Having spent 7 weeks travelling around the Caribbean researching costume history I came to understand that many people’s views of what a carnival costume or celebratory event costume should be involved very little in the way of actual costume. In fact in some cases I could go so far as to say that bare naked flesh had appeared in the place where beautiful sequins or lavish design used to be!Now there could be several reasons for this but here I’m going to offer 3:
1. It’s hot in the Caribbean,
and I don’t just mean hot I mean hot as hell like an oven permanently set to burn to a crisp, so I suppose in a way wearing less clothing may seem like a sensible thing to do.
2. Keeping up with the Costas
Rio carnival in Brazil is the biggest carnival in the world, followed very closely by Trinidad, involving thousands of carnivalists (artists, makers, performers, and dancers) and millions of revellers every year. The images of Brazilian and Trinidadian carnival costumes that is spread around the world typically consists of beaded bra and briefs/ thongs and/or painted and sequinned bodies. Brazil being a not so distant neighbour to the Caribbean could possibly have had a huge influence on the development of Caribbean carnival costume. It is certainly true that the costumes coming out of Trinidad have had a phenomenal influence on costume development in the rest of the region.
3. Can old inbred habits be hard to break?
However I think the issue of flesh flashing may be a bit deeper than just trying to keep up with what the surrounding countries are doing.
Try as they might the western world cannot forget or deny the brutal history of this region. Indeed the fortunes of the west were built from the toil and tears of its inhabitants, could the skimpy costumes be part of this legacy?
The sexual abuse and degradation of enslaved Africans has been widely publicised. There is a theory I’m working on which states; a people who’s social, physical and economic development has been based, in some way, shape or form, on sexual degradation will come to understand and believe that the presentation of themselves as sex objects will define and vindicate them to some degree.
Basically sex sells. Sex sold then, when enslaved Africans were not the legal owners of their own bodies and so didn’t profit from it, and sex sells now, when African descendants are the legal owners of their own bodies and are barely profiting from it. Still.
Having see the carnivals and the carnivalists on a few of the islands and how little costume they wear it makes me wonder why and when did the flesh flashing come about, and can it really be a legacy of enslavement history but justified in the name of fun, entertainment and tourist activity?
And what of the impracticality of this costuming style when found in the UK or European carnivals?
Indeed what has happened to the creativity, has it become a competition to see all the different ways you can cover a pair of breasts and a vagina and nothing else? I’m not that old but I remember when going to carnival or any celebration meant dressing up in fun colourfully creative and imaginative garb, what happened to that?
One of the most creative costume makers I’ve ever met was a cheerful portly English man from Manchester (who I understand learnt his craft from a Trinidadian carnival veteran) who has since moved to Germany and developed a carnival there. His costumes are imaginative, creative, fun and eco friendly, often reusing sweet wrappers, tin foil, or other detritus to achieve a certain look. His floor costumes are not often gauche or overly revealing but they are spectacular.
Where are the spectacular floor costumes of Caribbean people? When I put this question to carnival artists Mackey Holder (Barbados) and Leader of Diamonds band (Antigua) they tell me it’s what the young people want and its fashionable. I’m told young people want to show more skin, bras to be smaller to emphasis the bust, skirts to be shorter and shorts to be tighter to emphasis the bottom. Young people believe this is what makes them desirable, attractive and popular…and we all want that. But are they right, does showing more skin and wearing a skimpier costume make you more desirable? I suspect it doesn’t really and whilst this whole subject deserves deeper analysis and investigation it is my concern that in the meantime African Caribbean people will still only find vindication and self worth in how much sex appeal they appear to have.
For further reading check out this article by D.Francis from 2009 and let me know your thoughts.
http://www.caribarena.com/jamaica/opinion-articles/opinion-pieces/the-carnival-supplydemand-theory-200908064492.html
To be continued….
