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| Why
do we wear what we wear? To be beautiful or powerful; holy or hip; ceremonial
or comfortable? "Punks" shocked us into seeing that safety pins could be recycled as earrings and bicycle chains could be worn as body ornaments. But others around the globe have seen the potential for adornment in our industrial castoffs for a very long time. Take the Wahgi man from Papua New Guinea, for example. When he wears a head ornament incorporating a red mackerel tin label, his intention is not to shock or amuse. What attracted him to the red paper label was, quite simply, the color red. In his culture, red is analogous to flowers that attract birds whose feathers are a prized form of wealth. Thus, the red in the label makes a handy substitute for the red feathers more traditionally used in such headdresses. This is the kind of cross-cultural recycling explored in this section -- when a person takes an object from another culture, and gives it a new "social life" by wearing it on the body. |
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Buttons,
zippers, and safety pins are sometimes recycled into adornment elements,
serving no "functional" purpose other than to decorate the costume
or beautify the wearer. In this case, they are often purchased new rather
than recycled from a previous use. Anthropologists use the term "appropriation" to describe activities in which one cultural group re-defines the use or meaning of an object to meet its own needs or desires. Here, the trademark Levi Strauss blue jean buttons have been incorporated into a necklace pendant. |
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