Costume in Carnival: Social Performance, Rank and Status

SCP 1 (1) pp. 77–96 Intellect Limited 2016 Studies in Costume & Performance Volume 1 Number 1 © 2016 Intellect Ltd Article. English language. doi: 10.1386/scp.1.1.77_1 VICKI ANN CREMONA University of Malta Costume in carnival: Social performance, rank and status ABSTRACT KEYWORDS This article deals with the range and evolution of costume in organized and sponta- class neous carnivals in Malta during the British colonial period (1800–1964). It discusses status the performative qualities of carnival costume. The article also delves into the type power of connections that can be made between costume, social stratification and politi- colonial cal power in particular periods of Maltese colonial history. It shows how costume devised costume revealed social aspiration or recognition in certain contexts, while also providing a social aspiration means to play with identity and dissimulation in others. It examines how control and power were affirmed on a micrological level through choice of costume, especially when the latter became subject to prohibition. In his book Distinction, Pierre Bourdieu (1996: 57) claims that ‘aesthetic stances adopted in matters like […] clothing […] are opportunities to experience or assert one’s position in social space, as a rank to be upheld or a distance to be kept’. Appearance constituted a strong distinguishing factor in social catego- rization in Malta in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and certainly up to the late Sixties, just after Malta had acquired independence from Britain. The quality, cut and detail of clothes worn by a certain category of the Maltese were revealing of social aspiration, recognition or affirmation of status, both by the higher ranks of British officers and Maltese genteel society, or those aspiring to be considered as such. The British took over the administration of the Maltese islands in 1800. As the century progressed, the upper and higher middle classes followed British 77 SCP_1.1_Cremona_77-96.indd 77 4/18/16 9:14 AM Vicki Ann Cremona fashions, while the lower classes wore more traditional clothing generally made of coarse cotton or wool: men wore trousers, shirt, coat and cap; women wore petticoats, skirts, chemise and the traditional headdress (gh¯ onnella) that formed a sort of arc around the head and shoulders, and was kept in shape through whalebone stiffening. This vestimentary difference continued into the next century. Figure 1: Maltese lady wearing the traditional gh¯ onnella. Private collection. Social aspiration and affirmation were not only present in daily life, but also in the extraordinary events that took place during the year, including playful moments such as carnival. Documented traces of carnival celebration in Malta date back to 1520, when the sick in hospital were given a special meal of meat and wine to mark the event (Fiorini 1987: 311). During the rule of the Knights of St. John (1530–1798), who came from different parts of Europe, carnival was celebrated in the streets, especially in Valletta, the capital of 78 SCP_1.1_Cremona_77-96.indd 78 4/18/16 9:16 AM Costume in carnival Malta, where people would parade up and down the main streets in disguise, as well as in the Knights’ residential headquarters (auberges), with entertain- ment that included plays and dancing. Under British rule, balls – particularly the one given by the Governor – became a major feature for high society. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the development and popularity of public balls became almost a threat to street carnival in Valletta, which was then transformed into organized street parades with prizes for floats, dances and costumes. This structure is still in existence today. The aim of this article is to observe carnival costume in Malta at certain moments from 1800 onwards, in order to understand the relations between disguise, status and power in colonial society. I take as my starting point the claim made by Dorita Hannah (2014: 19) that a garment can be seen as an event ‘carrying its own sense of mobility and temporality, as well as political connotations’. I shall use a historical context to show that the hyperbolic presence generated by carnival costume may constitute confirmation of, or a criti- cal position to, the reigning state of affairs beyond the carnival itself. Britain acquired full sovereignty over Malta in 1814 with the signing of the Treaty of Paris. Despite various Maltese petitions and delegations vainly requesting effective political representation and participation in the decision- making process, the country was soon transformed into a crown colony. Freedom of the press was granted in 1839. The establishment of the Malta Chamber of Commerce in 1848 marked the development of Maltese trade, which increased government revenues and benefitted the personal earnings of merchants whose families, together with those of the nobility, could be considered as belonging to the upper echelons of society. It was these social categories who mixed more frequently with the British upper crust present in Malta. After 1880, British efforts to establish English as the dominant language of Malta in government, commerce, education and culture countered the resistance of a section of the Maltese middle class, made up mainly of people in the liberal professions such as lawyers and notaries. The Maltese economy in the late nineteenth and during the first half of the twentieth centuries was closely linked to British imperial defence expenditure, which fluctuated according to the international political situation. Consequently, there was hardly any economic diversification (Micallef 2013: 8). Malta’s workforce depended very much on the island’s role as a fortress colony, and variations in imperial policy provoked sharp economic rises as well as deep slumps. Mass organized emigration of the lower classes became more and more systematic from the later years of the nineteenth century. Meanwhile, the middle classes aspired to join the political arena and demanded self-government, which was rarely conceded and never over very long periods. Malta acquired independence from Britain in 1964. ‘DEVISED’ COSTUME Carnival is the situation par excellence of practices placed under the sign of excess – such as false appearance, role play, impersonation and masquerade – that form the basis of the theatrical event. The intent is not to imitate, but to operate within a parallel world dominated by hyperbole. In the Maltese carnival, as elsewhere, costume allows the body to become theatrical through the modi- fication of appearance which may also impinge on movement and behaviour. As Pavis (1996: 175) maintains: ‘A body is “worn” and “carried” by a costume as much as the costume is worn and carried by the body’. The strangeness or 79 SCP_1.1_Cremona_77-96.indd 79 4/18/16 9:16 AM Vicki Ann Cremona beauty of a carnival costume is intended to attract looks. Consequently, the wearer is already in a state of heightened consciousness as to the amount of attention s/he manages to gather through the quality or originality of the costume worn. The contrast created through costume by the simple juxtaposition of unfamiliar appearance in familiar public space allows the wearer to express the inexpressible, the apparently impossible, the unimaginable or the absurd. Within the context of the carnival celebration, it is this type of presence that is aspired to. The wearer may or may not choose to push further the performance produced by his/her costumed presence through hyperbolic action. A worn costume that constitutes performance in itself in carnival may be seen to be ‘devised’ rather than ‘designed’. The term ‘devising’ is taken to mean both ‘the craft of making within existing circumstances’ and ‘tangen- tially inventing’, whereas ‘“collaborative creation” more clearly emphasises the origination or bringing into existence, of material ex nihilo’ (Heddon and Milling 2006: 2–3). Costume in carnival starts out from a personal referen- tial world that the costume ‘deviser’ takes as an initial starting point. In this context, I take ‘deviser’ to mean the person(s) who engage(s) in the process of creation with the aim of creating appearance that is within itself performance. The deviser then chooses whether to tend more towards denotation (i.e. reproducing, as faithfully as possible, the clothing of a particular century) or connotation (i.e. creating costume which cannot be easily identified with anything specific, but onto which meanings may be grafted). Maltese carnival costumes can be distinguished into two rough categories: (1) those which require an elaborate process of thought and skill to be assembled; and (2) those which are improvised. A ‘devised’ costume may or may not require collaborators to be created; in fact, the absence of collab- oration may constitute a major distinguishing factor between elaborate and improvised costume. From an aesthetic point of view, elaborate and improvised costumes provide different points of reference and layers of meaning. Elaborate costume will attract attention by its design, the richness of its fabric, the sumptuousness of its decoration, and the skill deployed in the way it is cut and assembled. Improvised costume implies a different aesthetic: in this case, skilfulness is determined by the capacity to produce something out of a series of pre- existing heterogeneous articles that were not necessarily meant for wear. In both cases, originality can be attributed to the production of strangeness, which surprises the spectator either by producing something that had not previously been thought of, or by playing around with a public’s expectations of what a costume should look like. This can be achieved either through the insertion of elements that are incongruous with the conventional image of the costume itself, or the elimination of details that a watcher would expect to see. Costume can be seen as the locus of various narratives. By way of example, fairly recent tradition has established the unwritten rule that Maltese carnival costumes worn for dance competitions in the main square of Valletta should represent an animal or an object, a person and a place all in one.

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