Diasporic Fashion Space: Women's Experiences of 'South Asian'
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Diasporic fashion space: women’s experiences of ‘South Asian’ dress aesthetics in London. Shivani Pandey Derrington Royal Holloway College PhD Geography 1 Declaration of Authorship I, Shivani Pandey Derrington, hereby declare that this thesis and the work presented in it is entirely my own. Where I have consulted the work of others, this is always clearly stated. Signed:____________________ Date:______________________ 2 Abstract This thesis responds to the emergence of a ‘diasporic fashion space’ in London, examining its implications for women of South Asian descent and their lived experiences of dress. It draws upon in-depth qualitative research in which women provided testimony about their dress biographies, wardrobe collections and aesthetic agency. The aim is to complement, and advance, past research that considered the production and marketing of ‘South Asian’ fashions and textiles in Britain (e.g. Bhachu 2003, Dwyer & Jackson 2003) through a more sustained analysis of the consumption and use of styles and materials. The research is situated in relation to both specific bodies of scholarship – such as that on contemporary British Asian fashion cultures – and wider currents of thought – in particular on diasporic geographies and geographies of fashion. The approach taken draws especially from work within fashion studies that has sought to recognise lived experiences of dress. The thesis develops its argument through four complementary perspectives on the testimonies constructed in the empirical research. First, it considers the role of dress in inhabiting what is termed ‘British Asian fashion space’ and ideas of British Asian identity. Second, it then examines how dress functions as a technology of diasporic selfhood, focusing on the practice of dress choices both in everyday life and in significant ceremonies such as weddings. The third substantive chapter focuses on the interrelated materialities and memories of dress, considering both the collections of clothing held within women’s wardrobes and their embodied wear. The final substantive chapter foregrounds the relations between dress and place, focusing on both the general contextuality of dress practices and the navigations of London’s fashion scenes by the women researched. Overall, the thesis shows how dress is a material practice that both allows and demands a contextually sensitive objectification of diasporic selves, social relations and sensibilities. 3 Contents Title Page 1 Declaration of work 2 Abstract 3 Contents 4 List of figures 6 Acknowledgements 7 1. Chapter One: 8 Introduction 2. Chapter Two: 19 Methodology 3. Chapter Three: 38 The Cultural Geographies of Diaspora and Fashion: a Contextual Review 4. Chapter Four: 99 Fashioning British Asian Identities 5. Chapter Five: 134 Dressing ‘Me’: Habit, Anxiety and the British Asian wardrobe as Technology of Self 6. Chapter Six: 177 Dress Materialities and Memories 7. Chapter Seven: 207 Placing Diasporic Dress – Contexts and Scenes 8. Chapter Eight: 231 Conclusion 4 Appendix A 244 Interviewees Appendix B 246 Interview Schedules Glossary 251 Bibliography 252 5 List of Figures Figure 1: Saira’s silvery Shalwar Khameez 109 Figure 2: Examples from Shobha’s textiles 121 Figure 3: Examples from Charanjit’s clothes 130 Figure 4: Wedding Sari and Wedding Lengha 155 Figure 5: Hema’s wedding sari 160 Figure 6: Charanjit’s wedding saris brought in India 162 Figure 7: Wardrobes 165 Figure 8: Examples from Divya clothes 168 Figure 9: Barnali’s wedding sari 187 Figure 10: Charanjit’s clothes made as part of her degree 191 Figure 11: Charanjit’s Mother’s clothes 193 Figure 12: Shashi’s adaptations; a sari worn with different blouses 203 Figure 13: ‘Indian’ looking skirt from a high street store. 215 Figure 14: Riza’s outfit brought from Southall 217 Figure 15: Shashi’s tartan blouse for a fusion of styles 220 6 Acknowledgements I would like to thank all the people who have helped and supported me during this thesis. In particular, I would like to thank my supervisor Phil Crang who has provided inspiration and advice throughout this PhD. I would also like to thank my advisors David Gilbert and Chris Breward who were extremely generous with their time and advice. My thanks go to the AHRC for funding my PhD as part of the Fashioning Diaspora Space project. My colleagues on this project Helen Scalway, Felix Driver, Sonia Ashmore, Chandan Mahal and Rosemary Crill offered me great advice, support and friendship, many thanks to them all. On a personal note, I also thank my family for their help and support. Firstly to my mother and father who were my first inspirations for South Asian fashions and encouraged my love of South Asian dress to develop. To my mother-in-law and father-in-law who generously and tirelessly looked after my daughters whilst I wrote this thesis. I especially want to thank my husband Ben for patiently listening to me talk about ideas which eventually took shape and became this PhD. One of the most poignant relationships which came forth in discussions of South Asian dress was that of mothers and their children, so here I mention my daughters Amba and Tilly, who changed my life during this PhD and introduced me to a new world of South Asian dressing and motherhood. I would like to end by offering immense thanks and gratitude to the women whom I interviewed. They not only let me in to their lives and homes but also provided insightful and thought provoking narratives on South Asian dress aesthetics. I remember happy times, talking of many aspects of our lives. I received warm welcomes, friendship, advice on mothering as well as the fascinating dress stories to think about. Without their generosity and kindness this thesis could not have taken the shape it ultimately has. 7 Chapter One: Introduction 8 CHAPTER ONE: Introduction The thesis in an orange lengha: “I have got an orange lengha that I just wore to my friend’s wedding at the weekend. And it’s just beautiful. It [...] fits me really […] well and is kind of just off the shoulders. Kind of a little lengha top and it’s got diamante embroidery around the rims and little diamante bits all the way, like speckled all the way through on the skirt and it’s like a fish tail skirt. So it flares out at the bottom and there’s like that much embroidery at the bottom, so that all kind of like spirals upwards. But […] it just looks really beautiful when you put it on […] I guess clothes are more about how you feel when you put them on” (Satinder) This thesis considers British Asian women’s experiences of dress aesthetics. As Satinder articulates above, clothes matter, in part because of how we feel when we put them on. This thesis argues that how we feel in dress is an embodied, socio-spatially situated experience that at once realises the corporeal nature of our selves whilst acknowledging the habitual demands of our everyday lives. These everyday lives are culturally and geographically contextualised. For British Asian diasporic women, crucial to those contextualisations are modern migrations and global mobilities. The narratives of British Asian women constructed for this thesis reveal that discussions of dress speak of many common imaginaries. Ideas of identity, gender, age, ethnicity, and class are all thought of and felt through dress. Looking at these thoughts and feelings through the narratives of British Asian women in turn enables one to open up discussion of the embodied geographies of these women’s cultural lives. It is the contention of this thesis that dress has a manifold ability to speak of diasporic lives. Satinder’s description of her orange lengha reveals how in the moment of dressing diverse conceptualisations of the relationship between self, society and dress come into one’s mind. In Satinder’s description, a vivid portrait of the garment is painted, one where the affection she feels for it is apparent. The lengha is animate, active, expressive of whom she wishes to present to the world around her. She wears this garment to weddings; it is place and space specific. She wears this style as a British Asian in the UK, creating in British diaspora space new dress presences and 9 visibilities as she wears it. Satinder’s account also illustrates something of the nature of diasporic cultural cosmopolitanism. By knowing the styles of lengha, fabrics, levels of ornamentation and cuts that best suit her, as well as matching the social context, she has created for herself a relationship with materiality that enables cultural competence. Satinder has an in-depth knowledge of how to wear South Asian garments in Britain. This knowledge demonstrates, and gives room for the analysis of, the practical everyday engagements with the material forms of fashion by British women of South Asian descent. This thesis pursues that analysis. Satinder has a collection of garments stored in her wardrobe that enables this material cosmopolitanism to develop. Writers have increasingly acknowledged that the wardrobe is a key place and moment where we can examine ideas of dress (e.g. Woodward 2007). In our wardrobes, items of clothing are stored which when worn on our bodies take on agency, transforming us into socialised beings and enabling, or indeed curtailing, our relationship with the places and spaces around us. In housing garments that we wear a wardrobe is a material collection that acts as a resource with which we articulate our multiple identities. But wardrobes also house clothes we rarely or never wear, but which we keep for other reasons. Specifically, wardrobes are also archives of memories, containing clothes we used to wear or that others wore and gave to us. Satinder is a British Asian woman living in London whose relationship to dress is reflective of her various intersecting identities: British, Asian and others.