Blind touch and the material intimacy of clothes

Kirjoittajat

• Julie Gork RMIT University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.37449/ennenjanyt.161026

Avainsanat:

fashion, clothes, blindness, touch, materiality

Abstrakti

This article draws on sensory ethnographic research with people who are blind to explore how an orientation towards touch creates material intimacy with clothes. The notion of blind touch emerges from the figure of the blind seer, illustrating how cultural narratives create stereotypes that confine our understanding of an interconnected sensory experience. Similarly, a prioritisation of the visual elements of clothing overlooks the significance of how clothes feel on the body. Empirical research with people who are blind demonstrates how haptic knowledge is developed to feel “right away by touch” if a garment is suitable, while a sensitivity to hand-feel and body-feel separates tactile pleasure from bodily comfort. Material impressions in clothing, like marks and scuffs, form tactile traces of wear that prompt a negotiation between looking and feeling and the active interactions between body and garments can be characterized as gestures towards and with materiality.