Always True to You in my Fashion

Publication Date

Fall 2015

Journal

Law & Literature

Abstract

Gary Watt proposes a diverse and novel theory of how dress relates to law. He argues not that dress is speech. Rather, dress is law and, more surprisingly, law is dress. Consequently, “when we better understand the nature of dress, we will better understand the nature of law.”

Dress, Law, and the Naked Truth is thoroughly enjoyable yet frustrating. Watt's erudite and thought-provoking discussions of a variety of what he calls “[e]ncounters between dress and the law” leads us through etymology, myth and Shakespeare. He presents a history of legal dress worn by persons who represent the law – including the mandatory uniforms of the police and military, the formal robes and wigs of judges, and customary professional attire of practicing attorneys. Finally, he discourses on specific modern laws regulating both too much and too little covering of the human body – namely legal prohibitions against the Islamic veil and public nudity. In the end, however, rather than demonstrating the identity of law and dress, these examples do the opposite. He accurately calls them “encounters”, places where law and dress, being distinct, occasionally meet.

Nevertheless, Watt is correct that there is more than a mere surface resemblance between the two. From the perspective of Hegelian jurisprudence and Lacanian psychoanalysis, they are both located in the intersubjective order known as the symbolic. They serve a parallel function in the formation of subjectivity. As such, dress is not trivial, but is an essential part of what it means to be human.

Volume

27

Issue

3

First Page

441

Last Page

456

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

DOI

10.1080/1535685X.2015.1024925

Disciplines

Law | Law and Gender | Law and Society

Comments

Review Essay

Link to Full Text

Share

COinS