Pazazz – The Impact and Resonance of White Clothing

Pazazz examines the complex meanings of white clothing through history. Delicate and impractical, white cloth in the past was difficult to obtain, as well as to keep clean. It is a symbol of purity but also of class superiority, privilege and the display of leisure. It represents both the menace of the Ku Klux Klan and the transition of a bride to the married state; it can be the appropriate dress for mourning and for shrouds. White lace is ethereal; straitjackets are tough. White clothing has been a marker of innocence and simplicity for women but also of calculated, high-maintenance fashion; for men, white can be evidence of power. White is a startling absence of colour, the epitome of elegance.