The Illusion of Uniformity

Insufficient definition for the uniform has led to a general conflation of uniforms with everyday clothing or any unified appearance, thus rendering the concept of uniform irrelevant. Scholars are correct to see similarities between everyday clothing and uniforms. However, if no distinction can be made, the uniform as a term and as a concept is simply redundant and meaningless.

THE UNIFORM

The scholarship on dress quite clearly illustrates that everyday clothing mediates human encounters and guides human interactions and expectations. All clothing—whether uniforms or any other genre of dress—operates at a symbolic level within society, allowing individuals to position themselves either in connection with or opposition to any number of perceived social categories. Typically, the main criteria for labeling any item of clothing as a uniform have revolved around the idea that a critical mass of people wears it, thus creating a uniform look and uniform identity. Nevertheless, all societies have notions of appropriate and inappropriate clothing for various contexts and for various types of people. These notions are consensually held, though not always followed or regulated, and are often contested. Therefore, simply sharing the same aesthetic, social, and symbolic system should not indicate that all members of that culture or group wear the same uniform. To an outsider, the members may certainly appear similar because of this shared semiotic system. Internally, however, individuals may recognize a wide range of stratification and diversity. The “uniformity” is only an illusion to the casual viewer.

Scholars have not agreed on how much of an outfit must be regulated in order to identify it as a uniform. Does every item of apparel from hat to shoes need to be mandated and standardized by the organization or group? Can a uniform consist of a few key articles worn in conjunction with individually selected items? Restricting vision to a total uniform environment has resulted in the preoccupation of scholars with the military over other, more loosely uniformed institutions, such as fast food or other commercial establishments. Similarly, an insistence on a complete uniform, coupled with the notion that uniformed groups only exist in large numbers, has led to the assertion that the uniform is a product of modernity dependent on the technology of industrial mass production.

Ernst H. Kantorowicz (1961) claims that we can trace Western military uniforms back to the Hellenistic period; he outlines the remarkable continuity among depictions of Roman uniforms within ancient art and on coins or daily objects. Elizabeth Ewing’s historical discussion of early schools for nursemaids reveals that the Norland Institute in England maintained a sewing room for producing its own uniforms in-house. Factory production certainly is not a necessity for small institutions. But even more importantly, dependence on perfect uniformity is false.

The assumption of visual uniformity ignores the historical, social, and economic contexts in which uniforms actually operate. Uniformity is commonly compromised by miscommu- nication (like misinterpretations of code specifications), conflicting motivations, multiple manufacturers or channels of command, or material restraints (like unstable dyes or shortages). Such factors may lead to a variety of effects: substitutions or deficiencies in uniforms, varying levels of strictness from uniform enforcers, necessary adaptations to new contexts, and individualistic alterations.