Soft Silence
Hands-on research on how the language of fabrics has instilled itself in our perception.
Hands-on research on how the language of fabrics has instilled itself in our perception.
Threa(t/d) of noise
“Women, it has often been stated,
should exist in silence;
they are to be seen and not heard.”
With this quote from “Gossips, Sirens, Hi-Fi Wives: Feminizing The Threat of Noise”, Marie Thompson captures the heart of the text, noise as politically charged and tied to gendered bodies. As she tries to make a statement for the subversive potential of women’s voices, which are “[…] suspected to threaten the integrity of a variety of male-regulated spheres […]”, Thompson dissects the cultural archetype of women and their vocality. Dismissed as interfering, any sound generated by women seems deemed unwanted. Their speech not even considered sound, but rather outright noise. Somehow, women – and their voices alike – are condemned to shallowness. Tolerated when kept low profile, but if not, considered to be disturbing. A threat to the dominant order that is patriarchy, where male speech is supposed to reign supreme.
All this made me wonder about the subversive potential of womenswear when not complying with the societal stereotype prescribed by patriarchy. By this, I mean the presumption of feminine clothes categorically consisting of dresses, skirts, heels, blouses, preferably embedded by a certain sense of elegance, delicacy, frilliness, etc. Could it be that society approaches women as being too loud or noisy when not adhering to this presumed state of dressing? For instance, when a woman decides to wear a tailored suit paired with heels, therefore to society’s standard and expectations bursting the bubble of the docile and compliant woman. Is a woman’s sartorial voice, as much as her actual voice, considered a threat to the normative? After having pondered over the text for a few days, it dawned on me that this sense of sartorial threat might be correlated to the actual thread of garments. Why is it that certain fabrics are identified as either more male or female? Could it have something to do with the amount of noise generated by those same fabrics? If there were a glimpse of truth to this, it would mean that fashion–like the hi-fi system mentioned in Thompson’s text-is seized by society as yet another mechanism to silence women.
Through recording and converting the sound waves of four chosen types of fabric – silk, wool, leather and denim – I got insight into this premise sparked by Thompson’s text. Intrigued to further explore the audible value and significance of garments, I chose four garments based on their specific fabrics with the intent to uncover if, and if so, how one can be silenced by their garments. For this, I recorded the sound of silk, wool, leather and denim, the sound waves of which I then converted through needle and thread to expose the female threat of noise (voiced by Thompson) through a literal thread of noise. So, instead of merely wondering if there could be a glimpse of truth to my leap of thought - a certain correlation between supposedly female fabrics and the silencing of women – I took matters into my own hands by investigating the sound waves generated by - what I feel like to be considered - more female (silk and wool) and more male (leather and denim) fabrics. The result, respectively, of rather low frequencies compared to the higher frequency of fabrics associated with the male sphere, whatever that may be, confirmed my initial assumption. There indeed seems to be a correlation between gender and fabrics, the general silencing of women extrapolated to their wardrobes.
Too reliant on their emotional intelligence, women – and therefore the art of sensing – are dismissed as unstable or irrational. When in fact all senses should be valued, rather than worshipping one supposedly superior one, the visual. The sensorial sphere of women is thus often overlooked in favour of the rational sphere of men. In turn, this may explain garments’ connotation of frivolousness and inferiority within our society, drawing on the prevailing association of clothing and fashion as particularly feminine. Time spent on the occupation of dress is quite often seen as irrelevant and superficial. However, as became clear in the conversion of sound waves into thread, the sartorial sphere equally is praised for precisely this reason, in that it seems to be seized as yet another way to silence women.
For quite some time, the threat of female noise was restrained by keeping women’s sound frequency - their thread of noise - as low as possible, both in terms of their actual speech as well as through the sound generated by their wardrobes. However, with the undoing of binary thinking within fashion and society in general (slowly but surely breaking away from the concept of gender as a fixed matter), this silencing policy is put under restraint. Anyone should be allowed to have more than just one ‘voice’, regardless of what gender one is ascribed by societal standards. To me, the subversive potential of clothing lies in the acknowledgement of an abundance of voices within womenswear – and menswear alike, for that matter. The prospect of an ambiguous sense of wearing – women combining denim trousers with a lace-detailed blouse, as well as men wearing silk trousers paired with a structured leather jacket – should be celebrated and embraced instead of considered disruptive or too loud; dating back to as early as the Roman Empire when “[…] men were forbidden to wear silk […]” as stated by Margarita Gleba. The aim should be for everyone to generate a mash-up of both low and high frequencies, inside as well as outside the domestic space, including one’s wardrobe.
Thompson, M. (2013). “Gossips, Sirens, Hi-Fi Wives: Feminizing The Threat of Noise”. In M.N. Goddard, B. Halligan and N. Spelman (Eds.). Resonances: Noise and Contemporary Music (pp. 297-311). London, UK: Bloomsbury.
Gleby, M. (2014). “Cloth Worth a King’s Ransom”. In K. Rebay-Salisbury, A. Brysbaert and L. Foxhall (Eds.). Knowledge Networks and Craft Traditions in the Ancient World (pp. 83-84). New York, US: Routledge.
DISSEMINATION
included in On Women’s Voices #01: The Tip of the Tongue the Teeth the Lips by Yoohee Cha
available @san serriffe
APRIL.2023
MA CRITICAL FASHION PRACTICES.ArtEZ
... ARTISTIC RESEARCH II
MA CRITICAL FASHION PRACTICES.ArtEZ
... ARTISTIC RESEARCH II