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EPILOGUE: Counter–Couture
- University of Minnesota Press
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149 epilogue Counter-Couture A few years into the twenty-first century, a walk in downtown Buenos Aires on a summer afternoon reveals a trend for solidarity-inspired styles.1 The relaxed fashions of today contrast sharply with those of previous decades, when strict codes imposed clean-cut looks for men and feminine designs (such as skirts and dresses) for women.Very little has been written about the political nature of clothing from this period, although dress was indeed used to regiment the population during dictatorship. In “Scattered Bodies, Unfashionable Flesh,” Fabricio Forastelli remembers,“My first memories of fashion date back to the 1970s, precisely the moment when fashion becomes ‘moda’: that is, a statement that unveils the repetition and the triviality always present in the nature of violence. Back then, people wearing pants too tight or their hair too long would be stopped by the police and publicly punished.”2 Forastelli’s memories remind us that individual and collective forms of dress disclose powerful emotions.The unwritten but regulated dress codes of the late 1970s and early 1980s served to control the populace at large; any disruptive practices of such codes called into question the legitimacy of power. At around this same time,on April 30,1977,a courageous group of women banded together to demand information about their missing family members and protest human rights violations.The Asociación Madres de Plaza de Mayo (Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo), known for their weekly marches around a monument commemorating the first 150 Epilogue revolutionary government installed by patriots, initially wore morning robes and house slippers as if to register visually that they longed to be at home caring for their families.They often walked alone or in pairs to avoid arrest, unlike today’s gatherings that assemble large groups.The Mothers usually carry with them the black and white photographs of their “disappeared” children. Because the military regime labeled their children enemies of the state, the Mothers remember when few dared march in solidarity with them, let alone recognize their struggle.The Mothers have since gathered to march together every Thursday afternoon to keep alive the memory of their children and grandchildren. They have become the leaders of a peaceful movement against the brutality of military dictatorship and for independence from all forces of domination.3 One usually recognizes a Mother of the Plaza de Mayo by the white shawl that she wears, the name of her beloved child cross-stitched in blue thread on the back corner.Worn during marches and at other Members of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo (Línea Fundadora) in front of Casa Rosada during a Thursday march around the revolutionary monument, 2004. Photograph courtesy of Sarah Smith. [54.146.154.243] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 12:19 GMT) Epilogue 151 public events, the white shawl initially served to help the Mothers identify each other in large crowds; it eventually became an internationally recognized symbol of consciousness in the struggle for human rights in Argentina. During the Dirty War, while several associations organized a Mother’s Day march, the Catholic Church called on one million Argentine youth to pilgrimage to Luján, Argentina, a town some 43.5 miles (67 km) from Buenos Aires, with a cathedral that houses a famous statue of the Immaculate Conception, the Virgin of Luján. Known as the patron saint of Argentina, theVirgin of Luján is reputedly the source of several miracles, having allegedly healed the afflicted and disappeared at one location only to reappear in another. Protesting the fact that the Church had overlooked if not fully condoned the actions of the military regime, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo decided to make the pilgrimage on behalf of their missing children . Realizing that it would be extremely difficult to find each other in the waves of people making their way to Luján, Hebe de Bonafini remembers that the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo collectively decided to wear the pale white cotton diapers of their children on their heads.4 This same white shawl appears as an icon on the books, posters, pins, and handkerchiefs that the Mothers sell today at the Plaza de Mayo to fund human rights causes. Images of the shawl have also been painted around the same monument of independence at which the Mothers began their movement some thirty years ago. After the economic collapse of 2001 in Argentina, the politically active have performed a new...