Dressing a Demanding Body to Fit In: Clean and Decent with Ostomy or Chronic Skin Disease

Lisbeth Løvbak Berg on 31. January 2019

Kirsi Laitala and Ingun Grimstad Klepp

Abstract

This article discusses what kind of strategies people with a stoma or various chronic skin conditions, such as psoriasis oratopic dermatitis, use to find clothes that fit and enable them to fit in. Based on qualitative interviews in Norway, we study how they manage to dress with a demanding body, a poor market and limited economic resources. This includes describing how purchases take place, which clothes fit, how much clothing is needed, and which laundry practices are used. Their main strategy was to reduce the requirements for their own appearance rather than to cleanliness and body odours. If they were unable to appear appropriately dressed, as a minimum odourless and stain-free, they reduced their participation in social life.

Click here to read the full article (cogitatiopress.com).

Patched, Louse-ridden, Tattered: Clean and Dirty Clothes

ingridha on 1. May 2015

Ingun Grimstad Klepp

Abstract

“Patched, louse-ridden, tattered—clean, beautiful, gem.” As children we recited this rhyme in Norwegian: “Lappete, lusete, fillete—ren, pen, edelsten,” as we picked petal after petal from a daisy. All the words can be understood as descriptions of the child’s future clothes. Clean is the turning point in the rhyme. Clean is thus seen as the first step on the way towards the gem, and it conveys here the same meaning as in the saying “whole and clean is the greatest finery.” Both emphasize clean clothes as crucial to the judgment of a person’s appearance. In the world of fashion it has been alleged that “anything goes.” This is probably true if we restrict “anything” to small variations in the look, decor, color, and style of clothes. However, our way of dressing also depends on more absolute norms.

This article explores the norms that deal with the relationship between clean and dirty clothes. Despite the fact that there is abundant research on cleanliness and laundering on the one hand, and clothes and clothes habits on the other, there are few points of intersection between the two fields. The article is an attempt at seeing these two themes in conjunction. It investigates how clothes, by being kept clean, make bodies socially acceptable. The article looks at how the demand for cleanliness varies in relation to age, gender, and class, and compares these demands to what we know about decency.

Click here to read the full article (tandfonline.com)