And if you were watching a movie you'd never think of complaining that everyone is wearing something different. Something like Equilibrium where they're pretty much all the same is jarring, like limiting vocabulary or talking on one note.
Clothes are important.
The only thing to complain about in those books that spend more than a couple sentences on it is that it's brought to the conscious attention of people who either don't tend to think about clothes or don't agree that the clothes they're choosing make the appropriate statement.
Clothes age unevenly, their subcultural allegiance is obvious, someone turning up in a Neo coat now is, well, probably not as cool as they set out to be, and a whole crowd of urban fantasy goths together is going to look pretty odd to... come to think, even any other crowd of urban fantasy goths, because varied, we has it.
So drawing attention to it? You run the risk of negative attention.
But not even using it is leaving a whole palette out of your work.
And it limits your opportunities for sneaky too. If the series has been transforming your clothes by magic whenever you see the faerie queen so far, why would the reader stop to wonder about that? Until the character learns to very much regret it.
I think it's a very gendered complaint, it's up there with the Not Like Other Girls stuff at best, because paying attention to clothes in the middle of your adventure is stereotyped to a certain kind of person.
Which is rubbish.
Everyone notices clothes on some level. I notice My Tribe in a crowd. I know from uniforms. I'll be making guesses on if someone's employed in a particular place or not. And if there's a dress code it can tell you what kind of a party it's going to be.
Clothes are there like they're important because they are in fact important.
So if the story stops to tell you who wears what, pay attention like there's guns on the mantelpiece, because in some way or another, mood or allegiance or predictions, this data is going to pay off.
I just scrolled past another thing complaining about fics/fiction that spends paragraphs describing everyone's clothes, as if they're important.
I did cultural studies in college, and while we didn't spend a whole lot of time on fashion because so many other topics, we spent plural lessons on it and learned some specialist vocabulary for the kind of sign systems it makes all put together. I've got to say, clothes are important.
In RL you've got whole cultural studies texts about fashions and the statements they're making.
In any film and you've got a costume designers work subtly guiding your every impression.
Clothes are culture, subculture, gender, class, ethnicity, mood, tone, inflection.
A character who kicks arse in army surplus is doing something different and making a different statement than one who does the same in a prom dress and heels, even if they're otherwise matched move for move. Someone that fights in a tabard with heraldry on it is a different person than someone in your basic brown robe. Robes are making a different impression than trousers.
Getting dressed up for a date, choosing clothes for work, or coordinating a look for a diplomatic meeting that could turn into a fight, those are all key scenes, because it tells you what matters, who they matter to, where the allegiances are. Who gets to choose the clothes is key too, because power.
And if you were watching a movie you'd never think of complaining that everyone is wearing something different. Something like Equilibrium where they're pretty much all the same is jarring, like limiting vocabulary or talking on one note.
Clothes are important.
The only thing to complain about in those books that spend more than a couple sentences on it is that it's brought to the conscious attention of people who either don't tend to think about clothes or don't agree that the clothes they're choosing make the appropriate statement.
Clothes age unevenly, their subcultural allegiance is obvious, someone turning up in a Neo coat now is, well, probably not as cool as they set out to be, and a whole crowd of urban fantasy goths together is going to look pretty odd to... come to think, even any other crowd of urban fantasy goths, because varied, we has it.
So drawing attention to it? You run the risk of negative attention.
But not even using it is leaving a whole palette out of your work.
And it limits your opportunities for sneaky too. If the series has been transforming your clothes by magic whenever you see the faerie queen so far, why would the reader stop to wonder about that? Until the character learns to very much regret it.
I think it's a very gendered complaint, it's up there with the Not Like Other Girls stuff at best, because paying attention to clothes in the middle of your adventure is stereotyped to a certain kind of person.
Which is rubbish.
Everyone notices clothes on some level. I notice My Tribe in a crowd. I know from uniforms. I'll be making guesses on if someone's employed in a particular place or not. And if there's a dress code it can tell you what kind of a party it's going to be.
Clothes are there like they're important because they are in fact important.
So if the story stops to tell you who wears what, pay attention like there's guns on the mantelpiece, because in some way or another, mood or allegiance or predictions, this data is going to pay off.