IngentaConnect Maculate Conceptions

Author: Connor, Steven

Source: Textile: The Journal of Cloth and Culture, Volume 1, Number 1, 1 March 2003 , pp. 48-63(16)

Abstract:

This article considers the signification of and affective response to spots, dots, blotches, and patches in a number of different areas of social and cultural history in Western Europe. It attempts to account for why it is so odd or difficult to clothe or surround oneself with patterns of spots in clothing, fabric and furnishings, approaching this analysis through reflections on the idiom and appearance of the spotted in nature, religion, cosmetics, and design. The article has four sections. The first considers the history of stigmatization through the "yellow badge" that Jews and other groups have been required to wear in Europe from medieval to modern times. The second considers the meanings of patched, pied or motley clothing, especially as worn by fools. The third investigates the practice of "patching," or applying beauty spots to the face, and reactions to it during the seventeenth century. The final section considers the remarkable change of value of the spotted or mottled from the twentieth century onwards; from arousing suspicion, disgust and hostility, spotted designs evoke the richness and diversity of the world conceived, in William James's terms, as a pluralistic mosaic, clinging together by its edges.