Dressing the Self: Young People, Dress and Identity

Abstract

Dress is one of the most taken for granted yet complex elements of everyday existence. Dressing is a practice that benefits from the invisibility associated with necessity, yet it is fraught with tension around dress codes, gender norms, appearance ideals, commodification, and status, for example. Examining how students at an urban, co-educational, non-uniformed secondary school in Aotearoa/New Zealand conceive of dress's relationship to identity, this study contributes to the process of rendering visible the practices of dressing and the complex grid of meanings and discourses that attach to dress. The research context is particularly salient given that there is no work that examines the experiences of young people in relation to dress and identity in contemporary Aotearoa/New Zealand. Based on focus groups held with clusters of friends at the school, my research examines the discourses of students who could be positioned as 'regular' or 'ordinary'. 'Ordinary' young people are a key site for analysis of the intricacies of the workings of identity and dress, as the 'ordinary' is where power is least visible and thus most productive. The students consider identity to be based on experiences, relationships, and preferences rather than biological foundations, and use dress to help them embody desired identity positions. This thesis posits that the students' conceptions of dress draw on two discursive models of identity, familiar from contemporary media, that sit in tension with each other: a depth model which employs discourses of authenticity and a surface model which intersects with discourses of postmodernity as well as neoliberalism. This thesis examines how the students navigate the tension between these contrasting discursive models, which, on the one hand, position identity as given and dress as an authentic expression of identity (depth), and, on the other hand, imply that identity is constructed and position dress as part of the work that constitutes identity (surface). It considers how the students navigate the field of dress in a manner that maintains their commitment to authenticity alongside notions that identity is fluid, malleable and requires work.