Fashion, Gender and Agency in Latin American and Spanish Literature 1855663422, 9781855663428

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Colección Támesis SERIE A: MONOGRAFÍAS, 392

FASHION, GENDER AND AGENCY IN LATIN AMERICAN AND SPANISH LITERATURE

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Tamesis Founding Editors †J. E. Varey †Alan Deyermond General Editor Stephen M. Hart Advisory Board Andrew M. Beresford Zoltán Biedermann Celia Cussen Efraín Kristal Jo Labanyi María E. López José Antonio Mazzotti Thea Pitman Julius Ruiz Alison Sinclair Isabel Torres Noël Valis MONOGRAFÍAS ISSN: 0587-9914 (print) ISSN: 2633-7061 (online) Monografías publishes critical studies covering a wide range of topics in the literature, culture and history of the Iberian Peninsula and Latin America from the Middle Ages to the present day. It aims to promote intellectually stimulating and innovative scholarship that will make a major contribution to the fields of Hispanic and Lusophone studies. Work on un- or under-explored sources and themes or utilising new methodological and theoretical approaches, as well as interdisciplinary studies, are particularly encouraged. Previously published books in the series may be viewed at https://boydellandbrewer.com/series/monografias-a.html

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FASHION, GENDER AND AGENCY IN LATIN AMERICAN AND SPANISH LITERATURE

Stephanie N. Saunders

TAMESIS

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© Stephanie N. Saunders 2021 All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner

The right of Stephanie N. Saunders to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 First published 2021 Tamesis, Woodbridge ISBN 978 1 85566 342 8 (hardback) ISBN 978 1 80010 126 5 (ePDF) ISBN 978 1 80010 127 2 (ePUB) Tamesis is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK and of Boydell & Brewer Inc. 668 Mt. Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620-2731, USA website: www.boydellandbrewer.com The publisher has no responsibility for the continued existence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate A CIP record for this title is available from the British Library Cover image: Shawl fashioned by the Aymara, Fairtrade textile artisans from the Asociación Flor del Tamarugal, Chile. (Photo by Giuseppe Pandolfi-de-Rinaldis.)

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To Mub, Tressie, Willa, Evlon, Laura, Ruth and all the women who speak with a mouth full of pins. To Paolina Tressie, may you see the world as a beautiful un-cut fabric, full of possibilities, even when life gives you an imperfect pattern.

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CONTENTS Acknowledgments Introduction: Glorifying the Needle and Thread

ix 1

1. On Pins and Needles: Hypermodernity and Hyperclothing Ourselves

15

2. The Perfect Pattern: Dressmaking as a Political Tool in María Dueñas’s El tiempo entre costuras

43

3. Lining with Surrealism: Spaces and Stitches in César Aira’s La costurera y el viento

73

4. Unraveling Gender and Sexual Confinements in Pedro Lemebel’s Tengo miedo torero

101

5. An Honest Measuring Tape: Peripheral Places in Frances de Pontes Peebles’s The Seamstress

129

6. Tailoring Peace and Purpose: Sartorial Representations in Children’s Literature

157

Conclusion: Final Notions: Toward Consumer Consciousness

181

Works Cited

187

Index

197

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS While this project bears my name, support, invaluable insights and careful readership span across many years and spaces. I am indebted to Dr. Susan E. Carvalho, in particular, for her patient shaping of my research repertoire and writing. Her selfless and numerous readings of previous research have been instrumental in the positioning of this project. Thank you for your caring mentorship over the last fifteen years. Dr. Regina Root, internationally renowned fashion scholar, has also been a key figure in this project. In addition to paving the way for fashion studies as a reputable field within Hispanic Studies, her ground-breaking research and sincere and unshakeable mentorship and friendship have been vital over the last several years – my most calurosa gracias. An indebted thank you to Dr. Valerie Steele, internationally renowned art historian, whose cutting-edge research revolutionized fashion studies as we know it today, for the gift of time and for reading this manuscript. A special thank you to Scott Mahler and Dr. Megan Milan for believing in this project. Megan, thank you for your unshakable support, encouragement and keen editorial eye. I would like to thank my international research community. Among those, Dr. Rodrigo Cánovas and the brilliant faculty at the Universidad Católica in Santiago, Chile. My summer as a researcher-in-residence greatly widened the scope of my research. I would also like to thank the support staff at the Biblioteca Histórica in Santiago and the Biblioteca Nacional. My international research team, including Dr. Emily Ahonen, Dr. Kaori Fushiri and Dr. Annekatrin Hoppe, has contributed to my framework of immigration and place. My colleagues and students at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio, have supported this project in many ways. I am grateful to Capital University for supporting three Gerhold Summer projects, which facilitated my international research, as well as a sabbatical that allowed me to juggle the writing of this project and the birth of my daughter. Also, in particular, my dear friend and colleague, fashionista-extraordinaire Dr. Dina Lentsner, offered numerous, selfless readings and editorial insights. In my most difficult moments you provided a tireless source of encouragement, spasibo. Dr. María José Delgado read the manuscript with attention and offered invaluable feedback and encouragement. Dr. Alan Stam offered many editorial suggestions and much support. I also thank Dr. Reg Dyck, Carl Acton and Dr. Dan Deffenbaugh for reading

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x ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

the introduction and first chapter and contributing valuable editorial feedback. Thank you to Dr. Jorge González del Pozo for always providing new and engaging research opportunities and for all the advice over the years. Thank you to Dr. Joy Schroeder, Dr. Andrea Karkowski and Dr. Alexander Pantsov for reading project proposals and giving helpful interdisciplinary perspectives. Thank you to the amazing staff at Capital University’s Blackmore Library, in particular Sean Socha, who always came to the rescue, and Shaunda Vasudev for her attentiveness and enthusiasm. Thank you to Dr. Elena Aldea and the faculty and students at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, for engaging with me on this research. Seth Martin and Rey García, thank you for all your technical support. I thank my dear Capital University students. Our enlivened conversations have been inspirational and kept my spirit alive on this project. In particular, I would also like to thank my family. Giuseppe and Paolina Tressie have accompanied me through years of this arduous project. Giuseppe, thank you for being excited about the material and sharing your ocean-related expertise. Paolina, thank you for giving me the existential motivation to continue. May the clicking of keys and rustling of pages – sounds introduced to you before your entry into this world – always give you peace and a magical, hopeful escape. Finally, I would be remiss if I did not express my indebted gratitude to my parents. In part, I am grateful for the years of emotional support to “go as far as I could go” regarding my education. Even more formative is the personal backdrop that you have contributed to this project. As a young girl waiting for what seemed liked hours in crowded fabric stores while my mother patiently studied various patterns, plotting out yardage and fabric composure for her latest sewing endeavor – always made for someone else to enjoy – I could only wish that the exciting professional twists found in the creative works discussed in this book would whisk me away from the bolts of fabric and crumpled-up pattern envelopes that bored me without fail. I grew up in rural Arkansas when sewing and gardening were not in vogue. Yet my mother stitched every dress I wore until my early adolescence, and my father grew a fecund garden that I was too young to appreciate. I secretly wished for fast food and a trendy tee-shirt. Regardless of resistance to my parents’ do-it-yourself lifestyle, something changed within me. I can recall watching my mother stay up all night to complete complex projects such as wedding dresses – for which she designed the pattern – her mouth often filled with pins as she patiently ripped out seams to begin again if she detected the slightest flaw. I began to wonder how she could create such a beautiful something from nothing. Fast forward two decades, and a drastic drop in clothing prices occurred seemingly overnight. It was tempting to gorge on the sales and low clothing prices that were a fraction of what a better-made garment had cost just a few years before, and yet the

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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image of the labor behind my mother’s creations kept nagging in the back of my head: how could garments cost such a measly price with such demanding human labor – farming, manufacturing and yes, sewing – involved in the process of making? The result of my parents’ life-style, involving mindful consumption, encouraged me to question ethical issues involving consumer choices, sustainability and human rights. I want the many figures behind clothing and needlework production to be recognized and celebrated rather than being exploited and ignored. I am hopeful we may remember the powerful tools of needle and thread, and the agents who construct our textile adornments that fulfill basic physical needs as well as becoming expressions of self.

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Introduction

Glorifying the Needle and Thread […] the gesture associated with the needle, seamstress, and sewing machine, it can be said to bring parts together with the purpose of constructing a new whole, a gesture that is aligned in opposition to fragmenting modernity […]. (Matich 242) […] moreover, because of its imaginative evocation, literature conveys emotions and feelings about clothes that can highlight character and further the plot of a play or a novel; at times, […], fashion itself can be said to produce fiction. (Ribeiro 1) Fashion is the “idea,” the non-real. With desires, dreams, and idealizations as its counterparts and companions, and as its main driving force – fashion is also fictive. Fashion, then, is a species of fiction. (Wallenberg xv)

In the face of a sartorial nightmare involving a cloth mishap, a meticulous tailor opts to design new uniforms for a general out of lively fabric featuring colorful fish and parrots, and the result is unprecedented: bilateral peace between neighboring rivals. In Rocío Martínez’s Spanish children’s book, El de-sastre perfecto (2010) [The Perfect Tailor/Disaster], a savvy sartorial protagonist exemplifies the empowered depictions of textile arts – whether needlework, tailoring or fashion design – that abound in contemporary Latin American and Spanish cultural representations of professions involving these artforms. I argue that while the seamstress as a relatable protagonist fell out of fashion after the nineteenth century, in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries representations of seamstresses re-emerge with a changed image. As a result, contemporary writers challenge the gendered limitations that were especially important in nation-building, and instead offer protagonists who break through the negative connotations involving sewing and morality. Although preoccupations regarding the delineations of private and public spheres often remain, recent sartorial figures deconstruct regional and national

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borders in addition to blurring gender and sexual borders. By questioning physical, geographical boundaries, the protagonists reflect the interconnected state of garment and textile industries in the global economy. This rise of interest in the needle and thread is quite surprising: more than ever before, global culture has distanced itself from the sources of clothing and the agents behind the creation of garments.1 Once lauded expertise has been demoted to unskilled and exploited factory labor, resulting in decreased prices and quality and increased consumption and waste. Yet, literature and popularculture media platforms such as television, films, blogs and other forms of social media tell a different story. The worldview involving sewing is ripping out the seams of delimited representation. Instead, protagonists enter exciting adventures by acting as spies, facilitating peace or reveling in privileged entry into the upper class’s private sphere – all facilitated by their primary professions as seamstresses and needlewomen.2 This book, through the analysis of artistic productions, intertwines the current state of mass garment production and labor exploitation with cultural works that glorify artistry and design. Particularly in Latin American and Iberian literature, where sartorial personifications have proliferated historically, taking up the needle is a privileged artifact of production. Recent images involving women in textile arts contrast starkly with the nineteenth-century literary and popular-culture representations of the victimization and sexualization of young females employed in sartorial professions. In Latin America and Spain during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the seamstress, whose profession was born out of economic necessity for women of lower-middle-class standing, often walked a fine tightrope of morality, one that could break at any moment and plunge her into the other predominant profession of women: prostitution.3 Writing about Chile, Elizabeth Quay Hutchison notes that gendered double standards prevailed; shame associated with women working outside the home reached its height with the rise of prostitution, stemming from reduced factory work and measly wages in sewing professions (cf. 132–5). The head of the Seamstress Union, Ester Valdés de Díaz, not only worried about how women were forced into prostitution but was also concerned about their poor working conditions and their need to walk through the seedy nocturnal streets of Santiago when 1 See Sherry Schofield-Tomschin’s “Home Sewing: Motivational Changes in the Twentieth Century” for an account of sewing trends in the North American context from the popularization of the sewing machine up until the second half of the twentieth century. 2 See Barbara Burman’s “Seamstresses” regarding the flexibility of terminology when referring to this centuries-old profession. 3 According to historian Donna Guy, in Buenos Aires, “domestic service and sewing at miserable wages were the major alternatives to prostitution” (42).

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INTRODUCTION

3

returning home from late shifts (cf. 139). Despite the importance of their work in dressing the nation, women’s contributions as seamstresses, especially in group settings, were devalued, resulting in a hostile environment.4 Such preying on female factory workers carries into the twenty-first century with increased gender-based violence and violations, directly paralleling the depreciation of the clothing items fashioned and causing a disposable mindset toward textile products and, all too often, human lives. Nineteenth-century Latin American and Spanish literature reflected these difficult socioeconomic realities for women needleworkers.5 Two turn-of-thecentury Peruvian works exemplify this: Mercedes Cabello de Carbonera’s Blanca Sol (1889) and Clorinda Matto de Turner’s Herencia (1895). Both juxtapose the scandalous figure of the prostitute with that of the pious, virtuous seamstress. In the literary representations, the seamstress was portrayed with pity not only because of her morally vulnerable state, but also for her participation in the public sphere since sewing was considered more respectable as a pastime, in the confines of the home, for the beautification of the private sphere. In her reading of Walter Benjamin’s flâneur, Ana Peluffo examines the trespassing of physical and cultural boundaries required from nineteenthcentury working women: “El concepto de ‘la mujer pública’ es en la época republicana altamente sospechoso (sea ésta costurera, prostituta, o literata) y es justamente esta cercanía semántica entre distintas formas de identidades femeninas ‘peligrosas,’ lo que genera en el sujeto literario el paradójico deseo de establecer fronteras y distancias” (49) [“The concept of the ‘public woman’ is highly suspicious in the Republican era (be it seamstress, prostitute or a woman of letters), and it is precisely this semantic closeness between different forms of ‘dangerous’ feminine identities that generates in the literary subject the paradoxical desire to establish borders and distances”].6 These once ossified

4 Clare Hunter’s monograph, Threads of Life: A History of the World through the Eye of the Needle (2019), recognizes the silenced power of needlewomen. For centuries this anonymity robbed women of their power. While the collective, creative endeavors of groups of women had adorned cathedrals and palaces, according to the author, “By the nineteenth century, needlework had been irretrievably demoted, and domestic embroidery was seen as a decorative frippery – just women’s work” (13). Such demeaning postures have continued into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and furthered gender inequality. 5 See Olga Matich for a reading of nineteenth-century seamstresses in Russian literature, which also involves economic and sexual exploitation. Matich sites Chernyshevsky’s “What Is To Be Done?” in its treatment of sewing in the context of female sewing cooperatives envisioned to provide agency in personal and private life (cf. 248–9). 6 All translations without a change in page number, denoting the translation used, are my own.

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notions regarding the seamstress’s “dangerous” feminine identity diversify in contemporary cultural productions. The cultural changes also include shifts in clothing production and cycles. Inarguably, the invention of the sewing machine has accelerated the creation and turnover of fashion.7 Not only this, but it was a significant mechanical player in the Industrial Revolution, forging a new pathway in the quest for modernity and shifting seamstresses from the private to the public sphere. The sewing machine – reducing sewing time of a shirt from fifteen hours to one – exacerbated exploitation instead of alleviating it (Hunter 263). Sewing by hand had been an activity promoting community and conversational companionship, but that conversation was now drowned out by the loud clank of the sewing machine, silencing women’s voices both literally and metaphorically. The metaphoric underpinnings of the sewing machine encourage a reflection on the newfound transition from the “old world” to the modern one. Mexican short story “La máquina de coser” (1892) [“The sewing machine”] by Vicente Riva Palacio stresses the importance of this mechanical gamechanger, soon to be a coveted household necessity. In the short story the sewing machine takes precedence to human beings, especially the female characters: “La mujer es, sobre todo, definida por el objeto; la máquina de coser como validador moral, tanto en sentido positivo como negativo: su pérdida impulse al descenso socio-moral, la recuperación confirma ese descenso, la transmisión seguirá legitimando esa idea de lo femenino aceptado y no aceptado” (Sánchez Robles 120) [“Woman is, above all, defined by the object; the sewing machine as a moral validator, both in the positive and negative sense: the loss of the object drives the character to socio-moral descent, the recovery of it confirms that descent, (and) the transfer of it will continue to legitimize the idea of what is accepted and not accepted as feminine”]. In the narration, the sewing machine takes a moralizing journey: first pawned by a single mother and daughter who opt for a less “respectable” way to make a living, the machine is recovered later by a general who decides that a young girl with more reputable prospects would be the worthier owner. This coveted item indicates social standing and acts as a curious destabilizer of modernity in Mexico, especially in regards to feminine identity. Noble work, made possible through the possession of the sewing machine, has more to do with making a living versus having an inheritance or aristocratic position (cf. 120–1).8 Likewise, in the contem7 See Joy Emery Spanabel’s “Nineteenth-Century Technology” for a detailed reading of the importance of the sewing machine as a major player in industrialization. 8 Sánchez Robles notes that the female protagonist’s name change as an outward identity marker accompanies a change of profession. In the contemporary novels included in this book, significant name changes facilitate the designers’ successes as well as gender-bending or blending. In these representations, the fluidity of the profession promotes physical mobility, as well as self-exploration and actualization.

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INTRODUCTION

5

porary novels involved in these analyses, sewing presents the protagonists with lucrative and self-actualizing possibilities for physical and social mobility. At the same time, unlike in the nineteenth-century short story, in recent work the physicality of the sewing machine is not a necessity for sartorial success among the seamstresses since basic needle and thread liberate the protagonists, sometimes to surreal and fantastical measures. In the case of late nineteenth-century Spain, prescriptions for bourgeois gender identities manifest through the proliferation of that mythical figure the ángel del hogar, or the “angel of the home.” María del Pilar Sinués de Marco’s domestic novel/conduct manual El ángel del hogar (1859) was a bestseller, resulting in numerous re-editions by the end of the century. Dutiful sewing exemplified the degree of domesticity required by this idealized female prototype who labored tirelessly in the private sphere of the home. Critic Mar Soria López turns to the novels and two short stories, respectively, of Spain’s most prominent Realist, Benito Pérez Galdós, and Naturalist, Emilia Pardo Bazán, for examples of this homebound female protagonist. Galdós’s Tormento (1884) depicts two sisters who must make ends meet after their father’s death. While each tries her hand as a seamstress, Refugio gets fed up with her miserly wages and uncomfortable working conditions, which López reads as indicating the inadequate job availability in Spain at the time (cf. 574).9 In the short stories “Casi artista” and “El mundo” by Pardo Bazán, female protagonists once again take up sewing as a means of survival. Their successes, resulting in the opening of a needlework shop and their flourishing as self-made designers, convert them into productive businesswomen, albeit from the confines of their homes, which López regards as “gynocentric workspaces” (589). López’s interpretation allows readers to reconsider the domestic closed space of the home as a place for female protagonists to sow the seeds of fruitful financial transactions.10 These works are precursors of contemporary contexts, in which protagonists vacillate between heightened 9

Critic Kathleen Davis has discussed the influential fashion writing of journalist Blanca Valmont during the same period. The critic links “personal consumption and national interests in her essays on the importance of fashion in modern life” (13). According to Davis, Valmont was concerned by the exploitative working conditions of Spain’s seamstresses and promoted setting up a fund that would support those talented enough to aspire to have their own shop (cf. 36). Moreover, despite the questionable reputation of these workers “for dancing, drinking, and prostitution,” she instead emphasizes more appealing qualities of the garment workers, presenting the problem without destabilizing the fashion industry (cf. 38–9). 10 See Cheryl Buckley, “On the Margins: Theorizing the History and Significance of Making and Designing Clothes at Home” for an account of the historical importance of space and sewing. The author explores firsthand accounts of the various “doublings” of space (i.e. kitchens and common areas turned into areas of sewing production) that in turn cultivate community among generations of women.

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mobility and redefined economic opportunities found in the home. As the novels reveal, these newfound professional opportunities manifest at sewing workshops or home businesses, which were previously considered as confined, traditional spaces. Outside the aforementioned studies, literary criticism has paid little attention to seamstresses in Latin American and Iberian literature and, as critics such as López point out, “in contrast to the Anglo-American context, very few critics have focused their research on working women of the domestic realm and their representation in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Spanish literature and culture” (572). Facing similar thematic trends, literary criticism on the role of seamstresses in English and American literature proves useful for our study. In nineteenth-century English literature, readers once again find the link between threatened morality and the poorly paid seamstress as a figure to protest the state of the nation. Critic Lynn Alexander, in her book Women, Work, and Representation: Needlework in Victorian Art and Literature (2003), delves into Condition-of-England literature and regards needlework as a critical topic and preoccupation among the writers of the time: “From the early 1840s through the close of the century novels, essay and poetry focused on women earning their living by sewing. Perhaps part of the appeal was the universality of the occupation; as Elizabeth Stone notes, virtually all women, regardless of class, sewed. Thus, a protagonist earning her living by sewing would have sound a common note with readers” (1).11 Alexander recognizes that the exploitation of seamstresses had been well documented since the seventeenth-century, but their unfavorable working conditions and state of poverty did not receive sustained attention until the nineteenth century, when literature played the heartstrings of Victorian England (cf. 6).12 According to 11 See Susan Frye, Pens and Needles: Women’s Textualities in Modern England (2013) for a fascinating account of the intersections of needlework and textualities in early modern England. According to Frye, “In their world, combining visual images and writing derived from a mode of thought charged with religious conviction, which made writing itself a visual art form; portraiture a vehicle for inscriptions; painted cloths, tapestries, and needlework the primary vehicle for translating written narratives into everyday design” (3). Elizabeth Stone is credited with authoring Britain’s first history of needlework, the Art of Needlework (1840). 12 In her article “Following the Thread: Dickens and the Seamstress,” Alexander considers Dickens’s treatment of seamstresses, who appear in seven of his fictional works. This occupation allowed a unique entry of a working poor into the private sphere of the wealthy home: “Since needlework was one of the few occupations in Victorian England where the working poor could enter the home of the wealthy and have contact with them, the seamstress is an obvious choice when creating a novel intertwining the lives of destitute characters with those of wealthy ones” (6). See also “All that Glitters is not Gold: The Show-Shop and the Victorian Seamstress,” in which Beth Harris describes the 1840s, which she refers to as the “hungry forties,”

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INTRODUCTION

7

Alexander, class was an important negotiating factor for readers, who were more likely to sympathize and empathize with the character – especially as she slipped into prostitution – if she were a farmer’s daughter or the daughter of an impoverished middle-class household (cf. 19). Alexander argues that the image of the seamstress was a dynamic one that “moved from being focused on her suffering, recognizable through an established iconography, to being a symbol for the working poor, and then, through acculturation and changes in aesthetic taste, to being familiar and sentimental” (26).13 In direct contrast to the seamstress as an everyday figure who burned the proverbial midnight oil with a needle in hand, contemporary literary representations no longer fixate only on precarious and exploitative working conditions. Moreover, the skill of sewing is no longer commonplace among readers. The historical distancing of protagonists and their art allows authors to create fantastical, romanticized alternatives where the seamstress’s profession affords her agency to shape her reality while simultaneously encouraging artistic expression. This optimistic focus fosters interest in the textile arts and their potential for creative and empowering possibilities. While sartorial skills may not be as commonplace as they once were, throughout Latin America centuries-old textile arts have left lasting legacies. Located off the coast of Panama, one example is Kuna Indian women’s elaborate art of molas. As Hunter notes, These appliquéd and embroidered blouse panels traditionally have eight layers of cloth that represent each universe a soul must travel through on its as a bifurcated decade in which the seamstress labored over the upper-class garments and reflected the glaring class disparities of Victorian England (cf. 115). The image of the seamstress was of virtue and modesty, avoiding being looked at, whereas the new show-shops encouraged a watchful gaze (cf. 117). In “The Melodramatic Seamstress: Interpreting a Victorian Penny Dreadful,” Rohan McWilliam explores how a popular fiction magazine began its series on white slaves or seamstresses in the 1850s. 13 By the mid-nineteenth century, though many spoke the language of sewing, not everyone excelled at the art. In the private sphere of the home, as Barbara Burman recognizes, keen skill in sewing translated to an improved public image and livelihood as a whole: The making, repair and alteration of clothing in the home was a transformative activity crucial to keeping up appearances and to sustaining all the possibilities inherent in the notion of respectability. It was an activity equally as unforgiving in its own way as the mechanized sewing in the factory system. Respectable clothing underpinned employability and creditworthiness. It was visible evidence of care and expenditure, demonstrating commitment to notions of physical cleanliness and moral hygiene. It provided for the public face of the family and allowed entry into public and civic events, church going and church-related events, outings, journeys and holidays. (18)

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journey to the afterlife. The designs originate as tattoos, but Spanish colonialists in the sixteenth century introduced cloth into the Kuna culture and, advocating modesty, encouraged women to cover their breasts. The women began to wear blouses onto which they transferred their tattoo designs. They adopted a technique called reverse appliqué in stitch rather than stitching cloth on top of cloth, layers of differently coloured cloth are placed together and each layer is then cut through to reveal the colour below in an increasingly intricate and detailed design. (“Introduction” 91–2)

Like other unique stitching representations, contemporary molas have been subjected to the whims of tourist culture and demand. Yet, as Hunter notes, the tightknit community continues to fashion traditional motifs in its private spheres. Precolonial images enliven nuptial dress passed down through generations, maintaining the spiritual meaning and identity-rich layers of this centuries-old textile art. Another internationally renowned example may be found with the arpilleras of Chile. In 1974, during the oppressive years of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship, the Catholic Church formed the Vicariate of Solidarity for women to make products for the Church to sell. This allowed the women, many of whom were facing economic and emotional hardship, having lost a spouse or child, to make ends meet. Hunter traces the creative paths they took: Under the guidance of Valentina Bonne, a church official who knew of the appliquéd pictures sewn by women in Isla Negra, the coastal area of Chile, that illustrated their rural fishing community, and aware of the arpilleras (embroideries sewn on burlap, a course jute cloth) created by the Chilean artist Violeta Parra, who had exhibited in the Louvre in Paris in 1964, the women were encouraged to make their arpilleras with scraps of fabric, and sew the scenes of their lives. (154)

These three-dimensional textile creations serve as a unique looking-glass into the intimate lives of a nation plagued by loss, loneliness and fear. The juxtaposition of bright fabric with haunting scenes, riddled with basic sewing stitches made by a variety of hands, allowed the pieces to escape censorship. Instead, Church officials smuggled them out of Chile and exported them to other countries, to be purchased by those empathetic to the plights of the suffering nations (cf. 155). Such unique tapestries have inspired similar textile tropes throughout the world.14 The importance of place, of the connective thread involved in sewing, one that binds protagonists to culture and community, is a recurring theme 14 According to Hunter, “The Conflict Textiles collection at Ulster University, Northern Ireland, has archived arpilleras from Germany, Zimbabwe, Northern Ireland, Argentina, Peru, Colombia, Spain, Ecuador, Brazil and Canada as well as Chile” (157).

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of contemporary writers who place seamstresses and needleworkers on the center of the narrative stage. Literary critic Ozzie Mayers explores this phenomenon among many ignored works by women writers and patchworks together the common thread of sewing in American literature. Mayers argues that this predominantly female art implements the metaphor of rootedness while paradoxically calling for escape and economic liberation (cf. 678). He recognizes the stifling qualities associated with the concept of rootedness and being “pinned down,” which “may lead to provincialism, inertia, and powerlessness,” while also pointing out how “it may paradoxically foster a satisfying meditative mode of consciousness” and “suggest a kind of rootedness whereby the human spirit, not just women, survives” (667). At the same time, Mayers identifies the art of sewing as one that offers many benefits: facilitating economic independence, nurturing creativity, and fostering self-reflection; in turn connecting the “inner landscape” (672). For the purpose of our analysis, Mayers’s celebratory examination of sewing provides a careful consideration of the transcendental potential of this art that is so often stigmatized for its gendered, economic necessity.15 For the novels’ protagonists, sewing and needlework offer a creative linchpin and at the same time encourage mobility beyond the boundaries, both literal and metaphorical, that surround them. For this study, the seamstress’s inner landscape is revealed gradually, creating pictorial stitches of the narrative tapestries. Self-reflection and rootedness are possible through the transitive journey of physical displacement in which space and locatedness are fundamental. For our investigations, the groundwork of Susan Carvalho’s Contemporary Spanish American Novels by Women: Mapping the Narrative (2007) proves especially helpful. Through the lens of spatial theory, Carvalho delivers an alternate reading of popular fiction – so often criticized for being superficial and transparent – in which “narrated space, like lived space, is not at all transparent. Its aesthetic construction involves and reflects an attention to context, a dialectic between protagonist and society, and a reflection of the flows of power within the narrated society” (3). For Carvalho, space is the ultimate transgression because, for those who desire something outside the confines of societal prescriptions, “space must be traversed, even transgressed, and places must be appropriated – either 15 Also see Amal Amireh’s study of the factory worker and the seamstress, two figures she deems almost invisible in nineteenth-century American literary studies, perhaps because of “the general view that American writers, particularly before the Civil War, did not engage with the social and economic reality of their society” (xi). Amireh opts for representation over reflection, “Even though the images of seamstresses and factory workers we encounter in the texts may not correspond to ‘reality,’ they are nevertheless ‘real’ in the sense that they formed an integral part of the way writers and readers experienced their material reality” (xiii).

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wrested in some sense from their prior possessors, or else reinvented” (5). Carvalho’s proposed model for analysis foregrounds space versus chronological plot as a revealing barometer for latent sociocultural interworking and complexities. In the context of contemporary Latin American and Spanish authors, locatedness and, in Mayers’s terms, rootedness appear through the armed agency made possible by the needle and thread. Specialty, precision and artistic aspiration in sewing and needlework encourage protagonists to explore forbidden spaces and, as a result, break through socially prescribed gendered limits. Such physical displacement requires a reflective back canvas for self-reflection, as well as a contemplative space regarding historical and contemporary positioning. While special attention is given to space, it is also important to note the favoring of temporal distancing among the authors of these analyses, all of whom opt for the historical novel as the genre of reflection. This permits the reader a temporal escape as well as an alternative époque to encourage contemplation of pressing contemporary problems. Carolyn Woolfenzon, in Muerte de utopia: Historia, antihistoria e insularidad en la novela latinoamericana (2016), utilizes György Lukács’s The Historical Novel (1917) to consider the self-aware nature of the historical novel, simultaneously coinciding with the rise of nationalism and the budding bourgeois State. Woolfenzon identifies the uniqueness of the Latin American context, in which atemporality, antihistory and metahistory accompany and break with traditional exemplars of historical fiction (cf. 18–31). These alternate readings of history permit silenced voices – such as those of women or sexually marginalized individuals – to vociferate their societal positioning.16 For the purpose of this analysis, the literary examples, all based in historical backdrops, romanticize the art of sewing and needlework. Perhaps this temporal displacement intrigues contemporary readers because – unlike the readers of the nineteenth century, who, as Alexander notes, were literate in discourses involving the needle and thread – sewing knowledge is no longer widely taught and familiar among audiences. Yet, as we shall see, through popular media forms, a return to sartorial creation and the celebration of innovation and creativity have gained considerable followings in the face of frenetic fashion markets – a phenomenon that, due to unprecedented production demands, places human rights and environmental devastations at the forefront of concern. The processes of creating and producing garments bind tightly to the demands of the fashion industry. The first chapter of this book delves into the theory behind fashion – what many philosophers and historians deem the Western marker of modernity – and examines how the postmodern crisis of overconsumption, in turn, has ignited a crisis in fashion. The drive for what 16

Critic Vinodh Venkatesh recognizes how fictionalizing history is a powerful tool for contemporary writers to “rewrite” the societies in which they live (95).

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is known as fast fashion in recent years has resulted in global connectedness, which exploits the Global South.17 Unprecedented demands for factories filled with young, exploited, predominantly female workers require assembly-line work, deconstructing the art of sewing while at the same time dehumanizing those most vulnerable in the production process. While France and Italy have historically dominated the fashion scene, this book pays special attention to the two other Romance languages involved in the international dialogue of fashion: Spanish and Portuguese. We explore this worldwide interlacing especially as it relates to Latin America and Spain and consider alternatives to unsustainable production models that strain our planet and result in humanrights violations. The authors and works chosen for this study, through their glorified depiction of this distanced art, introduce readers to the profession of sewing and needlework and to the agents behind textile creations. María Dueñas’s El tiempo entre costuras [The Time in Between] (2009) is an international bestseller that has provoked culture-altering results, especially when adapted into a television series. Chapter 2 explores espionage and dressmaking as facilitators of mobility, personal agency and political involvement. The author, who holds a Ph.D. in English Literature from the Universidad de Murcia, has won numerous awards for her contributions to the genre of historical fiction. While reaching a vast readership with over one million copies sold, Dueñas has a research-oriented background that tints the lengthy work with a strong tone of veracity, and she provides a detailed bibliography charting her research of the historical backdrop. This groundwork, coupled with her creative interpretations of her mother’s own experience in Tetouan, Morocco, provides a soundly stitched plot divided into three sections. The novel, which plays out in Spain, Morocco and Portugal, works within the confines of the gendered rhetoric during the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. Sira, a young seamstress with a lowly education and bleak prospects, fashions herself as a vital spy extraordinaire for the British during the days leading up to the Second World War. This analysis explores Sira’s newfound mobility and agency as a direct result of her economic freedom, creative endeavors and cultural remolding and transgressions. While transnational lines are broken down through expat communities and travels, Sira’s professional and educational development transforms her into a self-made professional, capable of forging a successful career and preventing international conflict. César Aira’s La costurera y el viento [The Seamstress and the Wind] (1994) offers a fantastical, non-traditional exploration of Argentina’s Patagonia. Chapter 3 expands the needle and thread’s crafting and creating of alternate surreal spaces where physical displacement may occur outside societal 17

A term used to denote Africa, Latin America and developing Asia.

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confinements. The novelist’s dark humor and incongruous plot expose the harsh geographical realities of the region, and, at the same time, weave sexual and gender transgressions and consequences into the seamstress’s frantic journey to find her missing son. The protagonist’s talent persists throughout her frenzied quest and attracts an unlikely suitor: the Wind. In true Aira-fashion, the magical, anti-metaphorical twists and turns avoid social and cultural commentary. Yet, the protagonist’s agility with the needle and thread facilitates her departure from the gender-regulated reality of her small peripheral town and accompanies her through the vastness of unknown terrain and unresolved future. Pedro Lemebel’s only novel, Tengo miedo torero [My Tender Matador] (2001), celebrates “la Loca del Frente” [“the Queen from the Corner”], who circumvents the brothel by using her livelihood as a successful needleworker to make ends meet. Chapter 4 explores how the protagonist’s success transgresses the forbidden spaces of the elites’ private spheres while also avoiding the economic necessity to live and work at a bordello as do many of her peers. Gender and sexuality merge on the forefront of this analysis as the protagonist dresses the physical, outer body in clothing defined by culturally coded gender norms, ones only appropriate for the “opposite” gender. The protagonist, la Loca, resists societally created categorizations by obscuring interpretations of gender and sexual order, blatantly opposing the gendered rhetoric prevalent not only during Pinochet’s dictatorship but also in much of Chile’s conservative background. Instead, she engages in the predominantly female profession of needlework, redefining a gender performance that had been renewed during the seventeen-year dictatorship. Like María Dueñas, Brazilian novelist Frances de Pontes Peebles was widely celebrated for her first novel, The Seamstress (2009), which found international recognition through translation into nine languages, as well as two screen adaptations.18 The novel, published in Portuguese under the name A Costureira e o Cangacaeiro, was adapted for both film (2017) and a miniseries (2018) under the title Entre Irmãs. Both generated strong public interest; according to the author’s website, “The miniseries aired in January 2018 on Brazil’s Globo network. 84 million Brazilians, 40% of the country’s population, watched the series, giving it the highest rating on Globo in 30 years.” Chapter 5 highlights the complex relationship of two sisters, Luzia and Emília, whose distinct personalities only convene when speaking the shared language of sewing, once taught to them by their caregiver aunt. While the elder sister, Emília, seeks societal admiration, first marrying for 18 De Pontes Peebles’s first novel, which was published first in English, was recognized by a number of awards: the Elle Grand Prix for fiction, the Friends of American Writers Award, and the James Michener-Copernicus Society of America Fellowship.

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social standing and later becoming a successful influencer and businesswoman, the awkward and outwardly maimed Luzia joins the controversial cangaceiro band who brazenly roam the dry sertão. Sewing and embroidery become necessary skills for entering otherwise closed social spaces. Emília’s sartorial talents and added interest in fashion secure her coveted entry into high society and later facilitate economic independence. Luzia, by contrast, employs her knack for sewing and embroidery as indispensable skills for both clothing the bandits and constructing group identity. This chapter foregrounds the needle and thread as key instruments for the unlikely assertion of female power and leadership by two distinct siblings, displaced by their divergent personality threads yet, at the same time, intertwined by a common binding of sartorial agility. In recent years, celebrated depictions of the needle and thread are not only found in popular literature. Rather, powerful and whimsical seamstresses and tailors sweep through Latin American and Iberian children’s literature with moralizing results. Chapter 6 demonstrates four exemplary figures in the quest for self-reflection and agency amplified onto communities and nations. Txabi Arnal and Cecilia Varela’s El corazón del sastre [The Tailor’s Heart] (2009) follows the journey of an aged tailor whose quest to metaphorically “feel his heart” leads him to couple his vocation with helping others. Janaína Leslão’s A princesa e a costureira [The Princess and the Seamstress] (2015) recasts the protagonists of royal romance and kingdom reconciliation, placing in the spotlight an Afro-Brazilian princess who falls in love with a singlemother seamstress – a selfless mender of bodies as well as a maker of fanciful creations. Rocío Martínez’s El de-sastre perfecto [The Perfect Tailor/Disaster] (2010) encourages optimism in the face of failure when a tailor’s cloth mistake results in a peace-inducing common thread among rival nations. Mar Pavón and Daniel Montero’s La costurera y el hilo de agua [The Seamstress and the Thread of Water] (2014) rewrites the well-known tale of a vain king, and instead personifies an inherited sewing box as a means to consider the familiar legacy and open dialogue regarding loss. Finally, Natalí Tentori and Elizabeth Builes’s Arroz con leche [Rice Pudding] (2018) opens new, peaceful possibilities for creative endeavors in textile arts while repositioning the classic, gendered children’s song from which the book takes its title. The diverse authors discussed in this book reclaim professions involving textile arts. Their showcasing of sewing, embroidery and design encourages a reconsideration of silenced and disregarded professionals. By rekindling interest – through adventurous escapades and lush historical backdrops – these works serve as a cultural catalyst for increased dialogue surrounding textile arts, and especially the agents behind garment production. Without further introduction, pick up the thread with me as we piece together a celebration of oftentimes forgotten figures.

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On Pins and Needles: Hypermodernity and Hyperclothing Ourselves We seek identity in the body, and clothes are an immediate continuation of the body. That is also why clothes are so important to us: they are closest to our body. Clothes rewrite the body, give it a different shape and a different expression. This applies not only to the clothed body but also to the unclothed; or, more precisely, the unclothed body is always also clothed. (Svendsen 77) Fashion has its own manifest virtue, not unconnected with the virtues of individual freedom and uncensored imagination that still underline democratic ideals. (Hollander 12) Fashion is one of the faces of modern artifice, of the effort of human beings to make themselves masters of the conditions of their own existence. (Lipovetsky, The Empire of Fashion 24)

While this book focuses on the professional and creative processes of seamstresses, due to the message-laden content of clothing, the predominant voice of fashion must not be excluded from the dialogue. Although fashion has remained a topic of discord for a slew of theorists with conflicting viewpoints, what can be agreed upon is that clothing does not merely meet a basic human need by protecting us from natural elements.1 Garments possess more than a functional role in our everyday lives no matter how much we resist. Though 1 Regarding fashion’s polemic, Lipovetsky acknowledges one of the major setbacks: “The question of fashion is not a fashionable one among intellectuals” (3). The difficulty of approaching this phenomenon from a theoretical standpoint has arisen from the stigmas of fickleness, superficiality, materialism and consumerism: “The topic of fashion arouses critical reflexes even before it is examined objectively: critics invoke it chiefly in order to castigate it, to set it apart to deplore human stupidity and the corrupt nature of business. Fashion is always other people” (3).

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anxieties over the appropriate clothing for an occasion may resonate for a majority of our lived, shared social experiences, even “comfort clothing” bears fashionable identity codes.2 Svendsen denies that one may decide or chose to exist outside of fashion’s domain: “To be excluded from the game, and aware of being excluded, is to be within its sphere” (20). Our inability to escape these cultural messages and markers confirms how fashion has cast its net far and wide, seeping into almost every aspect of our public and private identities and experiences.3 When approaching the interpretation of fashion in contemporary times, rapid changes result in a maddening conundrum. In the face of irrational changes, Svendsen cautions against misinterpreting history by linking fashion trends and societal change, a practice that does not always translate into direct cause-and-effect: “If skirts are longer for a season, it is not because society has become more puritanical, but because they have been shorter. In short: fashion develops more on the basis of internal conditions than a dialogue with the political developments in society” (29). Despite the political manifestations of fashion, which may correspond with attire scripted in meaning such as a mechanism to associate oneself with a particular political party, fashion may change because something has forged its way to the majority.4 Part of fashion’s complexity lies with both the visual components and those found in the written word.5 In literature the importance of fashion lies in the 2

See Steve Nutter, “The Structure and Growth of the Los Angeles Garment Industry,” regarding the growth of casual and sports fashion in California. 3 Consumption habits remind us of the importance of clothing in our lives. As Svendsen points out, “Fashion affects the attitude of most people towards both themselves and others, though many would deny it. The denial, however, is normally contradicted by our own consumption habits – and as such it is a phenomenon that ought to be central to our attempts to understand ourselves in our historical situation” (10). 4 As Svendson reminds us: An absolutely fashionable style does not have to be adopted by the majority of a community or a culture. On the contrary, too great a spread of fashion indicates that something is on the way out. A genuinely fashionable style must rather be one adopted by a minority that is on its way to becoming that of the majority, or at least that of a large number of people. In that sense, fashion never is – it is always in a state of becoming. What we have today is not in such a state of becoming; it is, if anything, a constant reserve of recyclable styles, with none basically more ‘in fashion’ than the others. (34) 5 According to Roland Barthes, “Written clothing is carried by language, but also resists it, and is created by this interplay” (41). While the French semiotician opens the door to analyzing not only the visual element of fashion but also the written accompaniment often found in magazines, and literature, as subsequent fashion theorists have noted, we must have caution when “codifying” fashion and its metaphorical

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grounding principles of dress. It transports the reader to the concrete and facilitates profound transformations for the protagonists (Hughes cf. 11). In Fashion in Fiction: Text and Clothing in Literature, Film and Television (2009), editors McNeil, Karaminas and Cole emphasize Roland Barthes’s weighty contributions to setting the groundwork for written fashion analysis, despite his shying away from critiquing fashion in literature. Although Barthes’s strict semiology would come under attack, his approach has allowed literary critics to investigate clothing markers as revealing meaning-makers in fiction.6 In the contemporary context of the novels included in this study, fashion and direct participation in its creation provide protagonists with an even greater voice in the setting of these individual terms. Fashion for the characters marks the change as well as indicating one’s ability to change with the times. Norwegian philosopher Svendsen, in Fashion: A Philosophy (2006), argues for “a dialogue with fashion and the increasingly rapid cycles of fashion [which] indicate a more complex conception of the self, because the self becomes more transient” (19). For the analysis at hand, in gender-delimiting surroundings fashion requires a constant state of forward and backward reflection. Likewise, the protagonists detailed in this book, through their active role in sartorial creative processes, transcend their socially prescribed passive status. Fashion, Hegemony and a Universal Language: The Case for Modernity The dizzying marketing messages that bombard our daily lives, delivered through a myriad of media formats, may sometimes have us questioning whether societies could exist without fashion’s heavy hand of influence. Yet, as Svendsen points out, “Fashion is not universal. It is not a phenomenon that exists everywhere and at all times. Its roots are neither in human nature nor in group mechanisms in general” (21). The emergence of fashion, associated with consumerism and capitalism, is vilified as a spilling of Pandora’s box. Yet, in modern times, defacing, replacing or normalizing the interconnected codes involved in the language of fashion is often only possible through force, such as when fascist systems exercise control behind the façade of an implications in greater sociopolitical terms. Svendsen, for example, notes the problematics of asking the meaning of a garment and attempting to overgeneralize: “In short: fashion develops more on the basis of internal conditions than a dialogue with the political developments in society” (29). Anthropologist Daniel Miller recognizes the contributions of semiotics to material culture but also encourages moving past its limitations (cf. 12–13). 6 One example can be found with Clair Hughes, who argues that dress has been a primary subject of the novel due to its “most obvious signal of order and hierarchy in the new middle-class world” (“Dressing for Success” 11)

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equalizing image.7 As we shall see, the intricacies of fashion’s current global role are deep-rooted, complex and not easily controlled. Passivity regarding this inevitable force in our contemporary society results in a lack of agency on our part as consumers and message-bearers, as well as more dire consequences for those involved directly in the various tiers of fashion production.8 The rise of fashion demarcates entry into modernity: “Fashion is not just a matter of clothes, but can just as well be considered as a mechanism or an ideology that applies to almost every conceivable area of the modern world” (Svendsen 11).9 Svendsen refers to Nietzsche’s views on the liberating potential of fashion, while also acknowledging the problems of associating fashion with the modern world, which supposedly gives precedence to “increasingly rational self-determination” (24). In part, the complexity lies in how fashion’s ever-changing voice is dictated. As Steele recognizes, “In recent years scholars and costume curators have increasingly realized that fashion must be placed firmly within its cultural and historical context; the study of dress cannot be separated from women’s history, for example” (1). When approaching clothing as an artifact, as Steele highlights, an interdisciplinary approach facilitates interplay with the historical surroundings. What may appear as a mere clothing item bears layers of meaning. So how did fashion become fashion, or in other words, how did the survival mechanism of corporeal covering and protection become the “Empire,” as Lipovetsky labels it, and a driving mechanism of self-expression, societal domination and global markets? Lipovetsky, a French philosopher, recognizes the centuries-old continuity in clothing – oftentimes gender fluid – in both Western and Eastern civilizations. Although changes in governance resulted in subsequent changes in the appearance of acquired peoples, fashion as we know it, implying an aesthetic and original venue for self-expression, did not exist (cf. 19).10 Lipovetsky regards the fourteenth century as a pivotal moment 7 See Fashioning the Body Politic, edited by Wendy Parkins (2002), for a collection of essays that explores this phenomenon on a global level (Wendy Parkins, pp. 1–17; Simonetta Falasca-Zamponi, pp. 145–65; Mary Vincent, pp. 167–87). 8 Svendsen does not condemn fashion, but does call for a more reflective relationship that would result in a change of attitude. This will “not completely liberate us from fashion, but we can achieve a relative degree of independence from it” (11). 9 While fashion may be a visual demarcation of entry into modernity, it is also important to note that journalists such as Teri Agins have suggested that this phenomenon is under attack. See Teri Agins, The End of Fashion: How Marketing Changed the Clothing Business Forever (1999). 10 Although the origins of fashion still remain a site of doubt and contention, a number of historical interplays, such as the rise of cities, increased specialization – including textile professions – and economic growth brought about by agricultural and technological advancements as well as commerce, created a cultural milieu ready for a rise in fashion (Lipovetsky cf. 37–41).

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for fashion because it is the first time that a drastic divide of dress according to gender was conceived (cf. 20). This preliminary period, spanning from the fourteenth century until the nineteenth, was marked by gradual change in cuts and lines, unlike the more recognizable modern version of what he deems as fashion. While the Middle Ages were dominated by the whims of monarchs and lords, the nineteenth century would bring about a more individualistic focus. Changes in men’s fashion, which by comparison with women’s fashion have appeared slight, especially in terms of business attire, began to evolve at a faster rate during the twentieth century. Trends frequently marked by sociopolitical undercurrents – such as, for example, Dior’s hyper-feminine, frilled dresses of the postwar era, which sold more fabric while returning women to the domestic, less mobile state of the home – began to define the increasingly changing style markers of the respective eras. Fashion experienced another important gamechanger in the 1960s during increased industrialization and the rise of prêt-à-porter attire. No longer dependent on the economic commitment of a specialized designer, seamstress or tailor, the availability of garment pieces in different sizes and fixed styles shortened the distance between style and class. Fast fashion, as we shall see, further “democratized” clothing availability and satisfied a collective desire to be fashionable. The twenty-first century is marked by a recycling and coexistence of national and transnational fashion trends. In some cases this has opened a plurality of creative exchanges, some of which facilitate the work of national designers aiming to couple national tradition – at times deemed “global fashion” – with modernity, all while battling transnational trends to “look Westernized,” the seemingly visual markers of colonial and neocolonial remnants.11 Notably, with fashion plurality we see a shift from modernity to what Lipovetsky deems hypermodernity. Lipovetsky, often criticized for his evolution from Marxism to capitalist leanings, argues against the incapability of postmodernism to describe contemporary realities. Despite postmodernism’s attempts to open interpretations through a myriad of individual experiences and possibilities, the angst of the individual brews as our technological age cultivates a type of restlessness for which we are always seeking contentment and fulfillment. Lipovetsky’s The Empire of Fashion: Dressing Modern Democracy (1987) fixates on fashion’s role in postmodernity, though in Hypermodern Times (2004) his focus on clothing is reduced to the following 11

Elizabeth Kutesko discusses contemporary designers’ engagement with prejudicial approaches to Brazilian fashion and uses Alexandre Herchcovitch’s work, involving “hats of black, abstracted fruit, giving a dark, surrealist twist to brightly colored, Carmen Miranda-style headwear, in the process turning Western presuppositions of what constitutes ‘Brazilian-ness’ upside down” (Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress, online exclusive).

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passage in the section “The Future’s New Clothes”: “This can hardly be doubted: we live in a time of finance capitalism and precarious salaries, when a democracy of opinion reigns, together with the Internet and the ‘throw-away mentality’” (40). Lipovetsky’s observation on the disposable mindset that many have adopted toward clothing could not be more prophetic in an age where fast fashion prevails. The term “fast fashion” invokes a parallel with “fast food.” In the same way that concerns about food production and preparation continue to spark foodie culture and international culinary borrowings, so anxieties over human rights, environmental devastation and quality misgivings have renewed interests in the art of sewing and fairly sourced clothing.12 Fast fashion revolutionized the industry in many ways. Instead of seasonal collections, new inventory circulates throughout the year. The fast-fashion model, devised by the Spanish brand Zara, relies on small batches, opting to design, produce and deliver garments biweekly.13 Low prices and a constant flow of new fashions keep customers engaged and define fast fashion.14 With the rise of fast fashion and a “throw-away” Westernized mentality, Spanish-speaking global players abound as both the mastermind creators and physical labor producers of this phenomenon.15 12 In Wear No Evil: How to Change the World with Your Wardrobe (2014), Greta Eagan speaks of increased eco-consciousness regarding food and its production and argues that environmental strains are creating an increased need for similar awareness around clothing (cf. 13–15). 13 Historically, Spain has been outside the arena of the great fashion houses. Hotspots such as Paris, Milan, London and New York have dominated the Westernized sphere of haute couture catwalks, their fantastical, artistic creations trickling down to common retail shops in almost unrecognizable forms. In fact, as art historian Valerie Steele, who is known for revolutionizing fashion theory, has noted, influences are harder to pinpoint than ever: “Fashions no longer ‘trickle down,’ they usually ‘bubble up’ from various subcultures, but contrary to what Polhemus believed, the creators of street style do not ‘naturally’ evolve a pure and unchanging style, in contrast to fashion’s artificial promotion of new, ‘trendy’ fashions” (89). 14 Also see Enrique Badia, Zara and Her Sisters (2009). 15 The Spanish brand Zara, which created the model for fast fashion, forms part of the largest conglomerates of this system, Inditex. Tansy Hoskins unpacks the complexities of this multinational clothing company, currently the largest fashion group in the world, located in Arteixo, Galicia. Zara, the flagship store, was cofounded by Amancio Ortega and Rosalía Mera. The company’s beginnings read like a fairy tale: to help his family, Ortega left school at age fourteen to work for a local shirt-maker and learned to make clothes by hand. In the 1970s he began a sewing cooperative with local women who crafted quilted bathrobes, and shortly afterward he cofounded Zara. The multibillionaire evokes mystery as his private life remains as tightly buttoned up as his simple uniform of a blue blazer, white shirt, and grey trousers. His down-to-earth

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Proponents of this business model praise not only the continual market ticking of consumption clocks, but also what can be described as a democratization of fashion.16 Zara’s model, as Susan Kaiser notes, has moved its production centers: “[Zara] initially flourished with a business model based on production that was closer to home (Spain, Portugal, India, Turkey, and Morocco) but has eventually spanned to Vietnam, China, and other locations around the world” (58). Lower prices have facilitated purchasing power across socioeconomic groups. Arlene Dávila’s anthropological study, El Mall: The Spatial and Class Politics of Shopping Malls in Latin America (2016), while cognizant of postcolonial and neoliberal remnants in this discussion, considers the vitality of malls as spaces for performativity of class and gender. Dávila explores the rise of elaborate shopping malls in Latin America, specifically with Colombia as a case study, despite the decline of these brick-and-mortar structures in Europe and the United States. Dávila ascertains that while past studies have focused on the effects of modernity and globalization on national cultural identities: We know very little about what it means for people throughout the developing world to access these shiny new spaces of consumption, or what stakes are involved when global chains like Zara and Forever 21 become the new standards of fashion and taste, or even what class and spatial politics may be unleashed by the advent of the mega malls at the core of most Latin American cities. (2)

These physical juggernauts generate a new performative space to “look the part” of a viable consumer (cf. 134). In the face of the inclusion of a graduated spectrum of mid-end to high-end stores, Dávila found a changed Colombia after the entry of international fast-fashion stores. She quotes Colombian fashion expert Pilar Castaño, who divides the history of fashion in Colombia into two periods: “before and after the arrival of Zara” (134). She does not demonize the inclusion of international fast-fashion brands. As she notes, cultural theorists have traditionally looked at how international fashion has eroded or threatened national culture. This view, however, ignores the democratizing potential of affordable fast fashion, albeit at the price of quality and

persona and approachability have been perpetuated through shared cafeteria lunches with his employees. Yet, not all the players and components of the fast-fashion model reflect such a positive image when considering their compromised involvement in the larger global picture. In addition to human rights abuses, Zara has been criticized for their culturally insensitive clothing designs. 16 According to Svendsen, “Since the eighteenth century it has been increasingly democratized in the sense that it is no longer the sole preserve of a small group of affluent people” (9).

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durability (cf. 134–44).17 Another liberating component of international fastfashion flagships such as Zara and Forever 21 lies in the size of their stores, facilitating a power shift in which consumers may select their sizes instead of relying on sales assistants (cf. 144). Because Colombians of lower social classes have felt unwelcome in high-end shopping establishments, shopping malls filled with a sea of merchandise allow a more enjoyable entry into this semi-closed space in which one must “look the part” of an interested consumer who will purchase and not just window shop. This image requires certain fashion codes such as straightened hair and trendy clothing in order to enter and participate in the consumerist model. In the democratization of fashion, blogging has also been in current discussions of transferring fashion agency to the masses (versus past models which relied on fashion publications).18 This model also suffers from big businesses’ capitalist influences. Hoskins points out the pitfalls in this newfound culture of influencers: Although there is more interconnectedness and idea-sharing than ever, do fashion blogs really represent the democratization of fashion? Bloggers can influence what styles of clothing are produced for sale by corporations – having drawn inspiration from society they feed into the industry an often unpaid “look book.” Bloggers can also increase the sale of clothes they promote. But this is not the same as saying that bloggers have power over the industry. The power to influence the industry is not the same as the power to control the industry. (42)19

If we refer specifically to Chile, for example, in recent years the private space of costly haute couture shows is accompanied by blogs such as Viste la calle. Unlike other Chilean fashion blogs/magazines, focusing entirely on one niche, such as Antílope’s celebration of high couture photography, Viste has a multifaceted approach. The blog encourages exposure for national designers by providing categories and advertising. It also celebrates the fashion choices of people on the streets of Santiago and promotes the exploration of fashion in public spaces. Its website acknowledges its appreciation for Hel looks, The Sartorialist and Tune and Fruits. However, unlike these, Viste is not 17 Elizabeth Cline also speaks about this phenomenon: “Here we are, having arrived in a so-called fashion democracy, where everyone can afford to be stylish and follow trends” (8). 18 See Brent Luvaas, “Travelling the Street Style Blogosphere: Amateur Anthropology from Around the Globe” for a reading of the popular street-style blog onthecornerstreetstyle.blogspot.com. 19 See sociologist Diana Crane’s Fashion and Its Social Agendas: Class, Gender, and Identity in Clothing (2000) for an extended reading of the democratization of fashion in terms of class and gender.

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merely one photographer aiming to highlight fashion according to what is shot through her or his lens. The Chilean version requires photographs to meet just one condition: “es simplemente que los fotografiados destaquen por su look” [“It is simply that those photographed stand out because of their look”]. The editors encourage the fashion community to comment with an optimistic critical eye: “les invitamos a dejar sus comentarios considerando que buscamos por sobretodo destacar las cosas positivas, en buena onda y con respeto por la opinión del resto” [“we invite you to leave your comments and take into consideration that we look for highlighting the positive things, the good vibes and with respect for everyone’s opinions”] (viste.cl).20 This approach, celebrating diverse styles versus designer trends, facilitates a creative fashionable voice among a wide gamut of Chileans in the public space of the metropolitan streets. In Chile, democratized feedback has also been the focus of major commercial chains such as Falabella Department Store, the second-largest retail company in Chile, also operating in markets elsewhere, such as Argentina, Peru and Colombia.21 One example of the company’s innovative marketing approaches to reach a more widespread population is the webseries Chica del Dept 301, launched in the fall of 2013, which features Chilean actress Juanita Ringeling and her hedgehog, Paulino. The series was inspired by the popular beauty tutorials and trends that sweep social media, and assists viewers on makeup tips, clothing and home furnishings. Chica is upbeat, and its episodes, each under three minutes in length, tackle themes such as weddings, meeting the in-laws, interviews, holidays and, of course, stylish makeovers. Although Chica is innovative with its marketing strategy, its content tends to promote the typical gendered “goals” of a young Chilean who hopes to make such a good impression on her future in-laws that she will automatically receive a marriage proposal. She worries incessantly about her domestic skills while prepping for dinner parties. The series allows the viewer a voyeuristic encounter with one of Chile’s most famous actresses. Much like the homespun YouTube “how-to” videos, the audience is allowed privileged access to the protagonist’s private space. The series celebrates an independent young woman who lives alone in an upmarket apartment, and the lack of characters creates a sense of complete intimacy with her. Details regarding merchandising and costs pop up during 20 Viste also provides supportive platforms for up-and-coming designers, such as their 2017 and 2019 “VistelaCalle Catwalk” for those hoping to make a name for themselves in fashion. 21 The Falabella Department Store was founded by an Italian Chilean immigrant in 1889 as a tailor shop, and since has expanded, selling apparel, home furnishings, electronics, and sporting goods. Falabella is a multichannel retailer selling by web, phone, catalog and television. In recent years the megastore has broadened its fashion marketing to include fashion design contests and featured bloggers.

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the narration, but more interestingly, in fine print, products, clothing and accessories appear in the credits as protagonists in the episodes. Despite what may appear as superficial content, which celebrates a dream-like fantasy world for a young girl as the protagonist of her own microcosmos, the webseries, like the aforementioned fashion blogs, allows for a uniting dialogue among viewers. These mediums extend fashion’s reach through public participation. Blogs and webseries allow international dialogue and exposure. Viste la calle promotes these exchanges with its series “El valor de tu closet,” the first audiovisual register to look into the creative process and personal stories of designers from Peru, Chile, Brazil and Colombia, to name a few. Through the latest digital media craze, consumers influence Chilean fashion discourse. Although some corporal webseries may be a mere marketing ploy, the inundation of comments by users of various socioethnic groups on an international level permits immediate feedback on design ideas, allowing the public a unique participatory voice. After grappling with the democratizing potential of fast fashion through increased buying power and access to diverse classes and ethnic groups, it is imperative to consider how the colossal clothing production that accompanies this model places certain environmental and human-rights constraints on the most vulnerable, while also endangering cultural identities. Instead of basking in the glow of a great bargain find, the astonishing prices that accompany fast fashion must provoke us to ask: Who are the living, breathing individuals behind the crafting of this garment? What are the working conditions and wages involved? Where does the surplus or discarded clothing go?22 How does this new model reshape culture? The Global South in a Tangled Production Model The first question regarding the agents behind production does not have a straightforward answer. Tracing the international and interconnected nature of today’s clothing production is a gnarly and knotted process. Journalists and activists such as Tansy Hoskins, Elizabeth Cline and Lucy Siegle have spearheaded exposing the real cost behind apparel products and why closets worldwide have inflated with disposable clothing. Although factories and stores populate various regions of Latin America, for example, many areas fight to move from the periphery to the center of fashion discourse. In Stitched Up: The Anti-Capitalist Book of Fashion (2004), Hoskins unveils the racist undertones embedded in the clothing production today:

22

Polemic surrounding this issue involves the claim that excess clothing is incinerated in order to preserve the value of the brand (see Black 191).

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That what Paris/Milan/London/New York produce is fashion but what everyone else produces is just clothing or apparel. Everybody else – the vast majority of the work – has been relegated to being ‘people without fashion’, which translates to ‘people without history’. This racist approach allows for the dehumanization, and therefore guiltless exploitation, of the so-called third world. (4)

Oddly enough, while historical distancing allows Western cultures to shake our heads at those Victorian England factories driven by child labor or the slavery involved in various aspects of clothing fabrication – such as cotton production – we do not skip a beat when pondering why clothing costs have plummeted since the beginning of the twenty-first century. Siegle reminds us of the uncomfortable parallels of exploitation and slavery involved in today’s current model of clothing manufacturing: “Where once cotton production was based on slavery, today’s fast fashion has brought the type of working conditions outlawed in the West at the turn of the twentieth century to every Developing World town with a fabric-processing or sewing facility” (ix). The long-term repercussions – in terms of environmental impacts and international economic dependence, for example – should be enough to bring us to a dead stop, like fabric wadded in a foot feed. However, minor measures to guarantee a sustainable environment for future generations reveal our tendency to live in the now. We don’t have to look to the future to see horrifying repercussions of our actions. Maquiladoras in Latin America and Asia, staffed with young women and children paid under a living wage, are the heartbeats behind the clothing and accessories we buy. As economist Pietra Rivoli recognizes, “in China and around the world, stitching a T-shirt still involves a young woman and her sewing machine” (87).23 We must remain cognizant that things are not merely things, but rather there are living, breathing people behind each item. While great strides have been taken to assure safer, more just working conditions for factory workers, glaring news reports remind us how the necessary connecting thread for human rights and safety keeps slipping out of the needle. For our study, it proves useful to explore some of the historical underpinnings and policy decisions that have affected both Western and Eastern hemispheres. As Black and Root highlight, the intrinsically wasteful nature of fashion has begun to lose its center: 23 Also see Cline: “Clothing, even when produced in a factory, is really a handmade good broken down into assembly-line steps. The sewing machine is more a tool than a machine, as it really just facilitates and speeds up manual work. The uniquely laborintensive nature of clothing is why sewing is one of the most common professions in the world and the most common profession in the fashion industry” (42).

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However, since the mid-1990s, significant shifts in trading have combined to accelerate the traditional twice-yearly fashion seasons, a commercial infrastructure familiar since the mid-twentieth century. With the abolition of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in 1995 (a post-World War II measure) and the establishment of the World Trade Organization, a relaxation of protectionist trading quotas and tariffs saw a rapid migration of garment production offshore from developed countries such as the United States and Britain to lower-wage areas for more competitive pricing. (517–18)

In particular, we will consider the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994 between the United States, Mexico and Canada and the expiration of China’s Textile limit in 2005. Are Economic Policy and Human Rights Out of Fashion? Since the commencement of NAFTA in the early 1990s, there has arisen an exodus of factories to the United States border with Mexico permitting lower wages and lax environmental accountability while strengthening the maquiladora culture, one which thrives on extreme exploitation of female workers. For a succinct definition of the term maquiladora, we need venture no further than the webpage for Border Assembly, Inc., a manufacturing company located in San Diego, just a short drive from its Tijuana clientele: A maquiladora in Mexico is a factory that operates under preferential tariff programs established and administered by the United States and Mexico. Materials, assembly components, and production equipment used in maquiladoras are allowed to enter Mexico duty-free. Products made can be exported into the U.S. at lower tariffs than those from other countries. Recently, the term “maquiladora” has been used for similar operations in Latin America and Asia as well, though its roots are deeply embedded in Mexico. (“What is a Maquiladora?”)

The website argues for the advantages of the maquiladora system, stating that the maquiladora industry was able to “fully bloom” after NAFTA, despite, according to Business Assembly Inc., new strict guidelines and checks and balances for maquiladoras. The result sums up NAFTA’s role in “eliminat[ing] certain quotas that further impeded full penetration of U.S. and Mexican markets.” All the invasive and aggressive connotations of the word “penetration” bring us to the environmental and ethical misgivings that, when followed up, reveal a distinct side of NAFTA and the rise of maquiladoras.24 24

See Norma Iglesias Prieto’s Beautiful Flowers of the Maquiladora (1997) for an account of the life stories of ten Mexican women, migrants from Mexico who work

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Although academics and entrepreneurs, such as Serra Puche, argue that maquiladoras no longer exist – and despite its decline due to increased competition from countries that offer even cheaper labor, such as China – maquiladora culture is still alive (Ong Hing cf. 136). While the platform for maquiladoras began in 1965 under the Maquiladora Decree, which allowed foreign ownership of these facilities, in the 1990s “maquiladoras generated the second-largest source of foreign income and 45 percent of Mexico’s exports to the United States” (Ong Hing 17).25 However, maquiladoras have been threatened, especially since 2005, which was a key moment for China in particular (cf. 18). Sandy Black, in Eco-Chic: The Fashion Paradox (2008) elaborates: The recent sharp increase in overseas manufacturing, particularly in China and India, is a direct result of the change in international trade agreements which came into play in January 2005 (when the Multi-fibre Arrangement (MFA) and General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (Gatt) which had previously been in force, regulating import and export quotas between countries, came to an end). Individual markets (including the UK) were protected from competing cheap imports from China for example) but now cheaper goods can flood the market, disrupting the previous status quo. (11)

This torrent of cheap imported goods from China is not restricted to the United Kingdom, but rather flows into the Americas and other parts of Europe too. For example, the United States alone is buying up and hoarding around 20 billion garments a year (cf. Cline 3). Despite local and international scrutiny, maquiladoras remain, and as the definition points out, the model has spread to other parts of the globe such as various regions of Latin America and Asia. The concerns that surround them stem from the human-rights violations – especially in the form of femicides – that have increased in line with the rise in maquiladoras’ cultural presence. In cultural terms, women have suffered greatly from what appear to be targeted hate crimes against the young, female employees of these factories. The council on Hemispheric Affairs reports that in the border town of Juárez, Mexico, the bodies of more than 370 women have been found and over 400 are still missing (coha.org). Yet, as Alice Driver notes in More or Less Dead: Feminicide, Haunting, and the Ethics of Representation in Mexico (2015), along the border. For literary representations of maquiladoras, see Carlos Fuentes’s “Malintzin de las maquilas” from his novel La frontera de cristal [The Crystal Frontier] (1997). Roberto Bolaño’s 2666 undertakes a gruesome, fictitious depiction of la Ciudad Juárez and the violent and murderous culture surrounding maquiladora life. 25 NAFTA was supposed to solve the problem of undocumented workers in Mexico by helping economic development in Mexico and encouraging Mexicans to stay in Mexico; yet, failing miserably, it has promoted more labor migration (cf. Ong Hing 9–10).

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statistics and exact dates regarding deaths and disappearances are difficult to verify (cf. 3). Officials began recording femicides in Juárez in 1993. While the governmental recognition of these atrocities verges on denial and blame of the victim, for the families involved this crisis deserves national and international support. Driver, citing Monárrez Fragoso and Roberto Bolaño, recognizes young women’s increased mobility and visibility in the public sphere due to their work at these facilities, and concludes: “The physical violence or feminicide can, to some extent, be linked to the economic violence inflicted by NAFTA” (19). The bodies of these young women – many employees of maquiladoras – have been found tortured, raped and mutilated. These women have been deemed as disposable as the clothing and electronics that they make. They have been dehumanized, like throwaway cogs in a machine. Gender targeting involved in factory life is not particular to Mexico alone. Worldwide, these facilities have brought about more than just physically perilous realities for garment workers. For example, anthropologist Caitrin Lynch identifies the demoralizing stigma placed on Sri Lankan garment workers, who are known as “Juki girls,” “Juki pieces,” or “garment pieces,” especially in conjunction with categories of national prestige, urban versus rural divides, and individual worth conflated by intertwining morality and labor production (cf. 10). A lasting cultural stigma has been placed on the female workers who, searching for more independent prospects, keep the massive machine of fast fashion in motion. In the chain of production, fast fashion’s demands have resulted in demoralizing and fatal cultural norms for women across the globe. While shoddy working conditions and gross underpayment of maquiladora workers are well documented, some economists, such as Pietra Rivoli in her bestselling book The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy (2009), maintain that opponents of globalization have demonized sweatshops as a perpetrator of human-rights abuses and environmental mayhem without weighing what she deems as the “moral case for trade” (256).26 Though Rivoli lauds activists whose work she considers partly responsible for what she deems as improved working conditions,27 Rivoli upholds the power of trade, arguing that sweatshop work is better than the alternative, rural existence for most youth: “As generations of mill girls and seamstresses from Europe, America, and Asia are bound together by this common sweatshop experience – controlled, exploited, overworked, and underpaid – they are 26

Others, such as freelance journalist Kelsey Timmerman in Where Am I Wearing? (2009), have followed Rivoli’s vein, but instead of emphasizing the importance of trade, give practical guidelines for finding out the origin of garments. 27 See Ethel C. Brooks, Unraveling the Garment Industry: Transnational Organizing and Women’s Work (2007) for another key role in change: workers’ international protests.

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bound together, too, by one absolute certainty, shared across both oceans and centuries: This beats the hell out of life on the farm” (110). Her discussion paints a portrait of giddy Asian female youth carried away by their newfound economic independence – a term I loosely apply to their situation of menial wages and familial obligations.28 However, the second edition of Rivoli’s work, which was published in 2009, preceded the 2013 collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Dhaka, Bangladesh, where an estimated 1,129 were killed and 2,500 were injured. The deadliest garment-factory catastrophe in history brought poor working conditions through the eye of the needle and has forced public discourse to acknowledge the undeniable human-rights violations perpetrated in these facilities.29 Garment Disposal, or the Great Throw-Away Mystery of Contemporary Times In addition to human-rights violations, environmental exploitations remain at the forefront of clothing production. While a surge in factories in China has resulted in such low air quality that many city-dwellers opt for protective face masks, not all contamination concerns are immediate. In part, the environmental devastations of fast fashion remain unknown. Yet increased clothing demands stand out as a major polluting culprit. As Lucy Siegle reminds us: With the exception of the extractive industries and the food chain, few industries are as connected to the natural world as fashion. At its most simplistic, fashion is dependent on water, on crops such as cotton and on a whole host of animal species. Yet the fashion industry has barely begun to factor in the consequences of its actions on habitat loss, shrinking biodiversity and climate change. (xi)

In addition to the visible, immediate effects of increased consumption, such as air, water and land pollution, we have lost track of how much textile waste remains in circulation. As Cline indicates, the hoarding of clothes obscures any accurate scope of the magnitude of our problem: “There is an enormous disconnect between increasing clothing consumption and the resultant waste, 28 As Ellen Israel Rosen notes, economic advancement for these women is a sham: “Employing women as the labor force of choice in such work has never allowed them to sustain themselves or their children particularly well. Nor has it allowed them to be economically independent of their family. Instead, it has sustained the profits of their employers and the prerogative of male workers in other, more highly paid manufacturing work” (9). 29 As film-maker Andrew Morgan reminds us in his documentary The True Cost (2015), the price tag behind our increased appetite for apparel is much higher than the sticker price.

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partially because unworn clothes aren’t immediately thrown out like other disposable products. Instead, they accumulate in our closets or wherever we can find space for them” (121). The journalist also stresses that we are not recycling clothing in the same way we do other items, despite the large environmental demands of these products: “A tremendous amount of clothing is in fact not getting recycled but getting trashed, and the environmental impact of making clothes is being entirely overlooked. Even though plastic can be reused, making it is not environmentally benign. Disturbingly, about half of our wardrobe is now made out of plastic, in the form of polyester” (123). While donating clothing alleviates consciences, as Cline notes, “Most Americans are thoroughly convinced there is another person in their direct vicinity who truly needs and wants all of our unwanted clothes. This couldn’t be further from the truth” (127). Clothing donations have created a complex, global used-clothing business that has had detrimental effects on the most economically vulnerable countries. Refashioning Localness in Receiving Populations and Changed Cultural Landscapes Rivoli explores the dichotomous recycled clothing business and questions its nature. Is it “a villainous industry – a shadowy network that exploits the goodwill of charities and their donors, and suffocates the apparel industries in developing countries under mountains of castoffs? Or is it a great industry, a model of nimble, free-market dynamism that channels charitable impulses into clothing for the poor?” (216). An economist, she challenges those with strong convictions regarding the merits or failings of the used-clothing market. Rivoli demonstrates that the industry is both villainous and saintly, depending on which side of the complex interworking one stands. Andrew Brooks, a specialist in development geography, reminds us that perhaps the most disheartening result of the used-clothing business is the destruction of markets in the receiving countries. For example: Used clothing has outcompeted and displaced African clothing manufacturing in Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia, and other countries which permitted imports of second-hand clothing, as well as in countries like Nigeria where they are traded illegally. Various African policymakers have accused second-hand clothing importers of “killing” local textile and garment sectors. (158)

Rwanda, in particular, is resisting international pressure and intends to move forward on a used-clothing ban despite threats from the United States that such a measure could result in a review of whether or not they may retain duty-free access to the American market (cf. Kiunguyu). Yet this nation is not

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alone: “Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania and South Sudan decided to fully ban imported second-hand clothes and shoes by 2019, arguing it would help member countries boost domestic clothes manufacturing” (Kiunguyu).30 The government views this decision as one that will protect its citizens. In parts of Latin America, such as Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela and the Dominican Republic, there are strict import prohibitions (Gauthier 72). Countries such as Bolivia have met such import bans with protest. There are about 15,000 used-clothing sellers, or ropavejeros, organized into unions. Black markets – including smugglers from Chile – circumvent restrictive measures (73).31 In areas where used-clothing markets prevail, they have placed uncomfortable demands on local production and design, as well as national identity. Cultural theorist Nelly Richard explores this phenomenon within the Chilean context: La comercialización masiva de la ropa usada durante los últimos años en Chile parecerá haber multiplicado las confusiones entre lo nacional y lo importado, lo local y lo transnacional, hasta sumergir las fachas vestimentarias de los pobres urbanos en la dislexia de estas prendas sacadas de códigos que se entrecruzan debido a la baratura y la casualidad de las mezclas: restos bastardos de vestimentas importadas, saldos baratos de la serie-moda de las metrópolis son reensamblados por cuerpos populares que deambulan con ellos armando el espectáculo visual de un collage de identidad sin coherencia de estilo ni unidad de vocabulario. (Residuos y metáforas 111–12) The commercialization of used clothing during the past few years in Chile seems to have multiplied the confusions between what is national and imported, local and the transnational, to the point of submerging the clothing of the urban poor into a kind of dyslexia of uncoded articles that circulate thanks to the cheapness and casualness of the mixtures: bastard remainders of imported clothing, cheap leftovers of metropolitan serial fashion that are reassembled by popular bodies that stroll in them forming a visual spectacle 30 Kiunguyu continues by exposing the United States’ economic interest in what many would believe to be a selfless business based on donations:

The EAC nations are one of the most important markets for U.S. industry’s used clothing exports with direct American exports to the EAC member countries totaling approximately $24 million in 2016. U.S. imports under AGOA totaled $43 million in 2016, up from $33 million in 2015 while exports were $281 million in 2016, up from $257 million in 2015.

In 2016, Tanzania started to train tailors in order to prepare for upcoming usedclothing bans. 31 See Gauthier’s article “Used Clothing” for a detailed account of this phenomenon on the Mexico–United States border.

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of a collage identity without a coherence of style or a unified vocabulary. (Cultural Residues 73–4)

While used clothing breaks down codes that facilitate immediate visual organization and preconceptions, this phenomenon also permits sociocultural borrowings, facilitating cross-over not only for the urban poor. As the Chilean newspaper La Tercera notes, popularized hipster culture, “definida como la moda de no seguir la moda” [“defined as the fashion of not following fashion], encourages those with financial means to dive into looks distinct from what is perpetuated by mainstream stores (Ortega). Sociologist Raúl Zarzuri views this tendency as located among the nation’s most well-off (lasegunda.cl). This recognizable trend, although an attempt to appear outside mainstream culture, encourages those of the middle and upper classes who seek an intellectual or artistic persona to delve into the same bins as those with limited or no extra income for clothing, driving up clothing prices across socioeconomic groups.32 Yet consumers are not the only ones who have to decide what to do with unwanted garments. While stores are restocked to unruly capacities on a biweekly basis, the question arises, what happens to all the excess clothing? Fast-fashion stores have been in the spotlight because of their shocking slashand-burn methods for disposing of excess stock. Many companies have denied using such extreme measures. As a response to such criticism, stores such as H & M have recycling policies, which of course serve not only as a consolatory gesture but also a means to get customers in through the door.33 Other companies, such as Patagonia, The North Face and Eileen Fisher, offer similar take-back programs. Cline points out the pitfalls of such programs, which are shared with all recycling initiatives that involve consumers actively seeking out recycling possibilities rather than opting for the most convenient method 32 While secondhand clothing places unprecedented demands on markets and cultural identity, as Margaret Maynard points out, we cannot forget its vital role in clothing individuals across the globe, since

[discarded clothing] becomes a crucial source of secondhand clothing for those living beyond the developed world. In this aspect, it provides a second and even third tier of profit and is an important resource for the world’s people. Take away these products, and you take away the ability of multitudes of less fortunate peoples to clothe themselves and thus maintain their livelihoods within cultures that are modernizing economically. (543)

In other words, eradicating secondhand clothing from Global South nations places people at an economic disadvantage, as well as a cultural one, since used clothing facilitates the democratization of fashion across social classes. 33 See Brooks, Clothing Poverty (2015), for a discussion of the pressure on corporations to provide a “virtuous outlet for unwanted clothing” (226).

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of disposal: the trash bin. Meanwhile, she lauds more recent programs, such as those in Germany and the Netherlands that allow citizens to ship used clothing to textile recyclers free of charge, or developments in the United Kingdom and Canada, where schools are now the central location for clothing drop-offs. These measures facilitate recycling, especially in metropolitan locations where taking used clothing to charity centers may involve a public transportation component (atlantic.com). Another troubling aspect lies in the vast cultural changes that fast fashion leaves behind. While in hypermodern times – to borrow the term from Lipovetsky – we are often warned to avoid our technological devices before bedtime due to their effects on our circadian rhythms, one must now consider fast fashion’s effect on our time-telling and seasonal markers. As a report for NPR recognizes, for decades seasonal fashion was dominated by four seasons, whereas now we may have as many as fifteen because of the influx of fastfashion merchandise (Yun Tan, npr.org). The cultural erasing of fashion as a seasonal marker is particularly ironic in the Latin American context. While Latin America has always fallen prey to impractical European style prescriptions – such as smothering long-sleeved suits and ties borrowed from British business models in place of more practical, breathable and traditional shirts in Caribbean business attire – fast fashion accelerates clothing turnover to unprecedented degrees. According to Dávila, historically Latin American malls had experienced mush less turnover due to the lack of seasonal change (cf. 152). Dávila regards this change toward rapid clothing cycles that promote consumerism as a disservice to customers who want to take their time in making informed decisions: For instance, before Zara arrived in Colombia, my informants reported that the slow turnaround in collections made it much easier for them to learn about clothes and fashion and purchase coveted items. They said they were able to save for an item without the risk that it would no longer be available or no longer in fashion when they were finally able to purchase it. It was also easier for them to attain a level of expertise on favorite brands, products, fabrics, and styles, which was the source of great pride among many of my informants. (152)

Dávila laments the irony of these artificial “seasonal” changes in many parts of Latin America, where, “In this context, ‘season’ becomes another word for modernity, or what gives locals the ability to wear the same clothes at the same time of the year as global fashionistas, which is always equated with Europeans and North Americans” (153). Fast fashion has captured its audiences in a fast-paced quest to consume and dispose. The threat of losing cultural fashion identity also increases when regional styles are reappropriated by outside designers. In the context of Latin America, Regina Root questions the rewriting of meaning and its effects

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when designers prey on cultures distinct from their own as a fecund source of creative inspirations: When a designer like Jean Paul Gaultier appropriates for haute couture collections the iconic derby hat worn by Quechua and Aymara women in Bolivia (itself an appropriation of English style) or the Colombian sombrero vueltiao (a two-tone hat with laps of braided cane leaves, a technique known as caña flecha), does this act reference a previous creative innovation or signal the designer’s privilege of selection and distinction? When a foreign designer “discovers” and reinterprets tradition, how do contemporary Latin American designs reassess these same emblems of cultural heritage? In the fashion history registers, how does one get legitimized over another? (“Powerful Tools” 123)

These problematic questions highlight the knotted interconnectedness of global borrowing. Though the social repercussions for future generations are still uncertain, fashion’s engagement with and profit from diverse cultures only intensifies as designers scope out “untapped” creative inspirations from distinct cultural traditions. Starting with a Familiar Pattern: Solutions to a Global Preoccupation As with many complex, global problems in the process of reaching a boiling point, no immediate, clear-cut solution has surfaced. Each of the solutions focus on personal agency, and each has its own problems and challenges. Although the following suggestions are not absolute, they encourage creativity and mindful appreciation of bespoke pieces. Buying Local One suggestion is to support local designers and stores. Throughout Latin America and Spain, textile artists and designers are finding new ways to interlace tradition and innovation. Despite the appeal of this option, as Dávila’s aforementioned study points out, this remedy faces challenges. First, in Dávila’s example of Colombia, although many “Made in Colombia” stores offer more unique and coveted items, the clothing they sell is more expensive and out of reach for many local consumers.34 A surplus of disposable income for fashion is not a reality for most shoppers, regardless of geographic location. 34 In “Fast Fashion and Sustainability,” Maynard discusses indigenous cultures’ desire to maintain and revive traditional dress as the widest application of sustainability (cf. 543).

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When attempting to buy local, information on production origin can be misleading. Becoming an informed consumer can be a dizzying and overwhelming process. Despite the homegrown promises of many local stores, buyers discover that their shelves are lined with products “Made in China,” or productos chinos, a mark of poor quality in many Spanish-speaking countries (Dávila cf. 144–50). Again, we see the murky process of discovering product – or even material – origin. While perhaps our conscience may give a tug when we see a garment so cheap that think the materials alone must be worth more, we should not expect that by spending more, we will purchase better quality goods. Designer clothing is not a synonym for quality (cf. Cline 6), despite the emphasis on luxury goods, what Siegle refers to as “Fast Luxury” (278).35 Furthermore, spending more on luxury items does not guarantee clothing or accessories made under more humane and environmentally conscious conditions. As Hoskins recognizes, challenges arise even when trying to locate the origins of products such as designer handbags that are “Made in Italy,” when in reality they are “Made in China” and shipped back to Italy for “finishing” (cf. 29). Concerning these stores, in the case of Latin America another problem arises with the pressures of tourism, encouraging designers to conform to the “ethnicization” of fashion. In his piece “Embroidery for Tourists,” Ronald Waterbury explores this phenomenon in the context of the consumer demand for handmade goods and the economic circumstances that motivate cheap labor, looking specifically at the colorfully embroidered blouses or dresses known more popularly as Mexican wedding dresses (cf. 243–4). The commodification of and demand for these pieces have resulted in what Waterbury denotes as a loss of meaning within their community (cf. 265).36 Also, this places regional businesses out of the interests of local consumers, who opt for a more Westernized appearance instead of dressing in the cultural remnants of their ancestors’ pasts. Tourism can change cultural traditions and at the same time present an artificial, curated experience for the buyer. Jennifer Craik points out the simulacra, the manufactured experiences, presented to consumers or tourists, whether they are confronted with a souvenir tee-shirt or the supposed fashions of the region.37 She elaborates: 35 See Lou Taylor’s “The Hilfiger Factor and the Flexible Commercial World of Couture” for a reading of how Hilfiger and other competing companies have transformed the “industrie de luxe.” 36 See Pamela Scheinman’s “Ixcacles: Maguey-Fiber Sandals in Modern Mexico” for another example of the transition of indigenous garments in Mexico, and Blenda Femenías’s “‘Why Do Gringos Like Black?’ Mourning, Tourism and Changing Fashion in Peru” for a reading of commoditization of identity and culture. 37 According to Craik, “Tourism and other cultural experiences are cast as

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Fashion is the face of the global village. In fact, fashion has a number of faces that overlap, conflict, and mesh simultaneously. Different messages are conveyed – about cultural identity and distinctiveness, global brands, local inflections, shared knowledge about fashion systems, the universality of style, cultural sophistication, authenticity, cultural tradition, handcrafted versus mass produced, branded versus generic and so on. As consumers – and as tourists – we absorb these messages and make decisions based on how we process these messages. (354)

Fashion’s visibility in tourism lures the consumer through performativity, or the offer of a role to be played. As we see from the examples given above, the authenticity of the experience is derailed, recrafted and redefined by the demands of the tourist market, rather than by locals of the region. Now, in conjunction with historical underpinnings and cultural identity, tourists’ buying power and demand perpetuate cultural production.38 Buying Less When considering how much to buy, a revitalized trend for “capsule closets” has regained popularity. The term was coined in the 1970s by Susie Faux, a London boutique owner, and later caught momentum in the 1980s with Donna Karan’s “Seven Easy Pieces” collection. Recently the concept has experienced a comeback, promoted as a way to streamline a wardrobe and simulacra, unreal semblances, representations or artificial versions of the real. In tourism, this is called ‘the tourist bubble,’ where the tourist moves from one contrived and controlled space to another” (362). 38 Changes in technology also affect clothing preferences, even those with long cultural legacies. Maynard and Greenfield, in “Maya Dress and Fashion in Chiapas,” document how increased access to the sewing machine has resulted in a preference for machine-embroidered designs: Not only do sewing machines change what people want to buy, use, and wear, they have also changed the way sewing is done. The machine drives the person doing the embroidery, which is very different from handwork. The sewing machine is the beginning of the industrialization of garment production. It is much more like being on an assembly line, where the individual working cannot stop. The sewing machine is having deleterious effects on health; for example, so much close work is damaging the eyesight of people who sew often. The negatives of child labor are starting to appear with the advent of the machine, whereas before, handwork was seen as a positive effort, helping the family. Machine-embroidered clothing is more expensive but is also heavy to wear, and thus warmer, which is useful in the mountain climate. (81)

A preference for heavy, embroidered clothing denotes another example of how fashion preferences dominate over traditional clothing.

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save time, money and space. There are many different formulas for the game rules; most plans suggest thirty or fewer high-quality items. Monochromatic schemes, particularly neutrals, are encouraged. While this approach is all about minimalism, the trend has spurred an excess of variation and also has its critics. For example, Kelly Dougher questions the camouflaged consumerdriven message behind the twenty-first-century version of this method – “Now, however, the capsule wardrobe appears to have taken on a new meaning. It has sneakily been repackaged as a new vessel for our society’s obsession with consumerism” – and inquires, “Why is the capsule wardrobe suddenly all about shopping?” (fashionmagazine.com). Within the Spanish-speaking market, this trend is also gaining popularity. Spanish blogstar Saray Martín, known to her followers as Dansvogue, recently published El método armario cápsula [The Capsule Wardrobe Method] (2017), providing a whimsically illustrated guide to honing one’s wardrobe down to forty pieces. This is especially finding a place among YouTubers and bloggers drawn to the Dansvogue’s interactive and multimedia platform. El método armario cápsula, with accessible, downloadable PDF accompaniments, at first glance appears directed toward a younger audience, even as young as preteens, as a result of its inviting illustrations. At the same time, with a closer look, the extensive focus on documentation and list-making of pieces that enter and exit one’s closet reveals that the work promotes an organized and cognizant approach to consuming. Written accountability encourages a continual consciousness – versus mindlessness – when purchasing new garments. Used Clothing, “Transuming” and Eco-Choices Other ways to ease carbon footprint are buying secondhand clothing, participating in clothing swaps – what Siegle refers to as “transuming” (310) – or choosing ethically conscious brands. Fashion researcher, writer, journalist and designer Sass Brown has been a pioneer in sustainable fashion with such works as Eco Fashion (2010) and ReFashioned: Cutting Edge (2013). In the former she defines the ethical obligation of fashion as one that must be held to the same standards of sustainability as other systems that borrow from our environment: Sustainability is the conservation of life through ecological balance – human, animal, vegetable and planetary. A self-sustaining system is a system that does not take more from the environment than it gives back; it does not deplete resources, but sustains itself. A pond or a forest is a sustainable system because it does not need anything to survive that it cannot reproduce or replace. So what is sustainable design? In clothing it means sourcing and production that do not pollute through the process of manufacture and do

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not deplete non-renewable resources, whether those are planetary or human. It refers to clothing that can be absorbed back into the environment when it has reached the end of its life. (9)

Despite fashion’s obligation for sustainability, eco-fashion often has a certain “non-fashionable” connotation.39 Brown points out the less-than-desirable trajectory of designers who have found ways to make kinder fashions fashionable: “The coming of age of ethical fashion has been a long time coming, and the road is littered with well-intentioned monstrosities and plain, boring and often downright ugly clothing. Only recently have fashion and ethics been able to coexist in the same sentence relatively comfortably” (11).40 Brown explores designers from Spain and Latin America who have reveled in international success for advances in eco-fashion endeavors, many of whom engage in upcycling or transform unwanted goods into more desirable, wearable products. Upcycling has been one way that consumers are exhibiting style and creative flares in the face of already flooded used-clothing markets. For example, Argentine designers 12NA, who describe their work as “un proyecto artístico de reciclado textil” [“an artistic project with recycled textile”] are an example of this phenomenon (http://www.12-na.com.ar/). In “Powerful Tools: Towards a Fashion Manifesto,” Regina Root recognizes the innovative reappropriations of textile artists Mariano Breccia and Mechi Martínez, who form 12NA: Taking discarded clothing from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, the artists deconstruct existing garments like touristy T-shirts and old sweaters only to reconstruct them to communicate new meanings. By connecting consumer citizenship to a larger ecology of the multinational supply chain, these designers perform textile interventions central to the new agency emerging throughout the Americas. To engage the poncho is not enough. For 12NA, the design process must involve an element of collective action, as when the wearer joins the act of piecing together the fragments of history to create an icon of South American identity that is time-layered and meaningful. (124)

The designers of this group, by pasting together a version of South American identity with the discarded remnants of the Global North’s castoffs, both create and preserve but also, as the quote above highlights, perform. This performativity favors a fused view by which to examine history and authenticity, while 39

For a discursive reading on this topic, see Simonetta Carbonaro and David Goldsmith, “Fashion and the Design of Prosperity: A Discussion of Alternative Business Models” (575–93). 40 See Safia Minney’s Slow Fashion: Aesthetics Meets Ethics (2016) for interviews from corporations, activists, authors and consumers – among others – regarding steps toward more ethical and environmentally sustainable fashion.

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simultaneously providing an outward protest of the politics of excess through an artistic lens. While progress toward more fashionable, eco-conscious selections continues, another dilemma occurs since these brands are often more expensive, and ticket shock challenges us to change our mindset when we open our wallets to splurge on a tee-shirt that could be bought for a fraction of the price at almost any retail store. Involved in this solution is the reality of the production demands as a result of any type of consumption. As Siegle reminds us when critiquing her increased “green” wardrobe, consuming is still consuming (2). In Clothing Poverty (2015) Brooks provides an example: Responsible capitalism has become a new means through which to promote environmental and social justice. Shopping for “good” goods mediates our engagement with an ever-expanding range of economic, environmental and social topics. Wearing ethical clothes such as fair-trade cotton T-shirts, second-hand dresses from charity shops or organic woolen sweaters is a way to demonstrate solidarity with good causes. Buying commodities like recycled paper and fish fingers from sustainable maritime sources is shopping as a guilt-free and transformative exercise, marketed as a way to prevent deforestation, resolve overfishing or alleviate other global challenges. (214)

The author argues that ethical consumption creates a paradox between morality and the market: a contradiction of terms (215). A more lasting solution involves consuming less and privileging more durable or lasting items. Part of maintaining the longevity of our wardrobes may involve the art of darting or basic sewing. “Sew” Good In addition to clothing swaps, buying local and shopping eco-consciously, activists also advocate more lasting fashion trends – or attempting to find a personal style outside of fashion fluctuations – and sewing and tailoring one’s lasting pieces. This is a utopic suggestion and one that in addition to a lack of consumer interest must also consider the sourcing of materials such as fabric, zippers, thread and buttons, for example, that are manufactured under the same unacceptable conditions as are garments themselves. Yet, again it is helpful to consider parallels with the food industry when approaching customer agency. In recent years, a myriad of materials has encouraged consumers to educate themselves on food production and source. Also, we see a growing number of urban garden plots and vertical space-saving devices budding out into urban spaces. While cognizant that such measures have limitations regarding societal dependence on mass production, these trends educate and inspire back-tothe-source pride among those who take back agency – if only in part – of their food production. Though not expecting that everyone will grow or raise

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everything that they put in their mouths, these foodie movements have restored people’s pride in cooking and food preparations and sources. Likewise, slow clothing movements do not suppose that consumers will devise every garment that they wear, but ask merely that they engage – whether through educating themselves or becoming more involved – in the process. Social media trends show do-it-yourself or DIY culture becoming a major identity marker for sewing and needlework. What foodie culture has done for our basic need to eat – put cooking tools back in individuals’ grasp and sparked interest regarding the origins of food ingredients – DIY culture is doing for another basic need: that of clothing ourselves. As Kristen Dirksen recognizes, “Como su predecesor, el movimiento gastronómico y cultural Slow Food – así como Slow Movement, Slow Cities, Slow Design, etcétera – la moda lenta – Slow Fashion – no es una simple llamada a poner el freno sino un modo de centrarse en la calidad” [“Like its predecessor, the foodie movement and Slow Food – as well as the Slow Movement, Slow Cities, Slow Design, etc. – Slow Fashion is not only a call out to put on the brakes but rather a way to focus on quality”] (faircompanies.com). Paused reflection and informed consumption encourage a more human and environmental focus on products. While sewing may conjure up memories of gendered instructional classes, such as Home Economics courses, that have long ago fallen by the wayside, some public figures are taking up the challenge of revitalizing this lost art. In Overdressed, Cline suggests mindfully considering the life of clothes: Clothes could have more meaning and longevity if we think less about owning the latest or cheapest thing and develop more of a relationship with the things we wear. Building a wardrobe over time, saving up and investing in well-made pieces, obsessing over the perfect hem, luxuriating in fabrics, and patching and altering our clothes are old-fashioned habits. But they’re also deeply satisfying antidotes to the empty uniformity of cheapness. If more of us picked up the lost art of sewing or reconnected with the seamstresses and tailors in our communities, we could all be our own fashion designers and constantly reinvent, personalize, and perfect the things we own. (9)

Cline learns some sewing basics that allow her to mend favorite items that would otherwise end up discarded or take on simple alterations that permit her to fashion clothing to her shape.41 Another journalist urges, “The most active 41

Dávila reports that many young Colombians are either flocking to seamstresses for knockoffs of designer items, or reinforcing seams and garment infrastructure. Others are reverting to sewing as a means to make ill-fitting bought items wearable (cf. 156–7). In Naked Fashion: The New Sustainable Fashion Revolution (2011), Safia Minney claims part of the solution is to “Borrow, beg, make do and mend – dressing sustainably in second hand, upcycled and handmade” (48).

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form of participating in the Perfect Wardrobe is to make your own clothes” (Siegle 312).42 Instead of relying on ready-made clothing with fixed sizing to define our body expectations, basic tailoring facilitates more possibilities for dressed bodies. As a result, the literature included in the following chapters focuses not only on how we dress but also on the important figures behind the garments that clothe us. This book encourages a personalized reconsidering of the backto-the-source, DIY solution of sewing, allowing a celebration of an art now viewed as unskilled and disposable. It explores how authors, through their celebrations of what was once lauded as a highly skilled profession, renew their readership’s interest in sewing, tailoring, upcycling and the adornment of clothing and household articles through embroidery. When considering the loss of universality in the needle and thread, The artist Karen Reimer, in her embroidery Made for You by a Professional Seamstress (1999), stitches recommendations and reflective questions posed by a 1956 home economics textbook. Reimer raises questions of the added value of handcrafting versus authenticity and duplicity and concludes: As the artist of the piece, I am the “professional seamstress” referred to in the title. Embroidering and sewing are no longer commonly practiced. Sewing clothing now is more expensive than buying it, and choosing to do so assumes a creative impulse rather than a practical motive, as does choosing to embroider or, for that matter, to write by hand. Use value has traditionally been one of the criteria for judging something to be craft or design rather than art. The impracticality and inefficiency and inutility of all handwork make it at home in the conceptual economics of the art studio. (147)

In the literary works discussed here, the needle and thread transform from ordinary, practical articles into tools with fantastical abilities to transport the protagonists to unknown spaces while crossing forbidden barriers. A revival of the thematic tropes of sewing and needlework also revives the human component of professions involving these skills, and perhaps, in the process, sparks readers’ interest in stitching one’s clothing legacy. At the least, these literary adventures illuminate and celebrate the frequently silenced figure behind the garment. Through their depictions of protagonists behind the creative textile arts involving sewing and needlework, we are called to increased consciousness, one that resonates with the manifesto of Latin

42 While Siegle recognizes the power of the needle, she highlights the experiences of those, such as Paul Flintoff, who have attempted to make their own wardrobes only to discover that many basic materials like thread and zippers are predominantly produced in sweatshops (cf. 312–13).

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American fashion critic Regina Root, which presents us with the following questions of introspection: So what kinds of stories do your clothes tell? How do we use the master’s tools to dismantle concepts that have rendered others invisible even when their culture is on display? How can creative professionals reimagine new styles and a truly inclusive design process? In other words, what will you be wearing to the fashion revolution? (“Powerful Tools” 126).

As we keep in mind this provocative call to engagement, let us bask in the transformative power of creative agency as we explore the empowered transformations of those who create with the needle and thread.

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The Perfect Pattern: Dressmaking as a Political Tool in María Dueñas’s El tiempo entre costuras In Benito Pérez Galdós’s La corte de Carlos IV (1873), Gabriel, the witty narrator, elaborates on the intellectual and moral superiority of Inés, his fourteen-year-old love interest, the daughter of a widow with whom she shares a home and a profession as a dressmaker. Having enumerated the many ways in which Inés never fails to surprise him with her unique intelligence and grasp of reality, the enamored youth foresees probable mockery and beats his audience to the punch: “¡Y era una modista; una modistilla! Reíd si os place” [“And she was a seamstress; an apprentice! Laugh if you like”] (15). In La corte, Inés serves as the literary piece’s grounding compass regarding material aspirations and false superiorities associated with Madrid’s upper-class society in the nineteenth century. The reader learns that Inés not only discourages Gabriel from climbing the social ladder, but is herself the biological daughter of the Condesa and has opted to maintain her working status as a lowly seamstress instead of weaving her way into her mother’s wealth. This Realist novella, in typical Galdósean fashion, allows readers to explore each layer of the capital’s daily life while echoing nineteenth-century Spain’s opinions on everything from plays to professions, such as that of a seamstress. As we explored in the introduction, dressmakers in Spanish literature, especially in the Realist tradition of the nineteenth century, mirrors those in English literature: novels, plays and short stories are populated with lower-middle-class female protagonists faced with the necessity of doing what was considered honorable work and thus bound to negotiate the moral tightrope walk of working in the public sphere. The gender confining message of the day warned that one moral slip up and one could fall into more seedy professions such as prostitution. Breaking with these gendered preoccupations, María Dueñas’s bestseller, El tiempo entre costuras (2009), brings this timely profession into the spotlight once again as she celebrates the creative flair of the seamstress while stitching another layer of facing into the plot: that of femme fatale spy. This chapter explores the profession of dressmaker as one that facilitates entry into otherwise closed socioeconomic spaces, while elaborating the political space of the sewing workshop. Also, of great significance is the cultural milieu of the book’s publication, a Spain on the

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cusp of an economic crisis that would leave almost half its youth population unemployed or underemployed and with a newfound interest in migration, suddenly entering a transitive migratory state like the protagonist of the novel. Despite the novel’s intense popularity – it has already been translated into twenty-five languages and provided the inspiration for a successful television series with Antena 3 – only two scholarly articles have been published on El tiempo entre costuras. Both focus primarily on the television series, which undeniably took the visual waves by storm.1 As Laura Lee Kemp points out, the cultural impact of the televised phenomenon can be seen in the growth in popularity of Morocco as a tourist destination, an overall 176% increase in sewing-machine sales, and growing rosters in sewing classes (cf. 171). In her critical article, Kemp gives precedence to the television series and explores the role of the seamstress’s participation in masquerading as a visual spectacle, as the protagonist converts herself into a feminist icon who reclaims the creativity of fashion despite the postwar rhetoric of the Sección Femenina, or the female Falange party, which taught sewing and pattern cutting “with the intention of encouraging values of economic austerity within the domestic setting and of training a generation of competent seamstresses who would be able to safeguard the external appearance of the good Catholic family” (166).2 In the context of the television series, Kemp regards the mask of excess, of masquerading, as a mechanism that breaks with traditional gendered roles and facilitates new identities and increased mobility resulting in entrance into the confined space of elite gatherings (cf. 166–7). Kemp points out visual cues – such as the extensive and alluring wardrobe, especially that of the main character, Sira – that create a seductive realm of excess and fashioned identities. However, a close reading of the novel, with its relatively minimal clothing descriptions, leads us into more empowering mechanisms at work regarding the protagonist’s feminine liberation, such as female social networks and the art of sewing as an enabling and exciting profession. Adolfo Campoy-Cubillo’s article interweaves – in part – the novel’s plot with that of the television series. He reads El tiempo as a transnational romance novel and as a contemporary proponent of Spain’s integration into the 1

Also, it is important to note that Antena 3 has also celebrated the acclaimed Velvet (2013–16), involving a young seamstress and her love affair with her childhood friend and fashion-store heir. The show, which has international fame, takes up important cultural themes such as the gendered limitations of women designers (the young protagonist must first start out with a male pseudonym) and the democratizing aspirations of prêt-à-porter production, all with a dramatic flare. 2 See Nino Kebadze, Romance and Exemplarity in Post-War Spanish Women’s Narratives (2009), and Patricia O’Byrne’s Post-War Spanish Women Novelists and the Recuperation of Historical Memory (2014) for more detailed accounts of Sección Femenina’s influence on the perpetuation of gender roles.

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European Union while simultaneously satisfying nostalgic urges of Francoist imperialism, and adopts Yasemin Soysal’s definition of post-nationalism when considering the success of the novel in a transnational market. The author debunks what he considers historical inaccuracies, especially in the case of Spain’s colonization of northern Africa, which, unlike the Black Legend associated with its colonization of Latin America, resulted in spaces shared between colonizers and colonized (cf. 158–62). For Campoy-Cubillo, the novel’s incongruous accounts of European expats in glamorous surroundings, together with the inconsistent depiction of Ally versus Axis sympathies among Spanish generals, result in an “ambivalent narrative, [in which] colonialism, in fact, represents the mirror image of European integration” (266).3 CampoyCubillo’s astute reading, which positions the novel and series within the contemporary problematic of Spanish identity, appears largely informed by the television series, and like Kemp’s article, gives priority to visual cues from the television version. Delving into the protagonist’s intellectual and political developments as presented in the novel allows the reader to accompany the individualized transformations in the face of her ever-changing national surroundings. When considering historicity in the novel, Jo Labanyi’s “Introduction” to Constructing Identity in Contemporary Spain: Theoretical Debates and Cultural Practice, first published in 2002, the year of the implementation of the Euro, is especially helpful when re-evaluating national identity. Labanyi’s reading of modern Spanish culture through the application of spectral theory acknowledges the importance of novels traditionally left out of “high culture” or canonical classifications (cf. 1). She calls for a certain degree of flexibility in cultural analysis of contemporary Spanish texts, recognizing the necessity of interdisciplinary approaches in what she deems “hybridized forms of adapting to changed circumstances” (12). Fluidity, rather than a fixation on the classification of history in binary terms of winners and losers, is key: “This recycling process responds to a view of history as discontinuous but at the same time marked by doublings-up and superimpositions: in short, a view of history that is dynamic but which – unlike that constructed by the master narratives of progress – is moving in many directions simultaneously” (12). Such flexibility is revealing when considering Dueñas’s novel, which, as Campoy-Cubillo notes, can at times sound as though it is written for viewing production (260). This work of historical fiction seeks the glamorized spaces of some of the most uncertain politicized times of the twentieth century. These privileged spaces are made accessible to the protagonist through her sewing expertise that facilitates entry into physical and informational territories that would otherwise be closed. 3

For discussion of the historical figure Juan Beigbeder Atienza, who appears as a secondary figure in the novel, see pp. 263–4 of Campoy-Cubillo’s article.

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Migratory Misgivings? Creating New Patterns for National Boundaries Kemp’s reading of El tiempo as a transnational romance novel, grappling with the insecure national ambiance of a simultaneous push for the erasure of national boundaries as proposed by the European Union and national longings in the form of romanticized notions of Francoist-era Spain, proposes an interesting classification for the book, especially considering Spain’s migratory crisis, which has further challenged national identity and notions of mobility versus rootedness. As a result of the 2009 financial crisis in Spain, also known as the Great Spanish Depression, this Mediterranean country with a long history of emigration and immigration was once again confronted with the reality of becoming a country of emigrates. This change was significant since in the 1970s Spain’s trend of emigration changed as it became a destination of Spaniards who had migrated to other European countries, as well as a receiving country for immigrants of lower socioeconomic strata. With soaring unemployment rates among young adults, many young professionals feared for their employment options after completing higher education. Faced with such uncertainty, rising emigration rates in Spain – especially among sought-after young professionals – perhaps come as no surprise. Throughout Europe, the United States and Latin America, a large number of marketable Spanish professionals moved in search of employment that would embrace their skill sets and afford them a brighter future. Germany has been one of the main receiving countries, especially popular with young engineers. This contemporary phenomenon of young Spaniards’ need to consider traversing national lines becomes an intriguing backdrop for El tiempo, in which the protagonist first migrates to Morocco (historically Spain has been one of the main receiving countries of migrants from Morocco), where she comes in contact with a plethora of expats, many of whom are German (currently one of the main receiving countries of Spanish migrants), and later migrates back to Spain, where she continues to interact primarily with Germans and earns a reputation as a German sympathizer. During times of economic turmoil, migration presents a viable escape and prospects for a more stable, comfortable and desirable reality. If we consider Spanish popular media, in recent years popular television series have presented a dichotomous view of what it means to be “Spanish.” On the one hand, historical dramas such as Isabel (2012–14) and Carlos, Rey Emperador (2015–16) sweep through Spanish history’s more aggrandizing moments of national unity, capturing audiences on a grandiose scale by reminiscing about the national unity of Castile and Aragon and the colonization of Latin America, while only lightly hinting at the more sordid dealings involving human-rights abuses of conquered and expulsed peoples. Another historical drama, Velvet (2014–16), which also involves a young seamstress and her aspirations as a designer, celebrates the 1950s and 1960s in Spain, portrayed with naiveté

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and collective unity, alluding to an idealized national identity, as the rural Spanish workers of the series find familial ties with the city-folk of Madrid, uniting the metropolitan with the provincial in the face of the underpinnings of Franco-era repression. On the other hand, in addition to these homespun, nostalgic emotion-jerkers that cultivate local and national pride, Spanish media has promoted increased mobility as a consideration for Spanish national identity. Shows such as Españoles en el mundo (2009–20) depict Spaniards throughout the globe, living – for the most part – in glamorized migration situations. The hour-long show follows Spaniards on their journeys, showing great adventures, exotic locales and fairy-tale success stories. In the episodes, Spaniards “brave it” as they dive into new realities in foreign countries, often without either linguistic training or even solid employment. Likewise, El tiempo entre costuras’s popularity once again encourages a transitory Spaniard – one who moves across national boundaries, at times for the sake of the patria, and despite performative concerns such as dress and speaking patterns, yet all the while remaining cognizant of a national vision involving unity. First Entries into Forbidden Spaces: Early Makings of a Seamstress In El tiempo the narrator, a young, humble seamstress named Sira, obtains her readers’ immediate affection as she sincerely discloses her slips of memory, admitting that she sometimes forgets her feelings during certain happenings: “Esto fue mi historia o al menos así la recuerdo, barnizada tal vez con la pátina que las décadas y la nostalgia dan a las cosas” (607) [“And that is my story, or at least that’s how I remember it, perhaps varnished over with the sheen that decades and nostalgia give to things”] (608). She narrates while looking back on her life, and we are given no details of her current age, situation or location. The novel commences during Sira’s innocent youth, as she enjoys accompanying her mother to the local sewing workshop where she is employed. She soon meets her first love interest, Ignacio, and embarks upon a jovial relationship that ends abruptly when she is swept away by Ramiro Arribas. This worldly and cunning womanizer convinces her to flee Spain for northern Africa, where eventually he leaves her pregnant, destitute, with a mound of his debt and robbed of her newfound inheritance from her estranged father. Upon awakening after a miscarriage in a hospital bed, she is confronted by authorities regarding her financial situation. Sira finds herself in a forced state of immobility resulting from the onset of the Spanish Civil War. It is only when a middle-aged, feisty Spaniard named Candelaria takes her in and sets her up for her first political endeavors, while also rekindling her keen skillset as a seamstress and fashion designer, that Sira may trespass across a slew of gendered, socioeconomic and political boundaries, eventually becoming a spy for the British. Her politicized and adventurous new lifestyle will lead her to return to her beloved Madrid – this time with a disguised and

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exotic identity – and to travel to neighboring Lisbon. Both perilous missions open the seamstress’s social realm to a new international reality in which she interacts with poised ease among upper-crust English, Portuguese and Germans who will in part decide her homeland’s fate. The novel presents a curious dichotomy of control versus happenstance. In the increasingly blurred international boundaries of the time, set between the Spanish Civil War and the onset of the Second World War, the insecurity of future and personal agency, first ignited during the catastrophic and unprecedented atrocities of the First World War, was perpetuated into a state continued crisis. During the course of the novel, this international plight continues as Sira deliberates between the roles of destiny versus individual agency at the personal level, and as a result, represents a microcosm of the global preoccupations regarding control versus helplessness during a historical milieu filled with crisis and uncertainty. Although Sira considers a mere object, a typewriter that Ignacio bought from Ramiro, as contributing to her unlikely destiny, the sartorial skillset that she inherited from her mother triumphs as a more lasting influence: she deems her “suerte natural” (4) [“logical fate”] (5) to have begun at age twelve in the sewing workshop where her mother, Dolores, worked. We find out later that Sira is born out of the profession. When she finally meets her estranged father, Sira learns that as a young seamstress her mother had visited her father’s home, where the two carried on a clandestine love affair, fully aware of the definitive social strata that divided them. While the storyline nods to those nineteenth-century, romanticized representations of innocent young females lured by well-to-do dandies with seedy motives, upon introducing Sira to her father for the first time, Dolores remains cold at his flattery and nostalgic musings, and instead assures her daughter: “No imagines un folletín en el que el señorito sin escrúpulos engaña a la pobre modistilla ni nada por el estilo. Cuando empezó nuestra relación, yo tenía veintidós años y él, veinticuatro: los dos sabíamos perfectamente quiénes éramos, dónde estábamos y a qué nos enfrentábamos” (33) [“Don’t think it was a cheap soap opera in which the unscrupulous young master tricks the poor little dressmaker or anything of the sort. When our relationship began, I was twenty-two years old, he was twenty-four: we both knew perfectly well who we were, and what we were up against”] (34). Dolores’s strong character serves as a model to her daughter through her iron-clad independent inclinations that lead her to raise Sira without Gonzalo’s financial backing while maintaining her tireless work ethic as a seamstress. Despite the luxurious surroundings in which Sira will eventually find herself navigating uncharted territory, the novel continuously evokes the physically taxing nature of her mother’s profession as well as the more universal nature of the vocation:

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Era modista, trabajaba como oficiala en un taller de noble clientela. Tenía experiencia y buen criterio, pero nunca fue más que una simple costurera asalariada; una trabajadora como tantas otras que, durante diez horas diarias, se dejaba las uñas y las pupilas cortando y cosiendo, robando y rectificando prendas destinadas a cuerpos que no eran el suyo y a miradas que raramente tendrían por destino a su persona. (3) She was a dressmaker, working in a shop with a distinguished clientele. She was experienced and had good judgment, but she was never any more than a salaried seamstress, a working woman like so many others who for ten hours a day sacrificed her nails and pupils cutting and sewing, checking and adjusting garments destined for the bodies that were not her own and gazes that would rarely be aimed at her. (3)

While Dolores’s profession as a dressmaker places her as a secondary figure – an employee destined to sew for a higher-class clientele – her trade allows her daughter a solid apprenticeship as well as entry into diverse social classes. Even as a child, Sira revels in increased mobility as she delivers the shop’s sartorial goods and, as a result, comes into contact with an array of social classes: Conocí así a los porteros y chóferes de las mejores fincas, a las doncellas, amas y mayordomos de las familias más adineradas. Contemplé sin apenas ser vista a las señoras más refinadas, a sus hijas y maridos. Y como un testigo mudo, me adentré en sus casas burguesas, en palacetes aristocráticos y en los pisos suntuosos de los edificios con solera […] pensando en lo extraño que sería la vida en un universo como aquél. (5) That is how I came to know the porters and chauffeurs from the best buildings, the maids, housekeepers, and butlers of the wealthiest families. I watched – unseen – the most refined of ladies, daughters and husbands. And like a mute witness I made my way into their bourgeois houses, into aristocratic mansions and the sumptuous apartments of charming old buildings […] thinking all the while how strange it would be to live in such a universe. (5)

Her child’s nature allows for natural assimilation of the incongruence between the world she lives in and that to which she was permitted entry during her deliveries. Despite her limited education and social rank, Sira’s talent provides her with access to closed private spaces. Female friendship and comradeship are especially important in Sira’s professional development. After a couple of years as an apprentice, her future is determined when the workshop’s female employees decide it is time for Sira to learn to sew (cf. 5). The novel elaborates on the young girl’s progression between the ages of fourteen and eighteen. Her hard work coupled with natural expertise lead her into the realm of advanced tailoring and devising dresses to be worn in exotic destinations far from the limited confines of the sewing

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workshop. In the supportive ambiance of the atelier, Sira receives encouragement from the other women: “Doña Manuela y mi madre me pedían a veces opinion, empezaban a confiar en mí. ‘La niña tiene mano y ojo, Dolores – decía doña Manuela – . Es buena, y mejor que va a ser si no se nos desvía. Mejor que tú, como te descuides.’” (7) [“Dona Manuela and my mother sometimes asked me for my opinion; they began to trust me. ‘The girl has a fine hand and a fine eye, Dolores,’ Dona Manuela used to say. ‘She’s good, and she’ll get better if she stays on track. Better than you, you needn’t worry about that”] (7). Despite Dolores’s austere nature, Sira perceives a slight smile from the single mother whom she describes as a role model of conflicting contrasts: “mi madre, en cuya alma convivían sin la menor incomodidad su condición de madre soltera un férreo espíritu católico una nostálgica lealtad a la monarquía depuesta” (10) [“my mother – whose soul housed simultaneously, and with no contradiction, her condition as a single mother, an iron Catholic spirit, and a nostalgic loyalty to the deposed monarchy”] (10). While Dolores maintains some of her Catholic traditions, such as insisting on a religious wedding when Sira briefly considers marrying Ignacio, she is an independent woman and a role model for her daughter, not only passing down the art of sewing but eventually aiding Sira in the most politically engaged decisions that she must make. In direct contrast to the care she receives from her female mentors through their encouragement and support of her vocation, we see a blatant gender divide. While Sira’s mother and female coworkers praise her work, both her early loves, Ignacio and Ramiro, distance her from her love of sewing. First, Ignacio tries to convince her that dressmaking is passé: “Aun así, yo habría preferido mil veces volver a la costura, pero a Ignacio no le llevó más de tres tardes convencerme. El viejo mundo de las telas y los pespuntes se había derrumbado y un nuevo universo abría sus puerta ante nosotros: habría que adaptarse a él” (11) [“All the same, I would have infinitely preferred to return to sewing, but it took Ignacio just three evenings to convince me. The old world of fabrics and backstitches had toppled and a new universe was opening its doors to us: we had to adapt to it”] (11). After she agrees to give up her trade, she falls in love with Ramiro and is once again swept away from a world of fabric and creativity. With Ramiro she has a lavish lifestyle that for the first time confronts her with buying her clothing; hitherto all her attire has been fashioned with her mother’s help. She enters a Madrid distinct from that of her social class: “Y conocí también otro Madrid; el de los espectáculos, los resturantes y la vida nocturna” (26) [“And also I got to know another Madrid: the Madrid of sophisticated fashionable places; of shows, restaurants, and nightlife”] (27). For the first time she is transported on a voyage of the senses when trying French pantyhose and Cuban ice creams. Ramiro’s suave character introduces her to new horizons: “Dibujaba mapas del mundo y me hacía crecer. A ratos, sin embargo, aquella niña desaparecía y entonces yo me erguía como mujer de una pieza, y nada le importaba mi déficit de

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conocimientos y viviencias” (27) [“He’d draw maps of the world, and he made me grow. Sometimes, however, that little girl disappeared and I’d rise up as a woman fully formed, and he wasn’t at all bothered by my lack of knowledge and experience”] (28). While Ramiro exposes Sira to international delicacies, their short-lived romance relies on gendered limitations in which the overpowering male is in charge of all economic dealings, even controlling Sira’s finances after she receives her inheritance from her father. It is not until Sira returns to her needle and thread, fortifies her education and embarks on political dealings that she becomes independent from her mother’s financial support and ceases to rely on having a male counterpart to provide for her. The love interests in Sira’s life do not encourage her talent for sewing and tailoring, and while she is swept away by men who make life-altering decisions for her, she is also left out of another important conversation: that of politics. It is obvious from early on in the novel that the only future Sira can envision is one in which she is dependent on a male partner and far from economic independence. Upon meeting Ignacio, she resigns herself to her expected lot in life as a wife and mother and doesn’t imagine other options: “Había ya alcanzado la edad en la que, para las muchachas como yo, sin apenas oficio ni beneficio, no quedaban demasiadas opciones más allá del matrimonio” (7–8) [“I had already reached the age when girls like me – girls with no professional expectations – had few options other than marriage”] (8). In fact, after years of watching her mother work tirelessly to make ends meet, Sira yearns for a more comfortable existence. Upon meeting her father for the first time, the well-to-do business owner warns his daughter and her mother to flee Spain due to the problematic political and social situation leading up to the Spanish Civil War. Sira, unaware of the political ambiance of her country, is taken aback by his passionate rhetoric: Hablaba rotundo, sin pausa. Hasta que de pronto pareció descender a la realidad y apreciar que tanto mi madre como yo, a pesar de mantener intacta la compostura, permanecíamos totalmente desconcertadas, sin saber adónde quería llegar con su alegato descorazonador ni qué teníamos que ver nosotras en aquella cruda vomitona verbal. (36) He spoke emphatically, without pausing. Until suddenly he seemed to come back down to reality and understand that both my mother and I, despite having kept our composure, were utterly disconcerted, not knowing where he was going with the discouraging predictions he was making or what we had to do with that crude vomiting up of words. (37)

The young seamstress, dissuaded by her mother from heeding her father’s warning, escapes with her lover to Tangier, Morocco. Sira simultaneously flouts her mother’s desire that she marry according to the regular and societally

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accepted pattern, and follows her father’s advice to flee the country. Thus, albeit incidentally, she accepts paternal advice from a man with whom she has had hardly any contact in her entire life. Yet physical displacement from her homeland brews a distinct environment, formed partly out of economic necessity, that cultivates political consciousness and involvement. Heterotopic Entry: Newfound Stitches and the Politics of Survival After Ramiro abandons Sira in Tangier, stealing her inheritance and leaving her with insurmountable debt, Sira flees to neighboring Tetouan. All hopes of returning to her safe space of Spain are quashed when she wakes up in a hospital, having suffered a miscarriage and fainted on the bus in transit, only to be interrogated by Commissioner Vásquez. During her time with Ramiro, despite having experienced an amplified worldview, Sira has lost autonomy: “yo me dejaba arrastrar, convertida en su sombra, en una presencia casi siempre muda, indiferente a todo lo que no fuera sentirle a mi lado y ser un apéndice, una extension siempre complaciente de su persona” (57) [“I transformed into his shadow, into a presence that was almost always mute, indifferent to anything but feeling him beside me and being an appendage of his, an always obliging extension of his person”] (58). Deserted by her lover, the young seamstress suddenly finds herself with an uncertain future: alone, corporally and economically debilitated, and unable to return to her homeland due to the impending war. It is not until her second mentor, Candelaria, enters the scene that Sira envisions a life of economic fulfillment, personal independence and blooming political involvement. When the commissioner takes the weakened Sira to her new lodgings, where she will reside and slowly pay off her debt under the watchful official’s paternalistic eye, she is greeted by the pension’s matutera, who makes a living pawning questionable items and running a boarding house filled with tenants from diverse backgrounds. In this setting Sira finds a heterotopia of individuals with distinct political beliefs, resulting in heated discussions during meals, until Candelaria silences the group with an iron first: “¡Como vuelva a hablarse de la puta Guerra en esta santa casa, los pongo a todos en lo ancho de la calle y les tiro las maletas por el balcón!” (90) [“If you talk about this damned war in this blessed house one more time, I’ll throw you into the street and toss your suitcases off the balcony!”] (90). Sira listens to the controversial conversations among the different sympathizers, seemingly without a formed political leaning. In addition, this heterotopic ambiance is also the first time that the novel makes explicit reference to the seamstress’s contact with the people of Tetouan. Before leaving for Tangier, Sira had limited cultural exposure outside her neighborhood in Madrid. For example, when Ramiro wants to invest Sira’s inheritance in Morocco through a company based in Buenos Aires, Sira asks naively, “Pero ¿para qué van a querer los moros

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aprender a escribir a máquina?” (48) [“But why would the Arabs want to learn how to type?”] (49). The conman, amused by her innocence, does not change her view of the local population but rather confirms that it is the international population living in Morocco who would be interested in his lofty business endeavor. During her adventures with Ramiro, Sira wines and dines with rich expats, and learns a smattering of Arabic, among other languages; yet, there is no mention of personalized encounters with Africans. She is immersed in spaces involving upper-class international citizens: Comíamos y cenábamos en el Bretagne, el Roma Part o en la Brasserie de la Plage y por las noche íbamos al Bar Russo, o al Chatham, o al Detroit en la plaza de Francia, o al Central con su grupo de animadores húngaras, o a ver los espectáculos del music hall M’salah en su gran pabellón acristalado lleno a rebosar de franceses, ingleses y españoles, judíos de nacionalidad diversa, marroquíes, alemanes y rusos que danzaban, bebían y discutían sobre política de aquí y de allá en un revoltijo de lenguas al son de una orquesta espectacular. (54–5) We’d have lunch and dinner at the Bretagne, Roma Park or the Brasserie e la Plague, and at night we’d go to the Bar Russo, or Chatham, or the Detroit on the Place de France. Or to the Central with its group of Hungarian dancers, or to watch the M’Sallah music hall shows in their great glazed pavilion, filled to bursting with the French, the English, Spaniards, Jews of various nationalities, Moroccans, Germans, and Russians who danced, drank, and discussed politics, either local or international, in a jumble of languages against the backdrop of a spectacular orchestra. (56)

Despite this exposure to new languages and peoples, the majority of Sira’s interactions with the city’s inhabitants are with street vendors and “las siluetas rápidas, huidizas y casi sin rostro de las mujeres musulmanes en sus jaiques y caftans” (55) [“almost faceless silhouettes of the Muslim women in their haiks and caftans”] (56).4 On the other hand, in Candelaria’s living quarters she meets Jamila, a young female from Tetouan who helps Candelaria with the daily tasks involved in running the household and soon becomes an essential person in Sira’s life. Jamila as a secondary character further explores Sira’s transformation from a young woman receiving mentorship to one who becomes an influential role model to other young women. While Jamila’s character development is only slight, as a secondary figure in the novel, we see a genuine affinity between 4 Campoy-Cubillo argues that the novel, in both Tangier and Tetouan, presents “cultural recognition without cultural specificity” (262) in both the European and Moroccan contexts: “Dueñas’s novel subverts the traditional depictions of Hispano-Arab cultural proximity that inform the notion of Spanish exceptionalism” (262).

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her and the Spanish protagonist.5 Through her broken Spanish, Jamila quickly becomes a major emotional and collaborative support for Sira’s recovery and later her booming business. I would argue that the female mentorship Sira receives, especially through mature females, is returned to Jamila as she aids Jamila in learning the basics of sewing and also permits her increased mobility during deliveries, just as she herself experienced as a young girl in Doña Manuela’s sewing workshop. The young girl becomes indispensable to the success of Sira’s new business and simultaneously grows in her newfound responsibilities requiring her mobility as a seamstress’s assistant. In the safe space of the boarding house, Sira’s fragile physical and emotional self finds in Candelaria another female mentor to encourage her professional aspirations during the absence of her mother and Doña Manuela. After Sira mends and alters all Candelaria’s tattered or ill-fitting clothing and fashions garments for some of the matutera’s friends, the business-minded woman lauds the young protagonist’s sartorial prowess, mending her shattered confidence. While Candelaria’s smuggler influence contrasts with that of Sira’s mother, the young protagonist sees a resemblance between the two women: La miré en silencio y frente a ella, inesperada, se cruzó la sombra de mi madre. Muy poco tenían que ver Dolores y la matutera. Mi madre era todo rigor y templanza, y Candelaria, a su lado, pura dinamita. Su forma de ser, sus códigos éticos y la forma en que enfrentaban ambas los envites del destino eran del todo dispares pero, por primera vez, aprecié entre ellas una cierta sintonía. Cada una a su manera y en su mundo, las dos pertenecían a una estirpe de mujeres valientes y luchadoras, capaces de abrirse paso en la vida con lo poco que la suerte les pusiera por nosotras. (150) As I regarded her in silence, unexpectedly I saw the shadow of my mother pass in front of her face. Dolores had very little in common with the Matutera. My mother was all rigor and temperance; Candelaria was pure dynamite. Their modes of being, their ethical codes, and the way they faced up to what fate offered them were quite different, but for the first time I saw a certain similarity between the two of them. Each in her way and in her own world, belonged to a stock of brave women who fight their way through life with the little that luck gives them. (148) 5 According to Campoy-Cubillo, Jamila’s character, in both the novel and the television series, highlights Hispanotropicalism: “the character of Jamila never gains psychological depth and remains as submissive as she is inscrutable” (263). Although I regard Jamila and Sira’s friendship and working relationship on a less superficial level, I do agree with Campoy-Cubillo’s recognition of the lack of African characters in the novel. See Isabel Santaolalla’s essay, “Ethnic and Racial Configurations in Contemporary Spanish Culture,” for a discussion of “token ethnic characters” in contemporary Spanish media (cf. 64).

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Sira, through her gritty and diligent female circle, must find the formula to replicate their determined survival skills in her own life. Upon realizing Sira’s talent, Candelaria soon devises ways for her to have her own workshop. Entrance into distinct socioeconomic classes is crucial to Sira’s success, and Candelaria acknowledges that she must have a space separate from the smuggler’s tainted reputation and humble surroundings. The financial demands of such a business prospect appear resolved by Candelaria’s shady possession of a hoard of weapons. She devises a scheme that will allow them to rid themselves of the hot merchandise while turning a profit. After Candelaria’s attempt to smuggle the revolvers is thwarted, Sira must carry out her first mission: to get the firearms to the interested party that night. Strapping on nineteen revolvers and posing in a traditional Moroccan dress, Sira’s mission facilitates her participation in the Spanish Civil War despite her geographical removal to Africa. The conflicting ideologies of the war are apparent in Candelaria’s house during the residents’ shared meals and heated discussions. Through these polarized interactions, the novel highlights the blurred nature of political decisiveness, particularly during times of civil war. When Sira questions Candelaria about her ideological allegiances, she quips: “¿Yo? A muerte con quien la gane, mi alma” (111) [“Me? I’m a diehard supporter of whichever side wins, my angel”] (109). After returning at dawn from dropping off the contraband, running barefoot from authorities and enduring bruises from the heavy weapons strapped to her arms, legs and torso, Sira reflects on her first adrenaline-filled act as a political accomplice. Despite her successful exchange, which brings her a large sum of money that will allow her to open a high-end sewing workshop, she is filled with anxiety: “no sentía en mi interior el menor rastro de nada parecido a la complacencia. Tan solo notaba el negro mordisco de una desazón inmensa” (138–9) [“deep down I didn’t feel the least bit of satisfaction, only the black gnawing of a deep anxiety”] (136). Sira does not enter the political realm again until her newfound friendships with an English client and reporter serendipitously – and later intentionally – land her in the crossfire of Spain and Germany’s political relations. Negotiating Private Space and Transformed Identity: A New Beginning in Tetouan The young Spaniard’s flourishing co-owned business with Candelaria promotes her increased mobility, political agency and economic independence. This small sewing workshop becomes a successful hub for expats from throughout Europe and later, in particular, German clientele, who seek out Sira’s specialty and enter her private working space. To make this life transition, Sira makes

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three important transformations: a physical makeover, a renovation of the physical look of the locale and a journey to self-educate. Sira’s physical transformation denotes not only an exterior change but also a metaphorical shedding of the past: “decidí cambiar; renovarme del todo, deshacerme de viejos lastres y empezar de cero. En escasos meses había dado un portazo en la cara a todo mi ayer; había dejado de ser una humilde modistilla para convertirme de manera alternativa o paralela en un montón de mujeres distintas” (143–4) [“I decided to change: to remake myself altogether, unburdening myself of the old baggage to start from scratch. In the previous few months I’d slammed the door on my entire yesterday; I’d stopped being a humble dressmaker and transformed myself successively into a whole heap of different women”] (142). While the alteration process is holistic, she begins with lopping off her hair for a modern, chic hairstyle, and donning heels and makeup; she becomes a woman who radiates glamour (cf. 151). The narrator describes the process as a façade until she becomes the new woman whom she portrays: “Tres días después, yo, la nueva Sira Quiroga, falsamente metamorfoseada en quien no era pero tal vez algún día llegara a ser, tomé posesión del local y abrí de par las puertas de una nueva etapa de mi vida” (147) [“Three days later, I, the new Sira Quiroga, falsely metamorphized into someone I perhaps wasn’t but might end up being one day, took possession of the place and threw open the doors to a new phase in my life”] (145). For the seamstress, the transformative process is gradual and metaphoric as her new creative sewing space denotes an optimistic fresh start marked by her first taste of economic independence. While Sira transitions into her own bordered state, caught between fake arrogance and insecurity regarding her new business ownership, the physical location also reflects one of borders, challenging the limits between African and Spanish culture. In the area known as an ensanche where European families had set up residence, we see a tightly locked-down space straddling two worldviews: Había orden y calma, un universo del todo distinto al bullicio, los olores y las voces de los zocos de la medina, ese enclave como del pasado, rodeado de murallas y abierto al mundo por siete puertas. Y entre ambos espacios, el árabe y el español, a modo casi de frontera se hallaba La Luneta, la calle que estaba a punto de dejar. (143) Order and calm penetrated this universe, in contrast to the hustle and bustle, the smells and the voices of the souqs in the medina, which seemed to be somewhere out of the past, surrounded by walls and opening out to the world through seven gates. And between the two spaces, the Arab and the European, almost like a border, was La Luneta, the street I was about to leave behind me. (141)

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This liminal state, bordering two worldviews and geographic locales, mirrors Sira’s emotional transition to self-reliance and agency. Upon devising the physical appearance of her new business establishment, she fuses the arabesque architecture of the locale, in a milieu of what she deems as the exotic Arabic air, with that of Doña Manuela’s shop in Madrid and the upmarket residences she visited during her deliveries as a young apprentice: Primero el salón. Tiene que representar la imagen de la casa, dar una sensación de elegancia y buen gusto – dije rememorando el taller de doña Manuela y todas aquellas residencias que conocí en mis entregas. Aunque el piso de Sidi Mandri, construido a la medida de la pequeña Tetuán, era mucho menor en empaque y dimensiones que las buenas casas de Madrid, el recuerdo de los viejos tiempos podría servirme como ejemplo para estructurar el presente. (151) First, the living room. It has to represent the image of the establishment, to give a sense of elegance and good taste,” I said, recalling Doña Manuela’s workshop and all the residences I’d seen on my deliveries. Although the apartment on Sidi Mandri, built to the proportions of Tetouan, was much smaller in its look and scale than the fine houses of Madrid, my memory of old times could serve as an example of how to arrange the present. (149–50)

For the first time, Sira sees in front of her, in the words of Virginia Woolf, a room of her own, a space she transforms into a creative haven. Candelaria’s support proves indispensable as she carefully tracks down all the items, such as international fashion magazines, that will help build an elegant atmosphere and provide inspiration for both the seamstress and her patrons. Sira’s success lies not only in superficial, cosmetic alterations of both her own appearance and that of the workshop, but also in a change of composure as she ventures on a new educational journey. Early in the novel, Sira’s adventures with Ramiro expose her to all that she did not know, from a myriad of languages to learning that existen pasiones de la carne que admiten muchas más combinaciones que las de un hombre y una mujer sobre la horizontalidad de un colchón. Me enteré también de algunas cosas que pasaban por el mundo y de las que mi formación subterránea nunca había tenido conocimiento: supe que años atrás había habido en Europa una gran guerra, que en Alemania gobernaba un tal Hitler al que unos admiraban y otros temían. (56) there are passions of the flesh that allow for far more combinations than just those of a man and a woman horizontally on a mattress. I learned, too that there are things that happen in the world that my dim education had never touched upon: I found out that years earlier there had been a great war in

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Europe, that Germany was being ruled by someone called Hitler who was admired by some and feared by others. (57)

Sira’s lack of formal education is challenged by the first important male figure in the novel to support her career: Félix Aranda. After attending her first German client and grappling with the complexities of linguistic barriers, Sira must draft a tennis outfit. At a complete loss as to what such an outfit looks like, which hints at Sira’s gendered and confined notions of sport and female mobility – “No tenía la menor idea de cómo demonios sería un conjunto para semejante actividad” (156) [“I didn’t have the slightest idea of what the hell an outfit for such an activity might be”] (154) – the seamstress reverts to the only resource at her disposal: a dated fashion magazine. Sira is elated by her recent independence, fashioning a slew of clothing items, for the first time unsupervised by her mother or Doña Manuela. Eager to update the magazine images for her affluent patron, a series of events leads her to her neighbor Félix. The bachelor, whose complex and henpecked relationship with his overbearing mother depicts him in a less than masculine-normalized light, takes Sira under his care and teaches her to modify her speech by ridding her lexicon of vulgarisms and to adopt a sophisticated air by dropping French expressions into her parlance to impress her clientele: Aparentemente podía dar el pego como joven mujer con estilo y modista selecta, pero era consciente de que, a poco que rascara sobre mi capa exterior, descubriría sin el menor esfuerzo la fragilidad sobre la que me sostenía. Por eso, aquel primer invierno e Tetuán, Félix me hizo un extraño regalo: empezó a educarme. (189) I apparently could get away with passing myself off as a young woman with style and an exclusive dressmaker, but I was aware that as soon as anyone scratched beneath my outer shell they would have no trouble finding the fragility on which it was supported. Which was why, that first winter in Tetouan, Félix gave me an odd gift: he began to educate me. (185–6)

Félix’s educational contributions span from local knowledge of the social scene in Tetouan, to history, to linguistic training. With his knack for performance and glamour, the two decide to name the workshop Chez Sirah – Grand Couturier, further stressing the value of French flair. For the young seamstress, these intersections with Félix foster a love of learning. Self-driven, she will soon find solace in literature and utilize reading as a resource in her political career. Tetouan’s location also provides a backdrop for Sira’s most significant and unexpected female friendship: that with an English client about her own age, named Rosalinda Fox. Rosalinda’s background among international glitterati differs greatly from Sira’s more humble beginnings. The seamstress

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reflects on the unlikely friendship between two women with such distinct backgrounds: A pesar de mi camuflaje de modista chic, nuestros orígenes no podían ser más dispares. Y nuestro presente, tampoco. Ella provenía de un mundo cosmopolita acomodado y ocioso; yo no era más que un trabajadora, hija de una humilde madre soltera y criada en un barrio castizo de Madrid. Ella vivía un romance apasionado con un mando destacado del ejército que había provocado la guerra que asolaba a mi país; yo, entretanto, trabajaba noche y día para salir sola adelante. (245–56) Despite my disguise as a chic dressmaker, our origins could not have been more different, nor our current lives. She came from a cosmopolitan world, a world of comfort and leisure; I was no more than a worker, the daughter of a humble, single mother, raised in a traditional neighborhood in Madrid. She was living a passionate affair with a distinguished senior officer from the army that had incited the war that was devastating my country; I, meanwhile, worked day and night just to get by. (242–3)

Having lived in Portugal and Colonial India, among other places, the young jetsetter falls in love with a fellow Englishman at age sixteen and marries. Having fallen chronically ill from bovine tuberculosis, she flees with her young son to Tetouan, in part to better her health and in part to escape her spouse’s repressive hand. There she meets Juan Luis Beigbeder, a Spanish general twice her age, with whom she will begin a controversial romance, emphasizing how even the rift between Ally and Axis sympathies could be crossed by romantic love. Rosalinda, with her at times broken Spanish, peppered with Anglo- and Lusophone interjections, seeks assistance in Sira’s shop when she needs an elegant garment for a formal, political occasion with her lover. At first, believing herself unable to devise a dress at such short notice and with so few resources, Sira refuses Rosalinda’s request. This initial encounter demonstrates Rosalinda’s unfamiliarity with what the creation of clothing requires, as Sira explains that making such a garment would take three or four days, and could not possibly be done overnight. However, when the young seamstress recalls her past sewing experiences, she employs her sartorial expertise and comes to Rosalinda’s haute couture rescue, thereby securing a lifelong friend and confidante as well as a political ally who will help facilitate both her mother’s entry into Morocco and Sira’s future career as a spy. Unable to imagine how she will fashion such an elaborate garment in such a limited time, Sira remembers her days in Doña Manuela’s workshop, and with Jamila’s help she begins “la tarea más imprevista y temeraria de mi breve Carrera de modista en solitario” (210) [“the most unexpected and reckless piece of work in my brief career as a dressmaker on my own”] (206). She crafts

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a knockoff Delphos dress, one which she had conjured with her former boss for a client with style but limited economic means. In the previous sewing workshop where she worked, the patron had presented her request: Esto, señoras, es un Delphos, un vestido único. Es una creación del artista Fortuny: se hacen en Venecia y se venden sólo en algunos establecimientos selectísimos en las grandes ciudades europeas. Miren qué maravilla de color, miren qué plisado. Las técnicas para conseguirlos son secreto absoluto del creador. Sienta como un guante. Y yo, mi querida doña Manuela, quiero uno. Falso, por supuesto. (210–11) This, ladies, is a Delphos, a unique dress. It’s a creation of the artist Fortuny: they make them in Venice, and they’re only sold in a few extremely select establishments in the great European cities. Look what a wonder of color, look at the pleating. Their creator keeps the techniques used to make them absolutely secret. It fits like a glove. And I, my dear Doña Manuela, want one. Fake of course. (207)

Fashion presents a unique springboard for artistic ownership since “knockoff culture” and piracy often abound, especially because the high prices associated with haute couture exclude a majority of the population. This particular act of piracy proves interesting in Sira’s simulacrum, which elevates the seamstress and creates rapport with her client, who will soon become her best friend and confidante. Sira’s expedited version of the garment, fashioned out of a single and perfect cut and vivacious dyeing process, does indeed fit Rosalinda like a glove and is completed in time: Sin tiempo para remates ornamentales, en poco más de una hora el falso Delphos estaba terminado: una version casera y precipitada de un modelo revolucionario dentro del mundo de la haute couture; una imitación tramposa con potencial sin embargo para impactar a todo aquel que fijara su vista en el cuerpo que habría de lucirlo apenas treinta minutos después. (212–13) Without the time for any ornamental flourishes, the fake Delphos was finished in the allotted time: a rushed, homemade version of a model that had revolutionized haute couture. It was an imitation but one with the potential to have an effect on anyone feasting his eyes on the body displaying it. (208–9)

This piece, which Sira deems “el vestido más fraudulento de todas la historia de la falsa alta costura” (214) [“the most fraudulent dress in the whole history of falsified haute couture”] (210), brings into play the fast-paced nature of fashion versus timelessness. This episode also highlights how fashion encourages an important dialogue with the past. For Svendsen, “Fashion exists in an interaction between forgetting and remembering, in which it still remembers its past by recycling it, but at the same time forgets that the past is exactly that”

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(30). Sira’s dialogue with a timeless garment evokes the atemporal potential of fashion and metaphorically represents a need for historical memory. In the face of the catastrophic happenings of the First World War and, later, the Spanish Civil War, the seamstress will have to reconsider the past as she tries to prevent the future Second World War. Likewise, fashion, with its ever-changing nature, presents a metaphor for change, one which marks the protagonist’s adaptability. When first installing herself in her own sewing workshop, she reflects: Mucho había cambiado la moda desde que yo había empezado a moverme en aquel mundo de hilos y telas […] Cambiaba la moda como cambiaban los tiempos, y con ellos las exigencias de la clientela y las artes de las modistas. Pero supe adaptarme: ya me habría gustado haber conseguido para mi propia vida la facilidad con la que era capaz de acoplarme a los caprichos de las tendencias dictadas desde París. (157–8) A lot had changed in fashion since I’d begun to move in that world of fabrics and threads. […] Fashions were changing, just as times were changing, and with them the demands of our clientele and the dressmaker’s arts. But I knew how to adapt: I would have liked to be able to handle my own life with the same ease that I could accommodate myself to the whims of the fashion trends dictated from Paris. (155–6)

Despite these erratic fashion fancies dictated from afar, the permeability of the Delphos presents the possibility for fashion outside particular place or time restrictions. After Sira’s innovative and urgent reproduction of the designer gown, Rosalinda and Sira’s friendship, strengthened through the seamstress’s resourcefulness, continues to flourish as the two disclose personal details of their lives. While Rosalinda gives accounts of her unpopular love affair, Sira confides in her friend and discloses her real identity and her urgent wish to bring her mother to Tetouan from turbulent Madrid. When she introduces Sira to her fellow patriot, Marcus Logan, Sira finds herself harboring amorous sentiments for the first time since Ramiro’s departure, engaging in perilous political espionage and helping her mother transition much the way she had earlier to a new, temporal homestay. The future trajectory of her mother’s voyage brings out Sira’s inquisitive nature and shows the first signs of her potential as a spy: “Apenas había terminado la respuesta cuando yo ya estaba lista para disparar la siguiente pregunta; estaba demostrando ser una alumna aventajada en el aprendizaje de las técnicas interrogatorias del comisario Vázquez” (275–6) [“No sooner had he finished his answer than I was ready to fire off the next question, evidence that I’d been an apt pupil in acquiring Commissioner Vázquez’s interrogation techniques”] (272). Marcus invites her to a reception for Serrano Suñer, Franco’s brother-in-law. In that closed

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space Sira will interact for the first time not solely with her female clientele, the wives of the high officials, but with the German and Spanish armed forces as well. Félix prepares her through etiquette lessons and a crash course on the high officials likely to grace the party’s elaborate chambers, so that Sira may aid Marcus, the English outsider, by identifying the key figures at the party, allowing the reporter to search for pertinent information. At this, her first highly politicized and international function, Sira also takes her first steps toward working as a spy for the English, obtaining useful information for Marcus – somewhat through happenstance – regarding Spain’s military dealings with Germany. Sira’s sewing ambitions go on hold in the third part of the novel, when her mother, suffering from the ill-effects of the war, arrives in a disoriented state. Sira dedicates her time and energy to her mother’s recuperation, but it is not until Dolores resumes sewing that she – like Sira, who had also arrived emotionally and physically broken – returns to a semblance of her former self. Returning to her craft was a decision that her mother had to make for herself: A pesar de mis esfuerzos, desde que llegó no mostrara el menor interés por la costura, como si aquello no hubiera sido el andamiaje de existencia durante más de treinta años. Le enseñé los figurines extranjeros que ya compraba en Tánger yo misma, le hablé de mis clientas y sus caprichos, intenté animarla con el recuerdo de anécdotas de cualquier modelo que alguna vez cosimos juntas. Nada. No conseguí nada. Como si le hablara en una lengua incomprensible. Hasta que una mañana cualquiera asomó la cabeza al taller y preguntó ¿te ayudo? Supe entonces que mi madre había vuelto a vivir. (337) In spite of my efforts, ever since she’d arrived she hadn’t shown the slightest interest in dressmaking, as if that hadn’t been the framework of her existence for more than thirty years. I showed her the foreign fashion illustrations that I had purchased in Tangiers, I talked to her about my clients and their foibles, tried to animate her by reminding her about different outfits we’d once sewn together. Nothing. I got nowhere, as though I were speaking a language she didn’t understand. Until one morning she poked her head through the doorway into the workroom and asked. Can I give you a hand? I knew then that my mother had come back to life. (333)

In the space of Tetouan and Sira’s own sewing workshop, a power shift in their mother-daughter relationship occurs: Volvimos a entendernos bien, aunque ninguna era ya la que fue y ambas sabíamos que frente a nosotras teníamos a dos mujeres diferentes. La fuerte Dolores se había hecho vulnerable, la pequeña Sira era ya una mujer independiente. Pero nos aceptamos, nos apreciamos y, con los papeles bien definidos, nunca volvió a instalarse entre nosotras la tensión. (337)

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We began getting along well again, even though neither of us was the woman she had once been, and we were a bit like strangers. Strong Dolores had become vulnerable, and little Sira was now an independent woman. But we accepted each other, appreciated each other, and with our roles clearly defined there was never any more tension between us. (333)

The young seamstress’s life exudes stability for the first time in the novel – her mother safe from the perils of war and collaborating in a successful business – but her talents as a seamstress present her as an attractive candidate for espionage, leading her into new parts of her homeland, and as a result, forging her political leanings. An Exotic Homecoming: A New Pattern for Spying as a Fashion Baroness in Madrid Rosalinda’s departure and the year 1940 bring rapid change for Sira in which she will become autodidactic, feeding the curiosity Félix had initiated and nurtured with an endless supply of literature. She begins to spend her nights voraciously devouring the classics of her native Spain, until her English confidante appears in Tetouan, clandestinely meeting Sira and proposing a job prospect through the Special Operations Executive, or SOE, a new organization created by Churchill to dismantle the structure of impending war from within, using ordinary people as opposed to the hardboiled MI6, secret intelligence service spies. Sira’s stellar skills as a seamstress make her exceptionally attractive for the mission as she could open an haute couture atelier for the wives of the high official Nazis stationed in Madrid. The severe lack of materials in Madrid, which could be supplemented by the exquisite fabrics Sira would take from Tetouan, and her familiarity with the mannerisms of her German clientele make Sira an especially appealing candidate for this unlikely mission. Sira is not immediately filled with political fervor when her friend first suggests this new role. In fact, the young seamstress, taken aback by the offer and hesitant to leave her mother and workshop, solemnly refuses the offer. It is only at the request of her mother, who assures her that her homeland of Spain cannot survive another grueling war, that she accepts the proposal to derail Spain’s involvement in the Second World War: Tú no sabes lo que es vivir en guerra, Sira. Tú no te has despertado un día y otro con el ruido de las ametralladoras y el estallido de los morteros. Tú no has comido lentejas con gusanos mes tras mes, no has vivido en invierno sin pan, ni carbón, ni cristales en las ventanas. No has convivido con familias rotas y niños hambrientos. No has visto ojos llenos de odio, de miedo, o de las dos cosas a la vez. España entera está arrasada, nadie tiene ya fuerzas para soportar de nuevo la misma pesadilla. Lo único que

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este país puede hacer ahora es llorar a sus muertos y tirar hacia delante con lo poco que le queda […] Si yo fuera tú ayudaría a los ingleses, haría lo que me pidieran. (375) You don’t know what it’s like to live through a war, Sira. You haven’t woken up day in and day out to the noise of machine-gun fire and mortars exploding. You haven’t eaten worm-infested lentils month after month, you haven’t lived through a winter without bread, without coal, without glass in the windows. You haven’t existed alongside broken families and starving children. You haven’t seen eyes that were filled with hate, with fear, or both at once. The whole of Spain has been devastated, no one has the strength anymore to go through that same nightmare again. The only thing the country can do now is weep over its dead and move forward with what little it has left […] If I were you, I’d help the English, I’d do what they ask. (370)

Having received such unexpected encouragement from her mother, the young seamstress decides to leave her self-made life and mother behind in order to engage in an unknown mission in her homeland. Although Sira recognizes her mother and Rosalinda’s persuasions regarding her decision to embark on an unknown and perilous assignment, she also affirms her own agency behind her decision: “Quizá no lo hice por nadie o tan solo por mí misma. Lo cierto era que había dicho sí adelante: con plena conciencia, prometiéndome abordar aquella tarea con determinación y sin dudas, sin recelos, sin inseguridades” (406) [“Perhaps I hadn’t done it for anyone else, but just for myself. What’s certain is that I’d said yes, let’s do it: fully aware of what I was doing, with a promise to myself that I’d take on the job with determination and without hesitation, fears, or insecurities”] (401). For the first time in the novel, Sira is not swept away by life, as in her hasty love affair with Ramiro, or forced out of necessity to act, such as with her blossoming sewing workshop in Tetouan. The “fake arrogance” she had insisted upon during her first transition into a successful high-fashion seamstress becomes a reality, as she exudes confidence and security in the face of a dangerous, politicized new beginning. The performance skills the young seamstress had learned in Tetouan, including a change in appearance and exhibition of polished social skills, as well as the ability to work with a diverse, international clientele, all form part of her nascent espionage arsenal. She must change her nationality to Moroccan and alter her name: Arish Agoriug, her name spelled backward. The process customs her persona as an exotic designer – one with a less than subtle appearance. Her superior, Hillgarth, sends word from Rosalinda on how to go about a transformation that will attract the type of clientele she needs for her mission: “Me pide que le diga que, tanto en su apariencia como en su costura, intente ser osada, atrevida, o absolutamente elegante de puro simple. En cualquier caso, le anima a que se aleje de lo convencional y sobre todo,

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a que no se quede a medio camino” (401) [“She asked me to tell you that – both in terms of your own appearance and your sewing work – you should try to be either bold and daring or pure elegance in its utmost simplicity. Either way, she advises you to avoid the conventional, and especially not to be mainstream”] (397). Sira once again must “act the part” in order to attract the clients she needs. Unlike her clients in Tetouan, these upmarket customers are not necessary for economic solvency, but rather as pawns in her mission as a spy. Part of Sira’s performance depends on playing an active role in the state of the world. She must appear well read and worldly – at first two challenging characteristics for the innocent seamstress who had begun in meager and sheltered surroundings. Hillgarth recommends: “Lea la prensa, manténgase al día de la situación política tanto española como exterior, aunque debe ser consciente de que toda la información aparecerá siempre sesgada hacia el bando alemán” (401) [“Read the papers, keep up to date with the political situation, in Spain and also abroad, though bear in mind that all the information will always be slanted toward the German side”] (398). Moreover, in the same way that she had dropped French words into her speech patterns in Tetouan, she adds Arab to her daily vernacular. This adds to her exotic mystique as a designer; such code-switching appears spontaneous. Nevertheless, she must utterly refrain from including the Anglicisms that she learned from Rosalinda.6 Sira’s new sewing workshop cultivates a safe space for the Nazi wives to disclose information about their social life, as well as their travels. Like her fashioning of space in Tetouan, the young seamstress brings articles to fuse worldviews: Además de las telas y los útiles de costura, compré un buen número de revistas y algunas piezas de artesanía marroquí con la ilusión de dar a mi taller madrileño un aire exótico en concordancia con ni nuevo nombre y mi supuesto pasado de prestigiosa modista tangerina. Bandejas de cobre repujado, lámparas con cristales de mil colores, teteras de plata, algunas piezas de cerámica y tres grandes alfombras bereberes. Un pedacito de África en el centro del mapa de la exhausta España. (405) Apart from the fabrics and sewing tools I carried to Spain, I also brought a decent number of magazines and a few pieces of Moroccan craftwork in the hope of giving my Madrid workshop and exotic air suited to my new name and my supposed past as a prestigious dressmaker in Tangiers. Embossed 6 See “El mundo” by Pardo Bazán for a nineteenth-century representation of a seamstress pretending to be of a different nationality. In “Searching for the Oasis in Life,” Root refers to Lily Sosa de Newton’s observation that the modista was often foreign-born (Lily Sosa de Newton, “El trabajo de la mujer,” in Las argentinas ayer y hoy [Buenos Aires: Ediciones Zanetti, 1967], p. 210).

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copper trays, lamps with pieces of glass in a thousand colors, silver jugs, a few ceramic pieces, and three large Berber rugs. A little bit of Africa right in the center of our exhausted Spain. (400)

This space, however, is not a mirror image of her former workshop but rather is tripled in size. This cosmetic dressing of space creates an exotic hybrid location that successfully attracts the international clientele – especially German military wives – needed for Sira’s mission. In order to overcome the linguistic barriers Sira faces in her endeavor, two young Spanish sisters, Dora and Martina, both bilingual in Spanish and German, become her protégées, much like Jamila had done in Tetouan. In the siblings, Sira sees a reflection of herself and Jamila, as the youngest, in particular, finds mobility in the public sphere upon running errands as the designer had done in her youth. While the seamstress amplifies her worldview and political involvement, the young sisters are reminders of innocence. With Martina, Sira’s influence is especially apparent: La instruí sobre cómo manejar las teteras, cómo verter airosa el líquido hirviente en los pequeños vasos con filigrana de plata; hasta le ensené a pintarse los ojos con khol y cosí a su medida un caftán de raso gardenia para dar a su presencia un aire exótico. Una doble de mi Jamila en otra tierra, para que la tuviera siempre presente. (409) I instructed her how to handle the teapots, how to casually pour the boiling water into the little glasses with the silver filigree; I even taught her to paint her eyes with kohl and sewed her a silky gardenia-patterned caftan to give her an exotic air. A stand-in for my Jamila, so that I would have her with me always. (404)

Sira mentors the two girls as she had Jamila, just as she had received female mentorship from her mother, Doña Manuela and Candelaria. Although Sira depends on her young translators for help with German, her other language, pattern-making, proves especially helpful during her mission. In her meeting with Hillgarth, Sira contributes by deciding how to communicate the information she obtains. She selects the linguistic code with which she is most familiar: that of a seamstress. Having rapidly learnt Morse code, she suggests incorporating her messages into sewing patterns. Sira takes the assignment and makes it personalized: “Ha dicho que quería algo asociado con una modista, ¿no? – dije entregándosela – . Pues aquí lo tiene: el patrón de una manga de farol. Con el mensaje dentro” (385) [“You said you wanted something associated with a dressmaker, didn’t you? I said, handing it over to him. Well there you are the pattern for a puff sleeve. With the message in it”] (380).

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Surprised by her cunning creativity, her superior will continue to be impressed by the seamstress’s ingenuity in bridging her two unlikely professions.7 In her mission, Sira does not merely accept the commands of her superiors. As with her decision to communicate through Morse code and patterns, when the demands of the sewing business become overwhelming, Sira decides, without consulting anyone, to locate her former boss, Doña Manuela, to help with the workload. The experienced seamstress has suffered much in a war for which she did not choose a side; as a result, she gave up her sartorial career. Sira, with her altered, elegant appearance remains vulnerable in the face of her former mentor. She must break the rules of her mission and confide in Doña Manuela, to which the former seamstress responds, “Con los compatriotas de doña Victoria Eugenia, hija mía, lo que haga falta. Dime nada más cuándo quieres que empiece” (419) [“With the compatriots of the queen Doña Victoria Eugenie, child, whatever you need me to do. Just tell me when you want me to start”] (414). The new working conditions do not, however, mirror the former days in Doña Manuela’s sewing workshop. Instead, Sira’s childhood mentor accepts a secondary role, content to remain faceless for the clients. Sira has transformed herself into a successful businesswoman in addition to her role as a spy; she only slightly resembles the young impressionable girl easily influenced by others. While Sira’s elegant and exotic exterior forms part of her success, she also clings to the foundation of her working-class background when it is most convenient for her survival or work endeavors. For example, when her former boyfriend Ignacio arrives at her door to interrogate Sira regarding her political visitors and what appears to be a farce of a workshop, she takes his hand to allow him to feel the callused remnants of her labor: “Éstas son las manos de una mujer trabajadora, Ignacio” (448) [“These are the hands of a working woman, Ignacio”] (443). While his bitter attitude toward Sira reveals a man who has still not healed from a broken heart, it also reflects the national divide between those who experienced the war’s atrocities firsthand, and those who were abroad: ¿Acaso te has molestado en saber qué fue de tu gente tras la Guerra? ¿Se te ha ocurrido alguna vez volver a tu barrio embutida en uno de tus trajes elegantes para preguntar por todos ellos, para averiguar si alguien necesita que se le eche una mano? ¿Sabes que fue de tus vecinos y de tus amigas a lo largo de todo estos años? (451)

7 See Helen Reynolds’s “‘Your Clothes Are Materials of War:’ The British Government Promotion of Home Sewing during the Second World War” for a fascinating account of the British Board of Trade’s initiative to increase sewing among women.

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Have you even bothered to find out what became of your people after the war? Did it ever occur to you to go back to your neighborhood, in one of those elegant suits of yours, to ask after them all, to see if anyone could use a little help? Do you know what became of your neighbors and your friends during all these years? (446)

Ignacio’s bitter questions force Sira to confront her apathetic standpoint, having followed orders not to return to her former neighborhood. Instead, she is a changed individual: Yo ya pertenecía a otro mundo: el de las conspiraciones internacionales, los grandes hotels, las peluquerías de lujo y los cócteles a la hora del apetitivo. Nada tenía ya que ver conmigo aquel universo miserable de color gris rata con olor a orines y acelga hervida. O eso, al menos, creía yo. (452) I belonged to another world now, a world of international conspiracies, lavish hotels, luxury hairdressers and cocktails at aperitif time. That other wretched universe, rat grey, smelling of urine and boiled chard, had nothing to do with me. Or at least, that’s what I thought. (447)

While Ignacio forces her to hear the atrocities that her friends and neighbors have suffered, it becomes apparent that access to education and international affairs has necessarily closed the door on the tightknit community of her youth. We discover in Ignacio’s account another case of a neutral bystander, forced to side with the “winners” in order to survive: Ni siguiera soy miembro de Falange: tan solo hice la Guerra donde me tocó y el destino quiso que al final quedara en el lado de los vencedores. Me reincorporé por eso al ministerio y asumí las obligaciones que me encomendaron. Pero yo no estoy con nadie: vi demasiados horrores y acabé perdiendo a todos el respeto. Por eso me limito simplemente a acatar órdenes, porque es lo que me da de comer. Así que cierro la boca, agacho la cerviz y me parto los cuernos para sacar adelante a mi familia, eso es todo. (454–5) I’m not even a member of the Falange: I just fought on the side that I happened to find myself on and fate decided that ultimately, I would end up winning. That was why I entered the ministry and took on the task they gave me. But I’m not on anyone’s side: I saw too many horrors and ended up losing respect for all of them. That’s why I just obey the order I’m given, because it puts food on the table. So I keep my mouth shut, keep my head down, and work my ass off so that I can help my family get ahead, that’s all. (449–50)

Despite Sira’s distancing from her former self, Ignacio acts as a “ghost of the past” and sets in motion an introspective crisis of self-questioning. The

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innocent seamstress, who had inadvertently entered into political terrain and previously inaccessible spaces, finds herself as a major global player working to prevent another catastrophic war, despite having been absent during her country’s great strife. One Final Mission: Restocking a Seamstress’s Supplies In the final section of the novel, Sira is sent to Lisbon, where she must uncover information from a business tycoon named Manuel da Silva, who is suspected of conspiring with the Germans and forsaking longstanding English ties. Sira’s position as a seamstress allows her to travel to neighboring Portugal in search of elegant fabrics and sewing notions. Her exotic persona as femme mystique is key in sparking the interest of the womanizing, albeit gentlemanly, da Silva. Though she had refashioned herself seamlessly in the past, the stress of her new profession surfaces; in the most elegant locales, the weight of the many lies she has told in her job as a spy begins to press on her: Iba a cumplir treinta años, me había convertido en una embustera sin escrúpulos y mi historia personal no era más que un cúmulo de tapujos, agujeros y mentiras. Y a pesar de la supuesta sofisticación que rodeaba mi existencia, al final del día – como bien se había encargado de recordarme Ignacio unos meses atrás – lo único que quedaba de mí era un fantasma solitario que habitaba una casa de sombras. (490) I was about to turn thirty. I’d become an unscrupulous liar and my personal history was no more than a pile of deceits, inconsistencies, and falsehoods. In spite of the apparent sophistication with which I lived, at the end of the day – as Ignacio had insisted on reminding me some months earlier – all that remained of me was a lonely ghost living in a house filled with shadows. (486)

While the façade of her mission puts into question her own integrity, Sira retreats to her humble roots to obtain information about da Silva and his assassination plan for a list of English targets, her former love interest, Marcus, included. Upon meeting Beatriz Oliveira, the reserved and embittered secretary of da Silva, Sira capitalizes on the young woman’s sympathy toward Spain’s current political climate and convinces her that the two of them, despite their apparent living situations, are not so different. Once again, she recalls her humble background: Ahora me relaciono con los poderosos porque así me lo exige mi trabajo y porque algunas circunstancias inesperadas me han puesto al lado de ellos, pero yo sé lo que es pasar frío en invierno, comer habichuelas un día tras otro y echarse a la calle antes de que salga el sol para ganar un jornal

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miserable. Y, por si le interesa, a mí tampoco me gusta la España que nos están construyendo. (531) Right now I’m dealing with powerful people because that’s what my job demands of me and because certain unexpected circumstances have introduced me to them, but I know what it’s like to feel the cold in winter, to eat beans day after day and struggle out into the street before the sun has risen to earn a miserable day’s wage. And in case it’s of any interest to you, I don’t like this Spain that’s being built any more than you do. (529–30)

Sira’s disclosure inadvertently reveals her identity as an English spy. Like her previous revelations to Doña Manuela, the seamstress makes this decision without the permission of Hillgarth, who has instructed her to conceal her identity under all circumstances. Sira’s free thinking regarding her position marks a definite transformation from a young seamstress who was easily influenced and ignorant of her political and international surroundings to an active professional who makes her own decisions. Finishing the Final Seams The new mission causes Sira to consider how her new profession has changed her values, since she now deems herself an isolated egoist. She questions what normality is and where can she find it, realizing: La normalidad no estaba en los días que quedaron atrás: tan sólo se encontraba en aquello que la suerte nos ponía delante cada mañana. En Marruecos, en España o Portugal, al mando de un taller de costura o al servicio de la inteligencia británica: en el lugar hacia el que yo quisiera dirigir el rumbo o clavar los puntales de mi vida, allí estaría ella, mi normalidad. (492) Normality wasn’t in the days I’d left behind me: it was only to be found in whatever fortune placed in my path each morning. In Morocco, in Spain, or in Portugal, running a dressmaker’s studio or in the service of British intelligence: whatever I chose to direct my course or lay down the foundations of my life, there it would be, my normality. (488)

The seamstress recognizes the importance not of the luxurious spaces to which she has been privy since her days as a spy, but rather of forging ahead with her present situation and maintaining the integrity of her first vocation as a seamstress: “Porque cuando una modista hace bien su trabajo, cumple hasta el final” (592) [“Because when a seamstress does her job well, she pays attention to every little detail”] (593). In the process, Sira celebrates the importance of seamstresses and those in history who have been erased by the passing of time or left out of a collective national history:

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En cuanto a Marcus y a mí, a los demás cercarnos a nosotros, nuestra historia no quedó recogida en ningún sitio. Nuestros destinos pudieron ser éstos o pudieron ser otros, pero nadie percibió nuestra presencia. Al fin y al cabo, nos mantuvimos siempre en el envés de la historia, activamente invisibles en aquel tiempo que vivimos entre costuras. (608) What happened after the war to Marcus and me and to those in our immediate circle, however, was never recorded. Our destinies might have gone in any direction, as we succeeded in remaining unnoticed, forever on the reverse side of history, crisscrossed by stitches, invisible lives from the time in between. (609)

This final acknowledgment of the novel’s title also brings us to the importance of studying history’s ghosts, the shades of those Labanyi refers to as the forgotten players in Spanish history (cf. 1). Dueñas’s celebrated novel reminds readers of the silent inner workings involved in garment creation, as well as those that operate during times of political and historical unrest. Through her deconstruction of the portrayal of the seamstress as an innocent bystander and a societal pawn condemned by her sexual decisions, the author creates an empowered reconstruction in which the protagonist may simultaneously celebrate her sartorial prowess and the new professions and discourses to which these talents lead her. As a result, Sira opens a dialectic space for a plurality of professions and identities, allowing a preconceived gendered vocation to launch her into her role as an active historical and political agent.

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3

Lining with Surrealism: Spaces and Stitches in César Aira’s La costurera y el viento ¡Es el viento…! El maldito viento solano, que saca a la gente de quicio! It’s the wind…! The damn east wind that drives people crazy! (Raimunda from Almodóvar’s Volver) Cada uno da lo que recibe Y luego recibe lo que da, Nada es más simple, No hay otra norma, Nada se pierde, Todo se transforma Everyone gives what they receive And then receives what they give, Nothing is simpler, There is no other rule, Nothing is lost, Everything transforms (Drexler, “Todo se transforma”)

In Viaje a Marte (2005), a claymation film by Argentine Juan Pablo Zaramella, a young boy travels to Mars with his grandfather in his rickety tow truck.1 Zaramella’s longest short film to date, sixteen minutes in duration, is what critic Rachel Haywood Ferreira calls an “anti-bildungsroman” (26). In a brief storyline, Zaramella recounts a child’s fascination with space travel and his return to his first occupational passion as an astronaut after having given it up to take on the family business upon being humiliated by his peers when he exclaims that he traveled to Mars with his grandfather. The whimsical and visually striking film celebrates Argentina’s unique terrain as the director – having based the topography on the Valle de la Luna, or Moon Valley, in the Parque Nacional Talmpaya of northeast Argentina – leaves his audience with an ambiguous ending in which it is unclear whether the protagonist, as 1

Viaje a Marte has won more than fifty international awards.

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an adult, returns to the physical earthly region of the Valle de la Luna or to that of his favorite planetary neighbor, Mars. Despite the film’s open ending, it is clear that in Argentina’s isolated, exceptional terrain, transformational possibilities abound. Like this otherworldly terrain, Argentina’s vast Patagonia region, the location of César Aira’s La costurera y el viento (1994), has often left tourists, writers, scientists and explorers struggling to find earthly lexicon to convey the awe-inspiring nature of an area that is referred to as the “End of the Earth.” Aira’s brief travelogue of sorts allows a talented seamstress to leave the safe space of her neighborhood to make an unlikely journey that results in unresolved and unending transformations. Her profession as the town’s most talented seamstress privileges her to certain surreal encounters – namely the infatuation of the Wind – and to improbable travels into boundless nature, far from the gendered confines of her small, gossip-ridden town. Before delving into the novel and its implications, first, a brief discussion of Aira’s work proves useful when considering the unruly plot of La costurera y el viento. César Aira’s lengthy publication record, verging on ninety novels translated into several languages, has a cult status among his international readership and is the subject of a number of literary studies. Curiously, perhaps because of the rare content and unbridled plot sequences of his novels, critics frequently exhaust their energy on categorizing his literary corpus in an attempt to impose order. Diedra Reber, who considers Aira “an unlikely addition to the Latin American literary establishment” (372), ruminates on the ubiquitous contradictions that contribute to readers’ intrigue as well as bafflement when delving into the Argentine’s writing: He is intensely prolific yet lacking any clear masterpiece, committed to literature but opposed to institutionality, adamant that the logic of a plot should be consequent with itself while thoroughly indifferent to the matter of external verisimilitude (the plot has no need to be consequent with reality), admiring of canonical literary greats – ironically, nineteenth-century realists in particular – while adhering to a writerly practice that those same realist authors would likely consider one of terminally substandard imperfectionism – a refusal to self-edit, a chronic and wanton mixing of genres (realism, fantasy, science fiction, suspense, thriller, comedy), a confounding oscillation between respect for and violation of formalistic convention. (372)

Aira’s writing method and personal literary choices are anything but conventional. Yet, over the years, what has become apparent is his tenacious adherence to his own style and publishing process. Part of the drive to understand Aira inevitably results in a focus on his method, or “fuga hacia delante” [“flight forward”] as he himself labels it, in which he writes without revising what he has already written. This unorthodox technique somehow intertwines with the texts themselves. As David Kurnick reflects:

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It is not in the least original to begin talking about César Aira’s work by recounting the technique that produces it. But it can’t be helped: Aira has made a discussion of his practice obligatory. To read him is less to evaluate a freestanding book, or a series of them, than to encounter one of the most extraordinary ongoing projects in contemporary literature. (www. publicbooks.org)

Aira’s joy in writing, leading him to write at least one page a day, results in three or four publications per year since his novels tend to be no more than 100 pages. The “ongoing project” to which Kurnick refers involves such a varied corpus that, despite the profusion of his plots, Aira manages to avoid repetitive themes or character motifs. Moreover, the novelist has privileged private or art-house publishing houses, allowing him to avoid the required lengths of the bestseller phenomenon.2 Aira finds pleasure in, as he puts it, “not prostituting out” his work, a feat made possible in part by his zealous readership who assiduously search out his novels. One of the most debated areas regarding Aira’s intentions involves whether or not he engages directly with political and social undertones. When asked by interviewer Javier Rodríguez Marcos about his novel Las noches de Flores (2016), which treats a married couple’s struggles to make ends meet during Argentina’s 2001 financial crisis, the author responds, “Me dejé llevar. Haciendo tantos experimentos, tanta cosa distinta, uno termina escribiendo incluso una novela con intención social, como podría parecer esa” [“I let myself get carried away. Doing so many experiments, so many distinct things, one ends up even writing a novel with a social agenda, as this one might appear”] (elpais.es). In general, however, the author describes his genre as “libros infantiles para adultos, juguetes literarios para adultos que hayan leído a Lautréamont” [“children’s books for adults, literary toys for adults who have read Lautreamont”] (interview with Rodríguez Marcos). Yet, this seemingly playful postmodern and vanguard game does not convince all critics that he has no social agenda. According to Matthew Bush, who examines Aira’s work alongside that of his Mexican contemporary Mario Bellatin, Los experimentos mediáticos vanguardistas de Aira y Bellatin, pues, buscan un más allá de la crítica social llana, y su escritura, entonces, no nos enfrenta con una literatura de izquierda al estilo de la novela social de primera mitad del siglo XX, sino con algo más complejo: una serie de signos que cuestionan los medios por los que desciframos la realidad contemporánea, mientras potencian la manera en que estos códigos nos pueden ofrecer una aproximación a la misma. (278) 2 See Reber’s article for a discussion of Aira’s publishing preferences (cf. 372). Reber notes that Aira “has become not only a darling of large-scale publishing houses, but also of critics” (372).

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The avant-garde media experiments of Aira and Bellatin, therefore, seek beyond plain social criticism, and their writing, then, does not confront us with a leftist literature in the style of the social novel of the first half of the twentieth century, but rather with something more complex: a series of signs that question the means by which we decipher our contemporary reality, while enhancing the way in which these codes can offer us an approximation to it.

Aira’s social criticism, involving an explicit break from recognizable collective symbols, subverts familiar references in a rewriting or unwriting of history’s dominant voices. In the case of La costurera y el viento, the author opts for cryptic markers regarding the plot’s historical locatedness. The societal importance of the seamstress is the only temporal indicator given: La heroína tiene que ser una costurera, en la época en que había costureras… y el viento su antagonista, ella sedentaria, él viajero, o al revés: el arte viajero, la turbulencia fija. Ella la aventurera, él el hilo de aventura… Podría ser cualquier cosa, de hecho debería ser cualquier cosa, cualquier capricho, o todos, si empiezan a transformarse uno en otro. (7) The heroine has to be a seamstress, at a time when there were seamstresses… and the wind her antagonist, she sedentary, he a traveler, or the other way around: the art a traveler, the turbulence fixed. She the adventure, he the thread of the adventures… It could be anything, and in fact it must be anything. (3)

His description places the novel in a historical time but the lack of specificity, relying only on the popularity of the seamstress’s profession, transports the plot to an open period since the narrator identifies the seamstress only as a member of a “lost profession,” one owned by a distinct historical moment. This nod to the profession prepares the reader for the fantastical voyage of a self-made businesswoman who surpasses both self and socially implemented gender restrictions. Small-Town Seamstress, Big-Time Problems: The Quest to Remember, or Perhaps Forget While a brief plot summary proves useful before we continue our analysis, the short fiction is, like all Aira’s work, not easily summarized into any congruous, logical plot sequence. In this playful and at times macabre novel the narrator, also named César Aira, recounts an experience that left a great impression on his life: the disappearance of his friend Omar, the son of a seamstress.3 On 3

In his article “Una lectura transitiva de César Aira,” Manuel Alberca explores

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the day of the abduction, the two boys play a game in which they scare each other, in pure daylight and without masks. The improbability – indeed the illogicality – of this endeavor, from the mindset of the adult narrator, is what the novel itself presents: “un juego puramente psicológico, de fantasia” (12) [“a purely psychological game of fantasy”] (11). The reader discovers that Omar has been abducted by a semi-truck driver, Chiquito, a half relative of César’s family. What ensues is a convoluted trajectory through Patagonia: Delia, the seamstress, chases after Chiquito, with her latest creation – a wedding dress – in hand; all the while her gambler, low-life husband pursues his frantic wife; he is, in turn, followed by Sylvia, a drawing teacher and Delia’s client, who is desperately trying to save her wedding dress. The surreal happenings of the trip, coupled with the transformative powers of the geography, leave the characters in a changed state, distinct from their initial travels through and toward the unknown. Aira’s casting of himself as the narrator is a frequent resource in his writing.4 the autobiographical underpinnings of the Argentine’s novels. He reads Aira’s corpus as one that presents auto-fictions, most frequently finding refuge in the absurd, and that treats infancy as a sort of Promised Land that must be grappled with before calling forth “la fábula del presente” (85) [“the fable of the present”]. In La costurera y el viento, the narrator confronts the act of forgetting as a mere sensation (cf. 9). Curiously, although the seamstress is the primary protagonist, in Aira’s quest to remember the plot summary that he has forgotten, it appears that the narrator himself is the leading protagonist: Un hombre tiene una anticipación muy precisa y detallada de tres o cuatro hechos que ocurrirán encadenados en el future inmediato. No hechos que le pasarán a él sino a tres o cuatro vecinos, en el campo. Entra en un movimiento acelerado para hacer valer su información: la prisa es necesaria porque la eficacia del truco está en llegar a tiempo al punto en que los hechos coincidan… Corre a una casa a otra como una bola de billar rebotando en la pampa… Hasta ahí llego. No veo más. En realidad lo que menos veo es el mérito novelesco de este asunto. (8) A man has a very precise and detailed premonition of three or four events that will happen in the immediate future all linked together. Not events which will happen to him, but to three or four neighbors, out in the country. He enters a state of accelerated movement to make use of his information: speed is necessary because the efficacy of the trick is in arriving on time, at the point at which the events coincide… He runs from one house to another like a billiard ball bouncing on the pampas… I get this far. I see nothing more. Actually, the thing I see least is the novelistic merit of the subject. (8)

The reader is made privy to the interworkings of the narrator’s writing process and personal life (in his dreams). With a self-deprecating tone, he approaches the interconnectedness of people, community and nation on a metaphysical level. He experiences a sort of “resistance” toward forgetting and remembering. 4 See Alberca’s article for a reading of the Aira’s autobiographical “self-naming”

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The novelist exerts self-referential reminders as he sows doubt regarding his reliability. For example, in his lengthy monologue on the importance of forgetting, the narrator, self-reportedly from a town named Pringles, or the province Flores of Buenos Aires – the author’s hometown and frequent setting of his novels – confesses to having never traveled at all, which contradicts the location of his writing: a café in Paris or perhaps one in his neighborhoods of Flores (cf. 10–11). He admits that the two characters for whom the book is titled are a hodgepodge of his memory and imagination: “Querría que fueran la pura invención de mi alma, ahora que mi alma ha sido extraída de mí. Pero no lo son del todo, ni podrían serlo, porque la realidad, o sea el pasado los contamina” (11) [“I would prefer them to be the pure invention of my soul, now that my soul has been extracted from me. But they still aren’t after all, nor could they be, because reality, or the past, contaminates them”] (8). Aira maintains the impossibility of an accurate narration, untainted by the nearreaching hand of lived experiences that sully memory. He also concludes that, despite the surreal method of gathering the most incongruous facts from the farthest of places – citing Breton as an example – the believability of these unlikely happenings is out of his control: Por mi parte, no voy ni cerca ni lejos, porque no busco nada. Es como si todo hubiera sucedido porque no busco nada. Es como si todo hubiera sucedido ya. En realidad sucedió; eso a la vez es como si no hubiera sucedido, como si estuviera sucediendo ahora. Es decir, como si no sucediera nada. (30) For my part, I don’t go near or far, because I’m not looking for anything. It’s as if everything had already happened. And, in fact, it did all happen; but at the same time, it’s as if it hadn’t happened, as if it were happening now. Which is to say, as if nothing had happened. (32)

The narrator’s doubts regarding reality and time continuums contradict each other and present the reader with a dual story of travels: that involving the storyline and that of the narrator’s life. In this way, La costurera y el viento is reminiscent of travel writing. Silvia Casini recognizes the interwoven nature of fact and fiction regarding this genre: “A pesar de la aceptación actual del libro de viajes con un estatuto ficcional, éste es un género que sigue siendo apreciado más por ser el relato de experiencias vividas y hechos empíricos que por su caudal imaginativo” (“Luis Sepúlveda” 106) [“Despite the current acceptance of travel writing as fictional, this is a genre that continues to be appreciated more for being the story of lived experiences and empirical facts than for its imaginative flow”]. in his novels. It should also be noted that this was a common practice for Jorge Luis Borges, one of Aira’s sources of literary inspiration.

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The literary critic examines Chilean writer Luis Sepúlveda’s Patagonia Express (1995), recognizing a stylistic propensity toward rambling, a tool that encourages the recuperation of memory (cf. 106). In Aira’s novel, a hybrid form of travel writing emerges in which the narrator recounts the travels of his protagonist with interjections of his own, admittedly flawed, memory. Such uncertainty undermines the veracity and reliability of remembering. Yet, in Aira’s rambling, the narrator has forgotten the details of his proposed plot, except the one necessary component of his story engine involving the protagonist’s profession. The seamstress presents the possibility of travel and adventure and, similar to the transformative capacity held tightly in her sewing box, the possibility for anything. In the figures of the two characters from whom the novel takes its name, the narrator holds fast to the idea of creative freedom. Delia’s profession provides César Aira narrator with self-aware metaphorical language from the repertoire of the seamstress, especially regarding the temporality of memory: Con todo, el olvido no es completo; queda un pequeño resto vago, en el que me ilusiono que hay una punta de la que podría tirar y tirar… aunque entonces, para seguir con la metáfora, tirando de esa hebra terminaría borrando la figura del bordado y me quedaría entre los dedos un hilo blanco que no significaría nada. (8) Still, the sensation is not complete; a vague little trace remains, in which I hope there is a loose end that I could pull and pull… although then, to go on with the metaphor, pulling on that strand would erase the embroidered figure and I would be left with a meaningless white thread between my fingers. (4)

The confrontation between forgetting and remembering is a constant threat to the seamstress throughout the novel. Despite attempts to exhibit selfagency, she is overcome by the uncontrollable happenings of nature and her surroundings. The inexplicable tragedy of losing her son forces Delia to confront the overarching power of the terrain that surrounds her. At the same time, the Wind’s potency scatters her sartorial creation and tools, threatening the erasure of her professional legacy and economic livelihood. The individual scope of the seamstress’s preoccupations denotes a revealing barometer for Argentina, where the dichotomous interplay of remembering versus forgetting serves as a necessary survival skill for the collective cohesion of the nation. In the case of Argentina, the choice of remembering versus forgetting has at times resembled a power-negotiating dance, with origins as unknown as those of the tango itself. The nation, like many others founded on waves of immigration, has negotiated plural identities. The metropolitan versus provincial divide, or civilization versus barbarian in the xenophobic words of

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Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, oftentimes defaced the identity of the country folk and native peoples who inhabited the vast pampas, Patagonia and desert areas.5 As a result, these groups frequently have found themselves as mere folklore to local tourism instead of being valued as viable voices in the national discourse. In the 1970s the dialogue of remembering versus forgetting fell into the grips of a debilitating military regime resulting in countless human-rights abuses and disappearances. The conjunction of remembering and forgetting recurs daily as the mothers of the disappeared, las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, march for their lost loved ones, while new trials spring up to prosecute in some way a few of those responsible. To restore a sense of national trust and future prosperity, an interplay of remembering versus forgetting surfaces as Argentines cautiously acknowledge the corrupt string of leaders who sent the country into a frantic, economic downward spiral in 2001. When approaching Aira’s work, Reber views a notable divide in some of these historical versus contemporary preoccupations: Aira has distanced himself from his “historical” – albeit heavily parodic – novels of the 80s and early 90s anchored in the characters and topoi of nineteenth-century Argentina (e.g. Juan Manuel Rosas, British naturalism, los indios, and the journey to the interior) and given himself over to the development of his signature style of semi-autobiographical and matter-offact absurdity largely set in contemporary Buenos Aries and, often, in his own neighborhood of Flores. (371–2)

I would argue that in La costurera y el viento we see a point of intersection that connects the historical (regarding the number of seamstresses as well as Naturalistic attitudes on Patagonia) with the atemporal and absurd. In the novel, the continuous struggle between remembering and forgetting manifests itself in the transformative process of travel. The gale of wind acts as a metaphoric and literal representation of the “blowing away” and “blowing together” of memorable remnants, and the seamstress serves as the linchpin to remember a forgotten profession who represents a cast aside member of national and individual history. Seamstress as Gendered Stereotype and Stereotype Breaker In La costurera y el viento the protagonist is a successful local seamstress who possesses conflicting personality traits. While the narrator’s mother describes Delia as crazy and unbalanced, her economically solvent trade is what makes her an anomaly: 5

A binary expressed in the title of Domingo Faustino Sarmiento’s Facundo; o, Civilización y Barbarie (1874).

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Delia tenía una profesión, un oficio, y en eso era una excepción entre las mujeres del barrio, solo amas de casa y madres, como era el caso de la mía. Era costurera (costurera, justamente, ahora me doy cuenta de la coincidencia), podría haberse ganado la vida con su trabajo y de hecho lo hacía porque su marido tenía no sé qué empleo vago de transportes y en líneas generales no podía decirse que trabajara. (16) Delia had a profession, a trade, which made her an exception among the women of the neighborhood, who were only housewives and mothers, like mine. She was a seamstress (a seamstress, exactly, now I see the coincidence); she could even have made a living with her work, and in fact she did, because her husband had I don’t know what vague shipping job and you couldn’t really say that he worked in the broadest terms. (18)

The working-class mother is the only female in the neighborhood to provide for her family, inverting the typical gendered expectations concerning financial responsibility in the household. Although a strong work ethic is valued above all else in César’s family, the narrator discloses that Delia’s lucrative profession prompts suspicions among neighbors since such gender norms were not usually broken. While other women in the novel sew and perform other gendered tasks, Delia’s business-minded approach to the trade sets her apart. Unlike Sira in El tiempo entre costuras, Delia does not exude elegance. Her sense of style and taste can only be described as questionable: Ella era una costurera de fama, confiable y prolijísima, aunque de un gusto pésimo. Lo hacía perfecto, pero había que darle instrucciones muy precisas, y vigilarla hasta el último minuto para que no lo echara a perder siguiendo su inspiración nefasta. (16) She had a good reputation as a seamstress, trustworthy and very neat, although she had terrible taste. She did everything perfectly, but you had to give her very precise instructions and keep an eye on her up to the very last minute or she would ruin it by following some nefarious inspiration. (18)

Her patrons must collectively supervise her work to keep her unconventional style selections on a tight rein. Aira humorously hints at the provincial town of Pringle’s lofty haute couture standards where the inhabitants find Delia to be a mastermind, and consequently she enjoys an endless stream of clients. Delia maintains an unorthodox method in her sartorial madness and, as a result, she has a faithful, albeit unexpected, following:6

6

It may be noted that while the author appears in the novel as the narrator,

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Pero rápido, era rapidísima. Cuando las clientas iban a probarse… Había cuatro pruebas, eso era canónico en la costura pringlense. Con Delia, las cuatro pruebas se confundían en un instante, y además la prenda ya estaba hecha antes. Con ella no había tiempo de cambiar de idea, ni mucho menos. Había perdido mucha clientela por ese motivo. Siempre estaba perdiendo clientas; era un milagro que le quedaran. Es que siempre estaba apareciendo nuevas. Su velocidad sobre-natural las atraía, como la luz de una vela a las polillas. (17) But fast, she was extremely fast. When the customers came for a fitting… There were four fittings, that was canonic in Pringlense couture. With Delia, the four fittings were muddled together in an instant, and anyway the garment was already finished. With her there was no time to change your mind, or anything else. She had lost a lot of her clientele because of it. She was always losing customers; it was a miracle she had any left. New ones were always appearing, that was the thing. Her supernatural velocity attracted them, like moths to a candle. (18)

While Aira’s novel abounds with surreal unlikelihood – such as a talking wind and a transparent car, to name a couple of examples – the seamstress’s sartorial genius, guided by humanly inconceivable speed and precision, portrays her as a powerful, mysterious artist infused with something of the supernatural. Despite her awe-inspiring skills with the needle and thread, Delia possesses some unpleasant character flaws, presenting the narrator with the opportunity to ponder the universality of gender play. In La costurera the reader is faced with an imperfect protagonist. Contrasting with the glamorous Sira in Dueñas’s novel, Delia is nicknamed “la Paloma” because of her birdlike and drab features. She is described as “pequeña” (23) [“small”] (23) and her social behavior likens her to the other busybodies of the town. This seamstress is not mystical for her beauty or female prowess but rather for her sartorial talents and a working method verging on magical madness. César’s mother, who had been a close friend of Delia’s during their youth, judges the seamstress as crazy and unbalanced, to which Aira quips: “todas lo estaban, cuando se ponía a pensarlo” (16) [“they all were, when you started thinking about it”] (16). Such skewed classifications appear throughout the text as the youthful narrator views his neighborhood as populated with a homogeneous group of women, each of whom had one son, and was strict and fanatical about housecleaning (cf. 15). Unlike the comradeship of women who support each other in El tiempo entre costuras, in La costurera the women of the provincial, seemingly tightknit community, lack unity: “Nuestras madres en cambio mantenían further striking parallels exist between Aira’s prolific and “frenzied” writing process and the working practices of his protagonist, the seamstress.

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esa distancia teñida de malevolencia típica de las mujeres locales. Mamá le encontraba muchos defectos, pero eso era casi un pasatiempo para ella” (15–16) [“Our mothers, on the other hand, maintained that distance tinged with malevolence typical of the local women. Mamá found many defects in Delia, but that was practically a hobby for her”] (16). The ambiance among the women of the neighborhood is filled with gendered gossip. Delia is not exempt from these categorizations: “Era costurera delgada, pequeña, con rasgos de pájaro, neurótico en grado sumo, de la que era impossible adivinar los horarios de costura ya que siempre estaba en la puerta comadreando, ¿qué hacía en realidad?” (21) [“The thin seamstress, so small, so bird-like, neurotic to the highest degree, whose business hours were impossible to determine because she was always gossiping in the doorway – what did she really do?”] (23). The town is contained by strict, self-imposed gender lines, according to which “Los hombres se hacían cargo de los hombres, las mujeres de las mujeres” (25) [“The men were in charge of the men, the women of the women”] (27). Despite the seamstress’s tendency to wag her tongue and participate in the gendered hobby of neighborhood gossip, through her successful business, which provides for her family’s financial needs, and through her unaccompanied travels to find her son, she breaks the rigid expectations that would keep her confined to her home. Pressures to not only “behave” within the societal expectations but also associate with those who subscribe to an accompanying moral code become apparent when Delia accepts an ambitious sartorial commission for the local drawing teacher, Silvia Balero, who has hurriedly agreed to marry so as to spare herself the ignominy of bearing an illegitimate child. The narrator deems the sewing assignment a “trap” since the seamstress needs the income, but her involvement places her in the crossfire of neighborhood chatter: Delia era especialmente mojigata, más que el común. Era casi malévola en ese sentido; durante años había estado atenta a cada irregularidad moral en el pueblo. Y cuando las conocidas, con las que departía el día entero, empezaron a hacerles preguntas (porque del caso Balero se hablaba con fruición) se sintió molesta y empezó a hacer amenazas, por ejemplo, de no coser ese vestido, el traje hipócrita de la ignominia blanca. (22) She was almost malevolent in that sense; for years she had been alert to every moral irregularity in town. And when her acquaintances, the ones she talked to all day, began to ask her questions (because the Balero case was discussed with intense pleasure) she became annoyed and started to make threats – for example, that she would not sew that dress, the gown of white hypocritical infamy. (25)

Economic necessity forces Delia to accept a sewing endeavor that will stitch her into the neighborhood scandal. Thus begins a dynamic between Sylvia

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and Delia in which two professionals clash. With her background in art, Sylvia designs her own wedding gown, acquires the materials, and plans to hover over Delia – given the sartorial superstar’s record for going rogue at the last minute – as she fashions this “daring, never seen before” piece (22). The twenty-something-year-old contrasts with Delia’s unimpressive presence, “Y era linda, inclusive muy linda, una rubia alta con maravillosos ojos verdes, pero a las solteronas siempre les pasaba eso: ser lindas sin ningún efecto. Haberlo sido, en vano” (23) [“And she was pretty, very pretty even, a tall blonde with marvelous green eyes, but that is what always happens to spinsters: being pretty to no effect. To have been pretty in vain”] (26). Once again, the narrator depicts the female population in less than favorable terms, deeming Sylvia foolish and commenting of the seamstress, “Loca ya, Delia Siffoni la desaparición de su único hijo la volvió loca” (25) [“Delia Siffoni was already crazy, and the disappearance of her only son drove her crazy again”] (27). The brief professional interaction between the seamstress and her client is cut short when Delia’s son vanishes, but she remains steadfast in her professional obligations. Despite Delia’s hasty and “maddened” departure from Pringles to search for her missing son, she does not leave her occupation behind but rather carries her tools and latest creation with her on an extraordinary dash through Patagonia. In the face of tragedy, Delia flees with and toward her artistic textile masterpiece, soon to transform from a mere inanimate object into a major player in the novel’s storyline. The Great Chase to/through the Unknown: The Seamstress Leaves Pringles The vast region of Patagonia, shared between Argentina and Chile, is a geographic medley comprising deserts, pampas, a portion of the Andes mountains and the two coastlines of the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans. This scarcely populated terrain has inspired awe for centuries and has been a major character in both travel writing and fiction. Ester Whitfield, who focuses on the representations of Patagonia in both Argentine and Welsh literature, considers Gabriela Nouzeilles’s essays from the nineteenth century to have “produced Patagonia as an idea and as a place” (77). This production of Patagonia was perpetuated in part by anthropologists, as well as travel writers. Of course, as Whitfield notes, Charles Darwin’s contributions cannot be forgotten, depicting the region as “limitless, barbaric, indomitable [and perpetuating] an insistence that human life there was unsustainable” (77). Later, Francisco Pascasio Moreno transformed Darwin’s portrayal into one of unconquerable abundance (cf. 78).7 As Fernanda Peñaloza recognizes, it is an apparently 7

Whitfield notes the continued obsession with the region, beginning specifically in Argentina, with Bertomeu’s El valle de la esperanza: Una historia de Gales y

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limitless region that exudes potential (cf. 460). In Aira’s novel, this untapped energy sweeps the seamstress through a shifting, dynamic terrain that changes everything with which it comes into contact. In describing the region, the narrator maintains a mystified reverence: Cuando les digo a los franceses que yo vengo de ahí (mintiendo apenas) abren la boca, me admiran, casi incrédulos. Hay mucha gente en todo el mundo que suena con viajar alguna vez a la Patagonia, ese extremo del planeta, desierto bellísimo e incomunicable, en el que podrían pasar todas las aventuras. Todos están más o menos resignados a no llegar nunca tan lejos, y en eso debo darles la razón. ¿Qué irían a hacer allá? Y además, ¿cómo llegar? Se interponen todos los mares y ciudades, todo el tiempo, todas las aventuras […] Lo veo como a lo distinto de cualquier otro viaje. (27) When I tell the French I come from there (barely lying) they open their mouths with admiration, almost with incredulity. There are a lot of people all over the world who dream of traveling some day to Patagonia, that extreme end of the planet, a beautiful and inexpressible desert, where any adventure might happen. They’re all more or less resigned to never getting that far, and I have to admit they’re right. What would they go there to do? And how would they get there, anyway? All the seas and cities are in the way, all the time, all the adventures. It’s true that tour companies simplify trips quite a bit these days, but for some reason I keep thinking that going to Patagonia is not so easy. I see it as something quite different from any other trip.

Within such exceptionalism, intensified through its geographic severity, the region provokes conflicting emotions: it is “Cursed Patagonia, beautiful and diabolical” (54). Patagonia, at times filled with nothingness, a span of destitute deserts, exerts power over all the lives it touches. The “atmospheric tides,” as the narrator recalls, wield a mysterious force not recorded but perhaps capable of affecting the brain (cf. 50). In this way, the region may directly interfere with the characters’ behaviors, giving them a carte blanche and to some degree absolving them of responsibility for their actions. In the novel, Patagonia opens up gradually to the seamstress as she faces unexpected challenges and opportunities for self-realization. The mother’s surreal mishaps, resulting in her fight for survival, confront this overpowering region. Through the great chase in the novel – its main focus – La costurera y el viento becomes a type of travel writing that both reinforces and breaks with representations of the past that relied heavily on Naturalism and

Chubut (1943). See Chapter 17 of La costurera y el viento for the narrator’s reference to the ideologies of Darwin and Hudson (cf. 63).

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scientific notions of the historical climate.8 Delia’s frantic mission to track down Chiquito’s semi-truck and find her son occurs in a taxi; it is a literal chase toward the future in an artifact of the past. The narrator plays with the improbable success of this equation: Era absurdo porque su viejo Chrysler de los años treinta no podría alcanzar nunca la velocidad crucero de un camión un cuarto de siglo más moderno. Pero no les pareció extraño que el perseguidor fuera más lento que el perseguido. Por el contrario, les parecía que según la lógica del largo plazo tenía que alcanzarlo, ¿qué otra cosa podría pasar? (28) It was absurd, since his 1930s Chrysler could never reach the cruising speed of a truck a quarter of a century more modern. But they didn’t think it was strange for the pursuer to be slower than the pursued. On the contrary, it seemed that by the logic of the long term it would have to catch up – what else could happen? (31)

In this frantic frenzy, the seamstress dutifully maintains her work, bringing the art teacher’s wedding dress and her sewing kit along for the chase. The narrator questions Delia’s intentions as he reminds the reader that the seamstress had wasted ample working time while gossiping with neighbors. The dress and Delia’s determination to complete her masterpiece under such conditions add to the surreality of the scene: No estaba en sus cabales en ese momento crítico un enorme vestido de novia, con su superposición de blancuras vaporosas y su volumen que superaba al de Delia, tan escaso, era lo más incómodo que podría haber elegido para llevar. (Quiero dejar anotada aquí una idea que más adelante puede ser útil: el único maniquí adecuado que se me ocurre para el vestido de novia es un muñeco de nieve.) Además, coser un vestido de novia en el asiento trasero de un taxi, bamboleándose por esos caminos de tierra que iban hacia el sur. Adónde iría a para su famosa prolijidad. (28) She was out of her mind at that critical moment: an enormous wedding dress with a vaporous white train and a volume exceeding her own (which was pretty meager) was the most awkward thing she could have chosen to bring. (I want to make a note here of an idea that may be useful later on: the only appropriate mannequin I can think of for a wedding dress is a snowman). Besides, sewing a wedding dress in the back of a taxi, bouncing along those dirt roads that go south… Where would her famous meticulousness end? (31–2)

8

See Maureen Spillane McKenna for reading of Aira’s La liebre (1991) involving English Naturalism.

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Throughout the novel the narrator incessantly underscores the seamstress’s most salient features: thin, meticulous, gossipy and crazy – yet a dedicated seamstress nonetheless. Delia’s impulsive responses cast her as a preoccupied mother, and at the same time as a dedicated professional, in this way humanizing a figure who is at times dehumanized by her character flaws.9 While the young boy’s disappearance presents an early climax in the novel, a second occurs in a confusing car accident in which Delia’s taxi driver is killed. César’s narration mirrors the puzzling immediacy of the unexpected accident. He contradicts himself, first saying that the seamstress did not sew a stitch during the taxi ride and shortly afterward describing a scene in which Delia, unscathed, sits in the backseat, “ocupada en pegar una valenciana con sus puntadas minúsculas” (32) [“busy attaching a bodice with her minuscule stitches”] (34). Despite these textual discrepancies, what is apparent during the convoluted account is the seamstress’s true concern for her work. As Zaralegui’s limp body is flung out of the car and through the air, and her tulleladen masterpiece along with it, Delia has a gut reaction: “Cuando el vestido abrió su enorme ala blanca, la cola, y elevó, a una velocidad supersónica, hacia el costado, Delia se sintió despojada. Era su trabajo el que se iba, y ella quedaba fuera del juego, sin función” (34) [“When the dress opened the enormous white wings of its train and rose, at a supersonic velocity, up and away, Delia felt dispossessed. It was her work that was going, and she was left out, useless”] (38). Through the complicated scenario, the seamstress discovers vocational reassurance. As a result of the chaotic crash, the elaborate dress serves a function distinct from that for which it was intended. It fashions a protective cocoon in which the taxi driver, who lands in her arms like an infant, may lie to rest. The seamstress, while untouched physically by the crash, goes crazy for a third time and inexplicably continues to travel in a slumbering coma until reaching the province of Santa Cruz. The taxi driver, wrapped in Delia’s sewed creation like a resting newborn, reinforces the image of Delia as a mother, still searching for her son while holding a metaphorical substitute who is swaddled in her traveling haute couture.10 9 The curious snowman image appears not only in the context of the wedding dress, but also during César’s interactions with Chiquito, the man who accidently abducted his friend. Before departing on a lengthy trip, the driver would leave a snowman as a sign for the child that he had departed. César’s association of the snowman with both Chiquito and the wedding dress create a direct link between two unlikely articles: the truck driver and a bridal gown. 10 When Delia finally reenters the scene, she encounters Chiquito’s semi-truck and, forcing entry, sees a filthy mess, accompanied by a grimy Chiquito and Sylvia, having turned black like an ebony statue. The Patagonian wind begins to make its appearance, maddening the already deranged truck driver. Fleeing in fear, Delia discovers an athletic prowess that she did not know she possesses. Meanwhile a series

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During the taxi crash, Delia is tossed around by arguing winds, engaged in dialogue and laughing uncannily. This before-death-experience is a selffulfilling prophecy resulting from her interest in the physical ailments and suffering of those around her: Delia adoraba hacer el papel de la fatalista a ultranza, la dama de la muerte, cada tarde dispuesta a pasarse la noche en un velorio; su conversación estaba llena de cancer, ceguera, parálisis, como, infarto, viudas, huérfanos. Había encarnado con tanto entusiasmo ese personaje que ya era ella, era su temática, su posición (36) Delia loved to play the committed fatalist, the lady of death – every afternoon she felt prepared to spend the night at a wake; her conversations were full of cancer, blindness, paralysis, comas, heart attacks, widows, orphans. She had embodied this character with so much enthusiasm that it was now her theme, her position. (40–1)

Despite what is described as her comfortable middle-class life, she now faces a legitimate challenge of survival in the face of nature and is plunged into an existential questioning when she deems herself already dead. She loses all concept of time and place and appears to understand Patagonia’s identity while at the same time questioning her own: “¿Esto es la Patagonia, entonces?, se decía perpleja. Si esto es la Patagonia, ¿yo qué soy?” (37) [“Then this is Patagonia? She said to herself, perplexed. And if this is Patagonia, then what am I?”] (42). Delia embarks on a new journey, parallel to that in search of her son: an identity crisis, perpetuated by travel and surreal discoveries far from her isolated neighborhood.

of transformations occurs, heightening the surreal sequence of events. Ramón, unable to locate his transparent pick-up truck, has made the most of his rustic surrounding and carved out his own unlikely form of transportation by turning a Paleozoic armadillo into a working vehicle: “Le hizo pensar qué fácil era cambiar el aspecto de algo, lo que parece más inherente a su ser, lo más eterno… se transformaba por completo mediante un trámite tan sencillo como cambiar de lugar la cola” (98) [“It made him think how easy it was to change the appearance of a thing, what seemed most inherent to its being, most eternal… it was completely transformed by a measure as simple as changing the placement of the tail”] (Chapter 23). He encounters the Monster, who was the accumulation of transformation and shapes, and has a convoluted image of his son Omar duplicated in his friend César Aira. We see in the process of transformation that one must also forget and let go, much the way the seamstress has decided to do with her previous life in Pringles, to which she knows she cannot return.

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Dark Transformations and Naturalistic Tinges While Delia questions her own self, an incongruous pursuit involving the seamstress’s husband and her client reveals a darker side to unexpected changes.11 In the novel, transformation is inevitable, reflecting the continual alterations to the wedding dress, as the physical site of Patagonia encourages transformations free from judgment regarding ethical soundness: “Las nubes patagónicas acogen y acomodan todas las transformaciones dentro de un solo instante, todas sin excepción. Por eso el instante, que en cualquier parte es seco y fijo como un clic, en la Patagonia es fluido, misterioso, novelesco. Darwin lo llamó: la Evolución. Hudson: la Atención” (63) [“The Patagonian clouds welcome and accommodate all transformation without exception. That’s why the instant, which in any other play is as dry and fixed as a click, is fluid and mysterious in Patagonia, fantastic. Darwin called it: Evolution. Hudson: Attention”] (76). While Delia’s transformation gradually reveals itself, a parallel set of 11

The chase through Patagonia, teetering between humorous and cadaverous, becomes more entangled when Delia’s infuriated husband, Ramón, is followed by a blue car with an unknown driver. The narrator provides an “orderly list” to aid the reader, a list that ranks both animate beings (Delia and her husband) and inanimate objects (Chiquito’s semi-truck, the wrecked Chrysler, Zaralegui’s corpse, the wedding dress and the mysterious blue car) as the main characters in the chaos. What is certain is that in this journey, no character will escape unchanged: Hay otros personajes, que ya irán apareciendo… O mejor dicho, no. No es que haya otros personajes (éstos son todos) sino que las revelaciones terminaron haciéndose otros, dando lugar a encuentros que Delia Siffoni no habría sospechado nunca, ni ella ni ninguna de las Delias Siffonis del mundo, con todas las cuales estaba iniciando, allí en la Patagonia, una danza de transposiciones. (41) There are other characters, who are now going to appear… Or better yet, no. It’s not that there are other characters (these are all of them) but revelations will transform these characters into others, making room for encounters that Delia Siffoni never would have expected, neither she nor any of the other Delia Siffonis in the world, with all of them beginning, there in Patagonia, a dance of transformations. (47) While the narrator does not include himself in the list of seven characters, nor hint at his role in the transformation, he inserts himself and the place of Paris, his supposed creative space, into the existential dilemma. Delia, on the other hand, remains in “la trampa de un melodrama del que era apenas un personaje más” (45) [“the trap of melodrama where she was just another character”] (52). The promised transformation of characters couples with the transformation of inanimate objects. The seamstress, encompassed in a sensational milieu, is faced for the first time in her life with real-life survival instead of the imaginary ailments of her daydreams and gossip, and she must decide how to react in her eerie surroundings in which “todo se transormaría en horrores” (47) [“everything transformed into horrors”] (52).

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horrific metamorphoses unveil. Enraged by Patagonia’s atmospheric tides and his primitive reaction to his wife’s departure, Delia’s husband, Ramón, becomes an irrational madman. His vehicle mirrors his transformation as it turns from a half-faded red to transparent, creating a weird impression when he gets out of the vehicle: “pareció como si bajara del aire vacío” (56) [“it looked liked he’d climbed out of empty air”] (66).12 Ramón, described as an incessant gambler and “moon-man” who lumps all women together in a single category – “Todas las mujeres debían de parecerles iguales. Era esa clase de hombre” (56) [“All women must have looked the same to him. He was that kind of man”] (65) – transforms into a driven gambler at a truck stop as he confronts his most grave vice.13 This obsession, which he had somehow hidden from the town despite its gossip-laden web, leads him to forget the search for his wife. He pulls out a black mask to hide his identity while he plays a group of men, including Chiquito, the man who had inadvertently kidnapped his son. This black mask is a tangible object that denotes his transformation from enraged husband to ruthless risk-taker without limits or self-control. Ramón loses his truck and even that which he does not own: Silvia Balero, who is following him in a somnambulant state. In this act, Delia’s husband has transformed his action to that of a monster as he leaves the vulnerable drawing teacher at the mercy of the other obsessed gamblers. Ramón’s metaphoric transformation into a monster is accompanied by Chiquito’s. After he hunts out Silvia, whom he “wins” during the gambling session, he enters her room and submerges in a vat of boiling red water, a feat 12 The moon’s tide and its crazed effects on the narrator recall Darwin’s initial thoughts on the region regarding the unsustainability of life on this permanent satellite. Also, as Peñaloza notes, Moreno’s later writings reflected a supposed change in the brain of its indigenous inhabitants (cf. 462). 13 The narrator admits that, as a child, he too committed this misogynistic, universalizing act:

Para nosotros los chicos (yo era el mejor amigo de su hijo de once años), era una señora, una de las madres, una vieja fea y amenazante… Pero había otras perspectivas. Es el punto de vista infantil el que hace parecer ridículas a las mujeres: más exactamente, las hace parecer travestis, y por ellos un tanto cómicas, como artefactos sociales cuya única finalidad, una vez que la perspectiva infantil se desplaza un poco, es hacer reír. Y sin embargo, son mujeres de verdad, sexuadas, deseables, hermosas… (66) For us children (I was her eleven-year-old son’s best friend), she was a señora, one of the mothers, an ugly and threatening old lady… But there were other perspectives. It is a child’s point of view that makes women look ridiculous; more precisely, it makes them look like transvestites, and therefore somewhat comical, like social artifacts whose only purpose, once the child’s perspective is pushed aside a little, is to make us laugh. And even so, they are real women, sexual, desirable, beautiful… (80)

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impossible for a living person: “Nadie habría resistido esa temperatura, pero a él no le hizo nada. El corazón casi dejó de latirle, sus ojos se entrecerraron, la boca se le abrió en una mueca estúpida” (61) [“No one could have withstood that temperature, but it did nothing to him. His heart nearly stopped beating, and his eyes closed halfway, and his mouth opened in a stupid grimace”] (72). This blood bath transforms Chiquito into a subhuman being and is the prelude to his rape of Silvia, whose already developing fetus from her previous pregnancy now makes an unlikely appearance: El resultado fue que unos deditos celestes allá adentro se asieron de su membro como de una manija, y cuando lo retire, intrigado, sacó a la rastra un feto peludo y fosforescente, feo y deforme como un demonio, que con sus chillidos despertó a Silvia Balero y los obligó a huir, dejándolo dueño de la escena. Fue así como vino al mundo el Monstruo. (61) Consequently, inside, a few pale blue little fingers grasped his member like a handle, and when he withdrew, puzzled, he dragged out a hairy phosphorescent fetus, ugly and deformed like a demon, who woke Silvia Balero with its shrieking and obliged them both to flee, leaving it master of the scene. That was how the Monster came into the world. (74)14

This surreal birth produces a tangible being who mysteriously becomes obsessed with Delia and acts as both physical and otherworldly opponent to the seamstress’s self-actualizing journey. The figure of the monster, both as a metaphor for Ramón and Chiquito’s transformations, and in the newborn “Monster” itself, is reminiscent of the early travel writings involving Patagonia. In Peñaloza’s article on Francisco

14 Curiously, when the narrator realizes his friend has disappeared, he describes his reaction as follows:

Me sentía deformado, retorcido, con las dos orejas del mismo lado, los dos ojos del otro, un brazo saliéndome del ombligo, el otro de la espalda, el pie izquierdo saliendo del muslo derecho… Acuclillado, como un sapo octodimensional… Tuve la impresión, que tan bien conocía, de correr desesperadamente para huir de un peligro, de un horror… del monstruo agazapado que ahora era yo mismo. (12–13) I felt deformed, twisted, both ears on the same side of my head, both eyes on the other, an arm coming out of my navel, the other from my back, the left foot coming out of the right thigh… squatting, like an octidimensional toad… I had the impression, which I knew so well, of running desperately to escape a danger, a horror… to escape the crouching monster that I now was. All I could do was stay in the safest place. (12)

In this way the narrator likens himself to the “monster child” who has been born out of the violent sexual act inflicted on the art teacher.

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Pascasio Moreno’s writings, the critic highlights the European-influenced nineteenth-century obsession with Patagonia’s indigenous “others.”15 The sexualization and demonization of these native peoples perpetuated the Argentine social dilemma of barbarian versus civilization (cf. 456). The era’s fixation with measuring anatomy oftentimes sought to discover a “monstrous” reality, a leftover remnant from sixteenth-century travel writings that warned of the monstrous, gargantuan populations that supposedly inhabited the region. Peñaloza regards Moreno’s work as a “rearrangement of the scenery” in which “the indigenous populations are both phantasmagorical inhabitants of ancient settlements and contemporaneous possessors of distinctive and vibrant cultural traditions” (456). Travelogues such as Moreno’s were undoubtedly influenced by the scientific writings of the time. Gender representations in these writings add another contradictory layer: women are portrayed as either voracious sexual predators or virgin sorceresses who obtain power through chastity (Peñaloza cf. 469–70). In the victimized figure of Silvia, Aira the narrator compounds conflicting images. The drawing teacher, scorned by her gossiping neighborhood for her apparent lack of chastity, is taken as property and, in a frenzied attack, births a monstrous reality. Aira’s portrayal of brutal sexuality and monstrous outcomes, reminiscent of earlier travel writings, focused through a Naturalistic or anthropologic lens, revisits the myths of “the other” and exposes the violence and lack of agency involved in these gendered depictions. Breaking the narrative tension brought about by the birth of “the monster,” the narrator takes refuge in his reality, reminding the reader of his travels, tangentially connected by time and place: “Días de ocio en la Patagonia. Días de turista en París” (62) [“Idle day in Patagonia… Tourist days in Paris…”] (75). Silvia Casini, in her reading of Mempo Giardinelli’s Final de novela en Patagonia (2000), analyzes the novel’s narrator and protagonist’s journeys (“Ficciones” cf. 103–4).16 She maintains that the plots develop in interconnected spaces. There is similar interconnectedness in La costurera y el viento, as the narrator reminds the reader of his Paris location while recounting Delia’s hasty movement through Patagonia. As a result, he weaves a universal connecting thread involving travel experiences: La vida lleva a la gente a toda clase de lugares lejanos y por lo general termina llevándolos a los más lejanos de todos, a los extremos, porque no hay motivo para frenar su empuje a medio camino. Más allá, siempre más 15 Moreno was an academic and explorer, instrumental in the incorporation and development of a large portion of Patagonia for Argentina. 16 Casini regards Patagonia in Giardinelli’s novel as an ideal place for escape, as the protagonists flee, “lejos de Dios y lejos de la ley” (105) [“far from God and far from the law].”

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allá… […] La tristeza inherente al recuerdo proviene de que su objeto es el olvido. Todo el movimiento, la gran línea, el viaje, es un arrebato de olvido, que se curva en la burbuja del recuerdo. El recuerdo es siempre portátil, siempre está en manos de un autómata vagabundo. (62) Life carries people to all kinds of distant places, and generally takes them to the most far flung, to the extremes, since there is no reason to slow its momentum before it’s done. Further, always further… […] The sadness inherent in a memory comes from the fact that its object is forgetting. All movement, the great horizon, the journey, is a spasm of forgetting, which bends in the bubble of memory. Memory is always portable, it is always in the hands of a wandering automaton. (75)

In his reflection on travel, Aira returns to notions of memory, forgetting and bittersweet nostalgia. The temporality and mobility of memory transforms, or “bends,” into the reality of the beholder, who, as a wandering automaton, has no more consciousness than a lifeless object. Despite the distance that one may travel the narrator plays with the notion of Patagonia’s superiority; after reflecting on various regions of the world, all seem far inferior to the clean, transformative space of this region, which he begins to equate not merely with the southern extremity of the country but rather with all of Argentina: “Sólo queda ese espacio radiante, la Argentina, hermosa como un paraíso” (63) [“All that remains is that radiant space, Argentina, beautiful as paradise”] (78). He questions why anyone would leave such a place – obviously doubting himself as he currently resides in Paris – “¿Cómo viajar? ¿Cómo vivir en otra parte? ¿No sería una locura una autoaniquilación? No ser argentino es precipitarse en la nada, y eso a nadie le gusta” (63) [“How to travel? How to live in another place? To not be Argentinian is to drop into nothingness, and no one likes that”] (78). The narrator’s distanced time and space encourage a reflection on his sense of place. In the process, he foregrounds the region as an identifying notion of nation. In a similar fashion, Delia’s travels outside her closed neighborhood encourage her examination of the geographical place of Patagonia, as well as personal examination of her sense of self.17 17 Spillane McKenna has explored nationalistic notions in two of Aira’s novels – Ema la cautiva (1981) and La liebre (1991) – in conjunction with nineteenth-century writer Lucio V. Mansilla. Rooted in Argentina’s national debate of barbarian versus civilization and the conflictive figure of the gaucho, Spillane McKenna likewise recognizes the binary debate of city versus periphery in Aira’s aforementioned novels: “Las dos novelas parodian los viajes al desierto y los encuentros europeos con el otro, despolitizando totalmente el (con)texto original y subrayando la tremenda ironía de estos encuentros del siglo XIX” (95) [“The two novels parody trips to the desert and nineteenth-century European encounters with the Other, depoliticizing totally the

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While the act of travel encourages the existential contemplation of memory, nation and self, the tangible, inanimate wedding dress – an example par excellence of Delia’s sartorial genius – has physical and symbolic transformative power: Y en plena transparencia, decía… un vestido de novia. ¿Una nube? No. Un vestido blanco, claro que sin forma de vestido, o mejor dicho: sin forma humana, la que toma puesto en su dueña o en un maniquí, sino en su forma auténtica, la forma pura de vestido, que nadie tiene la ocasión de ver nunca, porque no es cuestión de verlo hecho un montón de tela tirado sobre una mesa o una silla. Eso es informe. La forma del vestido es una transformación continua, ilimitada. Y era el vestido de novia más bellos y complicado que su hubiera hecho nunca, un desplegarse de todos los pliegues blancos, maqueta blanda de un universo de blancuras. A diez mil metros de altura, volando con lo que parecía una majestuosa lentitud aunque debía de ir muy rápido (no había punto de referencia, en ese abismo celeste de puro día). Y cambiando de forma sin cesar, siempre, macrocisne, abriendo alas nuevas, nunca las mismas, la cola de catorce metros, hiperespuma, cadáer equisito, bandera de mi patria. (65) And in full transparency, I was saying… a wedding dress. A cloud? No. A white dress, without the form of a dress, of course, or rather: without the form of a human, which it takes when placed on its owner or a mannequin, but instead its authentic form, the pure form of a dress, which no one ever has occasion to see, because it’s not simply a question of seeing it as a mountain of fabric thrown over a table or chair. That is formlessness. The form of a dress is a continuous transformation, limitless. And it was the most beautiful and complicated wedding dress ever made, an unfolding of all the white folds, a soft model of a universe of whites. Flying at thirty thousand feet with what appeared to be majestic slowness, even though it must have been going very fast (there was no point of reference in original text and emphasizing the tremendous irony of these meetings”]. The critic maintains that the author’s parody results in reversible concepts of fossilized national notions, which she describes as a “reescritura, una especie de despertar multicultural, una búsqueda de una identidad nacional que fuera inclusive en vez de exclusiva” (98) [“rewriting, a type of multicultural awakening, a search for a national identity that was inclusive instead of exclusive”]. Likewise, in La costurera y el viento, the aggrandizing description of Patagonia (part) as Argentina (whole) gives precedence to the periphery/rural versus the center/metropolis.

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the blue abyss of daylight), and changing shape ceaselessly, endlessly, giant swan, forever opening new wings, its tail forty-two feet long, hyperform, exquisite corpse, flag of my country. (78)

Unlike the intangible quality of the experience of travel, Delia’s work is a visual marker of transformation; metamorphosing as it flies through the air, the wedding dress’s symbolism surpasses its functional role as a garment. Rather, the dress is infused with meaning, capable of new beginnings for both the individual and the collective. Like Patagonia, the dress is boundless. The power of nature, namely the strength of the Wind, underscores the transformative meaning of the garment. Through the Wind’s contortion of the object, it becomes alive and meaning-filled, with no need for a bride to inhabit the masterpiece. Instead, it is significant on its own, a codified marker, conveying multiple messages. Seamstress as Heartbreaker: The Wind’s Debut As the title of the novel suggests, the seamstress shares her limelight as the protagonist with another character: the Wind. Although the geographical powerhouse capable of sculpting mountains or causing debilitating disasters does not appear until Delia enters the depths of her roadtrip through Patagonia, the narrator prefigures the Wind’s potential for destruction when he describes his feelings upon realizing his friend has disappeared: “Paralizado, estrangulado, como en una pesadilla, yo quería moverme y no podía. Era como si un viento me apretara por todos lados a la vez” (12) [“I was paralyzed, strangled, as in a nightmare; I wanted to move but couldn’t. It was as if a wind were pressing in on me from all sides at once”] (11). Yet, after the car accident, the Wind takes on more than metaphoric suggestions, becoming a humanized figure who performs fantastical deeds. The Wind’s contact with Delia’s work piques his interest after he saves Delia from both Chiquito and the other winds. Like Delia, whose sewing prowess elevates her to mystical status, the Wind is also a mythical being, “invisible, strong and beautiful, like a god” (97). Despite this supernatural description, there is one greater than him: the Monster child who has the power of transformation and will dominate the winds. This paranormal being is in search of one person: Delia. The seamstress’s only hope for survival lies in her newfound protector, who is drawn to her through her textile creation, namely the wedding dress, the breathtaking manifestation of the seamstress’s talents: “anoche vi otra cosa que me result encantadora: un gran vestido de novia, plegándose y desplegándose a diez mil metros de altura, bogando hacia el sur…” (85) [“Last night I saw another thing which enchanted me: a great wedding dress, folding and unfolding at thirty thousand feet up, sailing

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south…”] (102). When he finds out Delia is the artist of this great piece and that she is a seamstress, the Wind finally understands his own fate: -¡¿No me digas que sos costurera?! -Sí. El viento casi se cae de espaldas. Tardó en responerse. -¿Sos la costuera entonces? ¿La esposa de Ramón Siffoni? -Sí. Creí que lo sabía. -Ahora empiezo a entender. Todo empieza, a coincidir. La costurera… y el viento. -Nosotros dos. -Nosotros dos… El viento estaba enamorado. Había estado enamorado desde toda la eternidad, al menos su eternidad de viento. (86) “Don’t tell me you’re a seamstress?!” “Yes.” The wind almost fell over. He took a while to recover. “You’re the seamstress then? Ramón Siffoni’s wife?” “Yes. I thought you knew that.” “Now I’m starting to understand. It’s all beginning to line up. The seamstress… and the wind.” “The two of us.” “The two of us…” The wind was in love. He’d been in love for all eternity, or at least for all of his wind-eternity. (102)

The enamored Wind, despite what appears to be his omnipresent and supernatural nature, represents a bordered being, transformed and now in “windeternity,” supernatural while experiencing human emotion. He believes he has a destiny, one in which a seamstress will be the object of his affection. Like the narrator’s certainty that the protagonist must be a seamstress, the Wind seeps into a metafictional layer in which he predetermines the inevitability of the unlikely romance. The newly coddled Delia, though concerned by the Wind’s syrupy affection, decides to take advantage the gale’s efforts to woo her by bringing her whatever she desires. Having enjoyed a refined meal, and a good night’s sleep on a mattress – all “imported” by her new admirer – she requests two more items, not her son Omar, the original object of her search, but rather articles of her profession: the wedding dress and her sewing kit. The “fenómeno meteorológico” (87) [“meteorological phenomenon”] (104) is only able to conjure up her silver thimble: Era un dedal de plata, un souvenir precioso, en cuyo pequeño hueco Delia pensaba que cabía toda su vida, desde que había nacido. Y ahora que le

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parecía que su vida terminaba, o que se precipitaba en un abismo insensato, veía que había valido la pena vivirla, allá en Pringle. (106) It was her silver thimble, a precious souvenir, in whose little hollow Delia thought her whole life might fit, her whole life since she was born. And now that it looked like her life was coming to an end, or that it was slipping into an unintelligible abyss, she saw it had been worth the trouble to live it, there in Pringles. (128)

In this way, the seamstress, through the altered, familiar sewing notion, may reflect on her self-transformation made possible through her displacement from the confinements of her small town. Through travel and the accompaniment of the familiarity of her profession as a seamstress, Delia may reflect on her own life and sense of place. The silver thimble, a metonymic symbol of the entirety of her profession, becomes an encompassing microcosm for her existence, and the Wind transforms it: No es un dedal corriente – dijo el viento – . Lo he transmutado en el Dedal Patagónico. De él podrás sacar todo lo que quieras, todo lo que te dicte tu deseo, no importa el tamaño que tenga. Sólo tendrás que frotarlo hasta que brille cada vez que pidas algo, y de eso me encargo yo, que soy muy bueno frotando. (106) It’s not just a common thimble,” said the wind. “I’ve transmuted it into a Patagonian Thimble. You’ll be able to pull anything you want out of it, whatever your desire tells you, whatever size it might be. All you’ll have to do is rub it until it shines every time you ask for something, and I’ll take care of that, I’m very good at rubbing. (128)

The unorthodox “magic lantern” of sorts is of a special regional variety and a Borgesian Aleph. Curiously, the seamstress’s self-reflection on life and vocation parallels that of the narrator: En lugar de ponerme a escribir… sobre la Costurera y el Viento… con esa idea de aventura, de lo sucesivo… no digo renunciar a lo sucesivo que hace la aventura… pero imaginarme de antemano todo lo que pasa en lo sucesivo, hasta tener la novela entera en mi cabeza y sólo entonces… o ni siquiera entonces… Todo el proyecto como un punto, el Aleph, la mónada totalmente desplegada pero como punto, como instante… (103) Instead of sitting down to write… about the seamstress and the wind… with that idea of adventure, of successiveness… I’m not saying, Renounce the successiveness that makes the adventure… but rather to imagine beforehand all the successive events, until I had the whole novel in my head, and only

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then… or not even then… The whole project like a single point, the Aleph, the monad totally unfolded but as a point, an instant… (128)

In this way, the novel reflects the vastness of human experiences, yet also the particularity, the single point of intersection found in a masterpiece, whether written or sartorial. The process involved, in the case of the novel, both the metaphorical journey of the creation process and the literal journey involved in travel, transforms the agent as much as the creation itself. In addition to the truth-revealing thimble, the seamstress is confronted by four other non-human objects, all minuscule players in Patagonia’s massiveness. The region’s immensity diminishes the size of anything that comes into contact with its impressive scale, and in this way, places them into their respective roles: La función de los lugares realmente grandes, y la Patagonia es el más de todos, es permitir que las cosas se hagan de versa pequeñas Eran juguetes. Cuatro, y venían de los cuatro puntos cardinales, en una cruz perfecta cuyo centro era ella. El camión del chiquito, el Paleomóvil, el Monstruo, y el Muñeco de Nieve del bracete con el Vestido de Novia vacío. (106) The function of truly large places, and Patagonia is the largest of them all, is to allow things to become truly small. They were toys. Four of them, and they came from the four cardinal directions, in a perfect cross whose center was Delia. Chiquito’s truck, the Paleomobile, the Monster, and the Snowman arm in arm with the empty Wedding Dress. (129)

This encounter with the minuscule allows the seamstress, who had already realized she was her own omniscient narrator, to defend her identity. When the Monster yells at her, “Shut up, you whore!” she defends herself with her profession: “I’m not that! That thing you said! I’m a seamstress!” (130). In this way, Delia gives precedence to her professional life over where she is from or her defining gender roles as a wife and mother from a traditional neighborhood. While the Monster mirrors the societal prejudices involved in sewing as a profession, likening the seamstress to a whore, reminiscent of a nineteenth-century representation, Delia separates the two and defines herself by the profession that permits her economic security and a magical flair for sartorial designs. Toward a Colonial-less, Seam-less Lens César Aira places his novel in a historical setting, in a time, as aforementioned, when seamstresses were numerous, and in this way, the novelist may create a distanced reality lacking the specificity to critique a specific period or historical moment. Peñaloza, when considering previous travelogue narratives such

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as Moreno’s, writes that “Patriarchal narratives of desire for the unknown contributed to casting the conqueror in masculine terms and feminized the ‘discovered geographies’” (470). In the case of La costurera y el viento, Delia partly inverts the formula: she is a female who discovers, yet she is conquered by geography. Unlike travel writers from the nineteenth century, Aira does not categorize in an attempt to bridle colonial desire. The desire to colonize often manifests itself in travel writing in accounts of frantic collecting: previously the collecting of fossils and other precious artifacts; in more contemporary terms, the incessant taking of photographs and videos to post on social media and share with the world – all documentation guaranteeing an approximation to permanence, a fight against forgetting. In Aira’s La costurera y el viento, the reality of possession – whether it be an object of labored affection such as Silvia’s wedding dress, or the intangible, such as memory – is ephemeral, encountering a temporal expiration and inevitably transforming into something else.

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4

Unraveling Gender and Sexual Confinements in Pedro Lemebel’s Tengo miedo torero Genders can be neither true nor false, neither real nor apparent, neither original, nor derived. (Butler 180) No necesito disfraz Aquí está mi cara Hablo por mi diferencia Defiendo lo que soy I don’t need a mask Here is my face I speak on behalf of my difference I defend what I am1 (Lemebel, “Hablo por mi diferencia”)

In 1994 Chilean culture (re)gendered of one of Latin America’s founding fathers, Simón Bolívar, the Liberator, who was depicted riding onto the front of a widely circulated postcard while dressed in drag and flashing an obscene gesture to her audience.2 Such a gender (re)presentation, as Christopher Conway notes, challenged the nation to question the limits of a dynamic, newly negotiated freedom of expression as this transgendered hero burst onto the front pages of newspapers and into television newscasts (2–3). The question arose: was the transitioning Chile ready for the gender-bending figure par excellence to surge onto the public stage? 1

In Pedro Lemebel’s poem “Hablo por mi diferencia,” first read at a left-wing political demonstration, the performing artist speaks of the urgency to unmask one’s identity. Lemebel calls for a celebration of diversity and the claiming of differences in the face of compromising assimilation. 2 This postcard was based on Chilean artist Juan Dávila’s painting El Libertador Simón Bolívar.

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Doris Sommer, in Foundational Fictions: The National Romances of Latin America (1991), explores the allegorical national embodiment of female protagonists in such works as Amalia (1851), Iracema (1865) and María (1867) during Latin America’s post-independence nation-building process. The permeability of strict gender expectations passed down through generations becomes apparent as a bare-breasted twentieth-century feminized twist on the nineteenth-century figure was no longer regarded as a revolutionary hero, but rather as an insult, ultimately requiring a formal apology to the Venezuelan government. The uproar caused by artist Juan Dávila’s recasting of such an important historical figure reminds us, as Raquel Olea has observed, that national projects in Latin America tend to rely on the masculine, heterosexual body to organize memory and history (110). At the same time, as Nelly Richard points out, Dávila’s painting exposes the Latin American tendency to retouch history (Masculine/Feminine 4). In this way the masking makeup somehow unveils an alternate truth, facilitating the cross-dressed figure’s front-stage role in Chile’s transition to democracy. Such an exploration of identity felt long overdue after the oppressive seventeen-year dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Following the 1970 democratic election of Salvador Allende, on September 11, 1973, the United States backed a coup d’état that brought Augusto Pinochet to power. A climate of fear ensued as strict curfews accompanied executions, internments, torture and disappearances of thousands. LGBTQ+ individuals were among those targeted by the regime’s iron fist and were subjected to human-rights atrocities. Yet, ironically, the obligatory curfew and brutal repression drove individuals into secret private spheres which would foster a sense of community and in turn strengthen collective communities.3 Bordellos, Needlework and Gender-Bending In this book, we have explored the engendered position of needlewomen in the nineteenth century, and that of female factory workers in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. While these have traditionally been the occupations of young females, Latin American cultures, such as the Muxe in the southern state of Oaxaca, Mexico, encourage transgender individuals to excel in needlework. This has been a welcome change to prostitution as the 3 Victor Robles traces the visible history of the gay movement in Chile back to 1972, when a group of LGBTQ+ advocates marched through the streets of Santiago demanding equal rights, only to be bombarded by disheartening headlines the following day in El Clarín, the pro-Allende newspaper (36). Gay rights protests were not unique to Chile during the 1970s. The LGBTQ+ cause gained momentum toward the later part of Pinochet’s tyrannical dictatorship, which had increasingly sought out, persecuted, tortured and killed individuals with sexualities alternative to heterosexual norms.

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predominant means of economic survival for individuals outside heteronormative gender classifications.4 Within Chile’s literary canon, the brothel has held its place as a safe heterotopic space for gender-norm transgression since the beginning of the twentieth century, when Naturalist writer Joaquín Bello published his novel El roto (1920), linking prostitution with the uneducated Chilean roto figure. Bello’s social critique, which included newspaper clippings of the time to verify his social stance on female prostitution, serves as a significant precedent to one of Latin America’s first novels to treat openly transvestitism, prostitution and homosexuality: José Donoso’s El lugar sin límites (1966) [Hell has no limits].5 This Boom novel is set in a brothel, a location that Rodrigo Cánovas calls the axis mundi for many writers of the period (Sexualidad y cultura 13). The story describes the unexpected twists in the life of la Manuela, a cross-dressing prostitute who lives with her daughter, la Japonesita. The novel begins with an anxious la Manuela awaiting the overtly aggressive Pancho, with his “manos duras, pesadas, como de fierro, sí las recordaba” (12) [“his hard hands, heavy like steel, yes, she remembered them”], who raped la Manuela during their last encounter. However, through her insistence on mending the flamenco dress that he once ripped, she expresses her desire to recharge their sexual energy as she continues with her “fantasías sobre sus manos abusivas” (12) [“fantasies about his abusive hands”] (12). Manuela’s dichotomous desire for Pancho, involving both attraction and fear, maintains the traditional norms of virile machismo. Manuela’s implementation of the needle and thread continues into the twenty-first century with Chilean representations of protagonists who use their sartorial arsenal for empowering artistic agency, which permits genderbending figures to leave the brothel and make a living away from the demands of the bordello. During the dictatorship, dress became a site of fierce resistance to the strict gender conformity and norms demanded by the tyrannical regime. As Mary Russo affirms in Writing on the Body: Female Embodiment and Feminist Theory (1997), “Making a spectacle out of oneself seemed a specifically feminine danger. The danger was of an exposure […] For a woman, making 4

For example, Antonio Santini and Dan Sickles’s acclaimed documentary Mala mala (2014) exposes the employment hardships experienced by transgender communities in the Puerto Rican context. 5 Critics such as Juan Pablo Sutherland have generated interest in the queer sensibility of contemporary Chilean texts. This writer examines both canonical and contemporary writers in his anthology A corazón abierto (2001). His selected texts guide the reader not only in retracing Chile’s historical literary tradition, but also in realizing that an increasing number of writers have begun to treat boldly homosexual themes (12). Instead of portraying only homoerotic desires and acts, as found in Chilean early twentieth-century literature, writers are now explicitly exploring LGBTQ+ identities.

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a spectacle out of herself had more to do with a kind of inadvertency and loss of boundaries” (318). In Chile a consideration of the history of styles, as well as the overall sociohistorical context, as found in Pía Montalva’s historical work, Morir un poco (2004), highlights the resistant nature of dressing outside gender codes. Montalva analyzes Chilean fashion between 1960 and 1976 and maintains that the dynamic nature of Chilean high fashion was stilled during the early years of the dictatorship. Confining women to maternal, traditional roles meant that skirts became mandatory for women. Public punishment and humiliation became a tool of the oppressor in an attempt to, as Judith Butler would put it, “regularly punish those who fail to do their gender right” (178). Pants were slit in the streets, creating an ambiance of fear and an obsession with conformity. However, in the latter years of the dictatorship, fashion magazines began to demonstrate a loosening of the country’s rigid conservatism.6 These images resist the culturally imposed projection of femininity and in the process diversify definitions of gender. During Pinochet’s regime, cultural theorists, writers and artists aided in the paradoxical heightening of visibility of Chilean transgendered individuals. For Richard, the explosion of this representation in art, photography, literature and theater was aligned with the double image of active male (domination) and passive female (submission) (Masculine/Feminine 1). This phenomenon grew despite the threat of censorship by the dictatorship. Some firsthand accounts, however, expose much more repressive treatment. Between 1982 and 1987, Claudia Donoso and Paz Errázuriz undertook a photographic and literary project, La manzana de Adán [Adam’s Apple], while residing with prostitutes in the Chilean cities of Talca and Santiago, once sites of violent oppression. The performative play, as represented in Donoso and Errázuriz’s collaborative work, relates the story of a family of prostitutes, consisting of brothers Eve and Pilar, and their mother. As Richard points out, these individuals celebrate the art of posing, allowing the spectator’s gaze to feast upon both masculine and feminine images while surprising the spectator with the presence of the phallic mother (6). These images masterfully play with the original-versussimulacrum polemic, and in the process, they manipulate the uncanny figure of the double. In Donoso and Errázuriz’s work, once censored by the dictatorship, one of the photographed participants, Pilar, recalls the burning of brothels and detainment of groups of people during one of many documented humanrights violations: Para el golpe estábamos con la Leila en Valparaíso y nos llevaron a todas a un barco que había arraigdo en el Puerto. Nos llevaron allá con los ojos 6

By the 1980s even El Mercurio began to show images of women dressed in suits that appear influenced by traditionally masculine attire.

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venados en una camioneta. Seis días estuve ahí amontanado, con los otros en un hoyo. Lo primero que hicieron los milicos fue cortarnos el pelo, que nos arrancaban de raíz y después nos orinaban encima. Nos pegaron tanto. A la Tamara y a la Tila las colgaron de un cordel y las daban vueltas, las hacían girar. (11) We were with Leila in Valparaiso when the coup occurred and they took all of us to a ship moored in the port. They took us there blindfolded, in a van. For six days I was left there, piled up with the others, in the hole. The first thing the soldiers did was cut our hair; they pulled it by the roots and afterward they pissed on us. They kept hitting us. They hung Tamara and Tila with a rope and made them spin, turning them round and round. (91)

Despite these dangers, many still resisted oppression in both private and public spheres. Cross-dressing represented the outer problems of national dissonance, serving as a constant reminder of the artificial standards to which “woman” must aspire. As Richard points out: The convulsion of the transvestites’ asymmetrical madness burst into a wry expression of identity which signaled the failings of uniformed(ed) and uniforming genders, dissolving their faces and façades into a doubly gendered caricature that shattered the mold of dichotomous appearances, a mold fixed by rigid systems of national and civil cataloguing and identification. (115)

During the dictatorship, by complicating gender categorization, cross-dressing became a transformative art, forging a new site of resistance that fought to disorder the gender formulas prescribed by the regime. Loca as Militant Intermediary and Needlewoman Extraordinaire Internationally renowned, Pedro Lemebel, in addition to his numerous urban chronicles, novel, and various periodical contributions, maintained a highly visible presence through performative arts. In 1987, with Francisco Casas, Lemebel cofounded the “Yeguas del Apocalipsis” or “The Mares of the Apocalypse,” blatantly challenging the repressive limits of expression.7 In their performances they rode nude through the streets of Santiago, both astride the same horse, causing a stir and defying the authorities to contain them.8 Casas describes one of their most outlandish performances: 7 Łukasz Smuga likens this act to Lemebel’s adoption of his maternal surname as rebellion against machismo (134). 8 See Francisco Casas, “Las Yeguas del Apocalipsis” (2000). Also, see Jean Franco, Reinas de otro cielo: Modernidad y autoritarismo en la obra de Pedro Lemebel

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Al amanecer del tercer día se habían vuelto locas de atar, sus vidas se habían mezclado en una. Cambiaron mutuamente de recuerdos como quien cambia de piel. Se conocían tanto, como si hubieran compartido el vientre de la potranca madre donde comenzaron a competir nonatas por el óvulo feminista. Nunca más pudieron recordar quiénes eran. (125) By the dawn of the third day they had gone raving lunatic, their lives had mixed into one. They mutually changed memories like someone changes flesh. They knew each other so much, as if they had shared the womb of the filly mother where gonads started to compete for feminist ovaries. Nevermore could they remember who they were.

Lemebel and Casas’s performance art evoked questioning from their voyeurs, even deconstructing norms within the artistic community. As Jaime Lizama notes, they challenged “la descolocación programada de la ritualidad de las formas y los honores estéticos ortógrafos por “‘la familia’ del arte” (44) [“the programmed dislocation of the forms and the esthetic honors spelled out by ‘the family’ of art”]. Their artistic contributions brought the marginalized themes of gender and sexuality to the center of the city, and in the process, to the forefront of discourse. Uninvited and theatrical, the group continued appearing at literary celebrations and political debates. Lemebel’s recent passing, mourned throughout Santiago by countless newspaper memorials and visitors paying respects, marked a milestone transition in attitudes toward an activist who refused to be silenced. The role of clothing – or in the example with Casas, the lack of clothing – is vital in the physical transformation involved in the resisting character of the representation. In “Las batallas de Coronel Robles,” for example, Chilean novelist Diamela Eltit explores the gender-organizing function of clothing: El cuerpo muestra, a través del “género,” que lo viste, la asignación a su género, en la moda que adopta, […], en la imagen vestida, lo indesmentible de su sexo. De esta manera se asiste a una paradoja, pues el cuerpo aparece vestido para dar cuenta de lo que contiene la desnudez (esa parece ser política de todos los ropajes) y como tal, la ropa des-cubre una anatomía que al vestirla la desviste. (20)

(1994). Franco stresses that Lemebel’s and Casas’s work put into Chile’s spotlight the indigenous and mestizo citizen, thus considering racial and economic dynamics along with gender. In this way, the performers represented a number of minority concerns. Their impact, as Robles recognizes, has played a vital role in Chile’s gay movement. He states that their debut in 1988 “sent shock waves through the cultural circles of Santiago,” while “homosexualizing the cultural and political discourse of the time” (35).

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The body shows, by means of the “gender/genre,” that dresses it, the assignment to one’s gender, in the fashion that one adopts, […], in the dressed image, the undeniable nature of sex. In this way, a paradox is witnessed, since the body appears dressed to expose what nudity contains (that seems to be political of all garments) and as such, the clothing uncovers an anatomy that undresses it when dressed.

The gender-categorizing principle of clothing that Eltit recognizes is especially exposed in the performances of Lemebel and Casas. Fashion and the creation of garments are ubiquitous themes in Lemebel’s writing. In “Recrear una conciencia social: Reciclar/reapropriar la moda en Loco afán: crónicas de sidario de Pedro Lemebel” [“Recreating Social Conscience: Recycling/Reappropriating Fashion in Pedro Lemebel’s Loco afán”], I examine the author’s use of upcycling and reappropriation of garments as a means of heightening social consciousness, particularly in regards to the AIDS epidemic. In the writer’s urban chronicles, cross-dressers use their creativity to devise clothing and recreate their gendered identities. In one chronicle, known as “El proyecto nombres (un mapa sentimental)” [“The Name Project (A Sentimental Map)”], the author transports the reader to the United States in 1987 to encounter a quilted tapestry of remembering. This project sews together a tapestry with the former clothes of the deceased, resulting in a unification of individual and collective memory through the making of a commemorative quilt.9 This map, as Lemebel identifies it, transcends various ethnicities and cultures and forms through: “Cruces transculturales” (92) [“Cross-cultural intercrossing”]. For the author, the reappropriated clothes carry a profound message while simultaneously lacking the sick body they once covered: “Al igual que banderas de naufragio, los Quilt’s van parchando el corazón con los restos indumentarios que alguna vez erotizaron el cuerpo de castigo” (92) [“Like wreckage flags, the Quilt’s patch the heart with the remaining clothing that once eroticized the punished body”] (92). This popular art – reminiscent of the arpilleras designed during the years of the dictatorship – visually comes together to work out the annihilation caused by the AIDS epidemic. The powerful act of sewing collaboration creates a striking visual reminder for resistance and memory. Likewise, in the novel Tengo miedo torero, the needle and thread serve as a defense against heteronormative economic independence while permitting the protagonist a creative artistic vision.10 9

The used clothing phenomenon in this text is vital. It demonstrated the importance of clothing as intimacy. As Ribeiro notes, “The intimacy of extant garments, their mimicry of the human bodies that once inhabited them, are both moving and perhaps unnerving when we consider they still exist long after their wearers have died” (3). 10 Also, Lemebel’s chronicles implement the phenomenon of used clothing in Chile, for complex identity transformation. This resourceful use of clothing, as

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In 1988 Lemebel published his collection of short stories, one of which was entitled “La loca del frente,” dedicated to the perpetual plight of the loca in Chilean culture. The image of the struggling cross-dressing individual during the Pinochet dictatorship in Lemebel’s novel, Tengo miedo torero, revivifies that protagonist of his first collection of short stories. In an interview with Faride Zerán, Lemebel describes Tengo miedo (2001) as a brief novel or an extensive chronicle that he started to write in the 1980s, but that was lost among his fans and cosmetics until the 1990s. The novel, narrated in third person, alternates between chapters that focus on la Loca and those that portray Pinochet. While the omnipresent narrator concentrates primarily on la Loca’s love affair, the reader is also given a glimpse of the dictator’s fears and phobias, especially through its presentation of parallel stories involving General Pinochet and his loquacious wife, Lucía. This account offers a rather humorous – as well as glib and demasculinized – view of the private domain of the military household. As Venkatesh recognizes, the dictator has been the focus of many historical rewritings (cf. 95). The critic draws parallels between the gender-limiting depictions of the Latin American caudillo, who dominated the nineteenth-century political scene and populated Latin American literature, and those of the twentieth-century hypermasculinized dictator. In a process the critic refers to as “writing masculinities,” Venkatesh includes Lemebel’s Tengo miedo torero as a subversive novel in the face of typical patriarchal systems, highlighting how Lemebel “writes the dictator from a Queer perspective” (101). Lemebel’s approach challenges directly the gendered and masculinized façade, one that Chilean historian Tomás Moulian has called “el Supermán criollo” [“The Creole Superman”], in which Pinochet assumed “el papel de exterminador de los marxistas y de modernizador de la sociedad chilena” [“the role of exterminator of Marxists and the modernizer of Chilean Society”] (En la brecha 22). The cover of Chile actual: Anatomía de un mito (1997), featuring half-human and half-superhero caricatures, depicts the superhuman pressures that Chilean bodies withstood during the dictatorship. Moulian points out the mythification that had overtaken Chilean culture. By entering the private sphere of the home, as dominated by his wife Lucía, who in turn is heavily influenced by her effeminate advice guru Gonzalo, Lemebel both humanizes and debilitates the tyrant who during his regime had insisted on maintaining flawless bravado in the public sphere. The novel’s rare look into the private space of the dictator, and what is depicted as limited public-space exposure, occurs while la Loca’s mobility is heightened, and she increasingly ventures into the public space of the streets and homes of her military-family clients. explored in Chapter 1, also constitutes a viable counteraction to excessive clothing production, although not without environmental repercussions, as well as detrimental effects to foreign markets.

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Berta López Morales examines the construction of “la loca” in both the aforementioned Donoso novel and Lemebel’s Tengo miedo torero, and defines the term as a “constructo social aplicado a un individuo que sugiere por su anatomía un hombre, pero en el que su lenguaje y gestualidad señalan un comportamiento femenino, atrayendo sobre sí la atención, las burlas y el menosprecio, es el callejero, el habitante del prostíbulo” (81) [“social construct applied to an individual who despite male anatomy exhibits female behavior through language and gesturing, in turn attracting attention, mockery and contempt; the figure is a street-dweller, an inhabitant of the brothel”]. While López Morales’s definition reflects the cultural stereotypes of the loca, as critic Bernardita Llanos asserts, Lemebel’s writing actually sabotages the binary systems implemented in Chile (cf. 85). The protagonist of the novel appropriates terms such as “flaming faggot,” “faggot falsetto, “flowery faggot,” “drag-queen antics,” “sissy singsong voice,” which have been derogatory categorization markers for those outside heteronormative categories. In Tengo miedo torero, Lemebel reclaims lexicon associated with the loca figure and devises a protagonist who, through embroidering, escapes the confines of the brothels and maintains her residence until she is displaced at the novel’s end due to her political involvement. The plot takes place in 1986, around the time of an attempted assassination of Pinochet.11 The historical novel juggles the divisions in ideology throughout Chile during the turbulent days brewing up to the 1988 plebiscite. Wanderlan da Silva Alves classifies the undercurrent of beliefs into three distinct visions: the conservative perspective, the revolutionary perspective and the recent perspective that allows the reflection of a historical past (cf. 193). In the novel, as we shall see, Pinochet, his wife, and other military officials perpetuate conservative rhetoric. Perhaps more surprisingly, Lemebel evens out the political scope by including secondary characters within the community who support the dictatorship despite the human-rights abuses they have suffered. One example is la Lupe, whom the narrator describes as a military-loving right-wing queen who zealously defends the regime: Qué sería de nosotras sin el toque de queda, no habría nada que echarle al pan, nos tendríamos que meter a un convento. Por eso yo amo a mi general que tiene a este país en orden. Amo a este gobierno, porque a todas las locas nos da de comer, y con el miedo, los rotos andan más calientes. (114) What would become of us girls without the curfew? We wouldn’t have anything to spread on our buns; we’d all have to enter a convent. That’s why I love my general, who has established law and order in this country. 11

The setting of the novel reflects the actual assassination attempt on September 8, 1986, that resulted in minor injuries to Pinochet and the death of five of his bodyguards.

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I love this government that is feeding all us queers. With all the fear and terror, those poor men are all the hornier. (96)

This paradox not only portrays the country’s economic advances after a period of food scarcity but also reiterates the role of the dictatorship in reinforcing – albeit inadvertently – an alternative, closed space for forbidden behavior. Unlike la Lupe’s positive take on the dictatorship’s contributions to business, the public spaces of Santiago’s turbulent streets tell the story of a fear-ridden people living in “la nirvana hitleriano” (20) [“this Hitlerian nirvana”] (11). The opening chapter paints the scene with specific references to the protests and the informative role of the Radio Cooperativa that persist throughout the novel: Una Santiago que venía despertando al caceroleo y los relámpagos del apagón; por la cadena suelta al aire, a los cables, al chispazo eléctrico. Entonces la oscuridad completa, las luces de un camión blindado, el párate ahí mierda, los disparos y las carreras de terror, como castañuelas de metal que trizaban las noches de fieltro. Esas noches fúnebres, engalanadas de gritos, del incansable «Y va a caer», y de tantos, tantos comunicados de último minuto, susurrados por el eco radial del «Diario de Cooperativa». (9) A city waking up to the sounds of banging pots and pans and lightning blackouts, electric wires dangling overhead, sputtering and sparking. Then total darkness, the headlights of an armored car, the Stop, you piece of shit!, the gunshots, and the terrified stampede, like metal castanets shattering the felt-tipped night. Gloomy nights, pierced by shouts, by the indefatigable chant of “Now he will fall!”, and the many last-minute news bulletins broadcast over the airwaves by Radio Cooperativa. (1)

The introductory description of Santiago evokes fear while the city’s darkness offers the possibility of secrecy and protection.12 The novel highlights the contradictions in media coverage, from the nationalistic “Si vas para Chile” 12 One of middle- and upper-class women’s first ventures into the public sphere occurred in Chile, as it had earlier in Argentina, through collective social protest. Eventually, public protest against certain political regimes and practices became a vehicle for gender-based resistance, though this activity remained strongly stratified on socioeconomic lines. In spite of the fact that popularly elected president Salvador Allende’s (1970–1973) oratory often included mention of women’s organization and empowerment, waves of protest began when women from conservative parties joined their male counterparts to demonstrate against Allende after his presidential election in 1970. Next to demonstrate were middle-class women, during the 1971 March of the Empty Pots, coinciding with Fidel Castro’s visit to Chile. This time, women’s voices were heard, and affected the government’s attempt to create alliances with opposition parties. The violent aftermath provoked by these upsets ultimately caused President Allende to declare a state of emergency in Santiago (Baldez 76). Women created a

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song blasted continuously on one channel to persistent warnings about electrical shortages on another other (cf. 26).13 La Loca has conflicting convictions as she is drawn to the political commentary of Radio Cooperativa’s Sergio Campos – partly because it reminds her of her revolutionary love interest – while embroidering sheets for the rich. The descriptions of the embroidered items, “con rosas sin espinas” (27) [“with thornless roses”], metaphorically hints at the comfortable, censored reality of her elite clientele – a direct contrast with the protestors, who were “sujetándose de los postes, con las medias rotas, todas chasconas, agarrándose el pecho para que esa agua no les arrebatara la foto prendida a su corazón” (27) [“chaining themselves to a lamppost with torn stockings, disheveled, clutching their chests so the filthy water wouldn’t tear away the photograph they wore over their hearts”] (18).14 The protagonist listens attentively to the devastated mothers as she embroiders, infusing her compassion in every stitch. Lemebel juxtaposes these grim images with Santiago’s springtime explosion of flowers and the city’s self-dressings in graffiti writings, presenting the reader with a binary, paradoxical and uncontained representation of beauty (cf. 19). The conflicting scene of the cityscape, from a dictatorship with an iconoclast hand to a metaphorically budding ambiance in which the metropolis is ready to transition into a new season as a simultaneous accompaniment to a burgeoning transition to democracy, is one of a series of dichotomous veins – like male/ female, homosexual/heteronormative, right-wing/left-wing – that run together with uneasy coexistence. The novel exposes these coinciding pressures that may not be neatly categorized. In this complex cityscape, la Loca del Frente falls in love with a young leftist, Carlos, and aids him – supposedly unknowingly – with his politically charged mission, despite her insistence on her non-political tendencies: “Pero new image of female resistance in Chile by using their position of domesticity to create a space of dialectic resistance. 13 In another scene, when accompanying Carlos to the countryside, the reader is reminded of the looming chaos as the two leave Santiago’s center and move into the peripheral shantytown area: “En el camino, tan cómoda junto a Carlos, su lengua parlotera, habló de cualquier cosa, evitando comentar el paisaje; cada población despellejada por el polvo, cada rotonda humeando por restos de fogatas, pedazos de muebles y letreros en el suelo que las ruedas del auto iban esquivando, zigzagueando las brasas y palos y saldos chamuscados e la noche protesta” (24) [“Once on the road, sitting so pretty next to Carlos, her chatty tongue went on about any old thing, anything to avoid commenting on the scenery: the slums flayed in dust, the smoking remains of bonfires, pieces of broken furniture and signs littering the road, the car zigzagging through the embers and the sticks and stones and burnt remnants of another night of riots”] (16). 14 The translation of “con rosas sin espinas” as “with thornless roses” is my own; the published translation does not include “thornless.”

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ella no estaba ni ahí con la contingencia política” (11) [“But she wasn’t quite there in the political fray”] (3). As critics have noted, echoes of Manuel Puig’s Beso de la mujer araña (1976) appear in the relationship between the guerrilla and the feminized man, which Lemebel describes as “un poco cliché del macho izquierdista y la loca enamorada del revolucionario” [“a little cliché of a leftist macho and a queen enamored with a revolutionary”] (interview Faride Zerán).15 The economic undertones of this subaltern group treat sexuality and gender identity intermingled with issues of race. Although the mestiza identity is not strongly foregrounded in Tengo miedo torero, we learn that the protagonist, whose only name is “la Loca del Frente” [“the Queen from the Corner”] is the daughter of an indigenous huacho man.16 While issues of race are fleeting, class and sexuality are treated explicitly as the protagonist differentiates between poor “queers” and wealthier “homosexuals”: “los maricones pobres nunca van a la universidad, lindo. Pero yo conozco muchos homosexuales que estudian en la universidad. ¿Y se les nota? ¿Son locas fuertes como yo, por ejemplo?” (130) [“Poor queers never go to the university, darling. But I know lots of homosexuals studying at the university. But can you tell? I mean, are they real queens like me?”] (112).17 Throughout the novel, the character’s 15

Also see da Silva Alves, “Fronteras del deseo: Melodrama y crítica social en Tengo miedo torero de Pedro Lemebel” (cf. 184). 16 The term huacho in Chile refers to an orphan, or in this context, an illegitimate child. Taking both ethnicity and gender into consideration, Chilean sociologist and novelist Sonia Montecino Aguirre has written extensively about gender and family roles within Chile’s mestizo context and, like Cánovas, has identified a similar sense of orphanhood and loneliness in post-dictatorship writings. While considering the nineteenth-century mine setting, which promoted prostitution and servanthood, hacienda and city dwellers relied on domestic employees referred to as chinas (the women of indigenous descent). Montecino Aguirre recognized a predominant family pattern: the mother’s active role and the father’s absence (cf. 47–50). 17 In Sexual Textualities, David William Foster discusses the importance of “loan words” such as “homosexual” and “gay” in contemporary Latin American lexicon. The term “homosexual,” typically associated with medical terminology, is often replaced by “gay.” However, in Spanish and Portuguese, as Foster notes, because the word “gay” often sounds foreign, it carries with it the threat of foreign ideology, becoming associated with a middle and privileged class, and with the consumption of foreign culture and international lifestyle (cf. 5). Class and sexuality are reoccurring themes in Lemebel’s work. The first urban chronicle included in Loco afán, “La Noche de los visones (o la última fiesta de la Unidad Popular),” sets the scene for the tensions between sexual and class identity during the last days of the Pinochet regime. As Palaversich concludes, it presents a nostalgic look at Allende’s revolution, while giving precedence to class identity versus sexual identity (114). In the first chronicle, we see the strain between the “regias” and “las rotas” (the high-class versus low-class, respectively) as they feast together at the last party of the Unidad Popular.

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distinctions of non-heteronormative sexual and gender labels remind readers of the diverse gamut of identities that are lumped together into a homogeneous classification as the sexual “other.” Gender performativity has been the focus of a number of critical articles on this novel.18 While these analyses focus on the performative nature of la Loca, the importance of Carlos’s gender act is often ignored. From the beginning of the novel, both characters’ performative inclinations are apparent through primary identification marked by pseudonyms. When la Loca guides Carlos on the placement of the boxes she will hide, she speaks his name with almost every request: “Como si la repetición del nombre bordara sus letras en el aire arrullado por el eco de su cercanía” (13) [“as if by repeating his name she were embroidering those letters in the air that vibrated languidly in his presence”] (4). When la Loca discovers Carlos’s identity card, he offers to disclose his true identity, but instead, she respects his privacy, likening his use of an alias to her use of nicknames during her days as a performer: ¿Quieres mirarlo ahora? o ¿quieres que yo te lo diga? Aunque yo prefiero, por seguridad, que me conozcas por Carlos que es mi chapa. ¿Y qué es eso de chapa? Algo así como un apodo, un seudónimo. Cuando yo hacía show travesti usaba seudónimo, nombre de fantasía le dicen los colas. ¿Y cuál era tu nombre de travesti? ¿Y por qué te lo voy a decir si tú no me dices el tuyo? Esto es otra cosa mariposa, rió Carlos, guardando el carnet, es político, es otro nombre para actuar en la clandestinidad. (121) Do you want to look now? Or do you want me to tell you? Though I would prefer, for security’s sake, that you know me by Carlos, that’s my alias. What do you mean, alias? Sort of like a nickname, a pseudonym. When I performed in transvestite shows I had a nickname, a drag name, the queens call it. And what was your drag name? And why should I tell you mine if you don’t tell me yours? That’s totally different, darling – Carlos laughed, putting his card away – this is political; we use a different name so we can function clandestinely. (102–3)

18

See López Morales, “La construcción de ‘la loca’ en dos novelas chilenas: El lugar de límites de José Donoso y Tengo miedo torero de Pedro Lemebel”; Samuel Manickam, “La sexualidad desafiante frente al dictador en Tengo miedo torero”; Łukasz Smuga, “Subversión del orden politico y genérico-sexual en Tengo miedo torero de Pedro Lemebel”; Juan Pablo Neyret, “Entre acción y actuación: La politización del kitsch en El beso de la mujer araña de Manuel Puig y Tengo miedo torero de Pedro Lemebel”; Vinodh Venkatesh, “Gender, Patriarchy and the Pen(is) in Three Rewritings of Latin American History”; and Rosa Tapia, “Dictadores y travesties: Transexualidad e identidad nacional en la narrative de Ecuardo Medicutti y Pedro Lemebel.”

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Although Carlos differentiates the justification of their nicknames – his is political, hers is by inference personal – la Loca’s anonymity is of a political nature as well, as she resists gender and sexual conformity during the dictatorship. Nelly Richard describes the culture of nicknaming in the Chilean LGBTQ+ community during the dictatorship as a means of altering and (re)performing one’s identity; she gives the two examples of artists Leppe and Dávila, who retouched their biographical names: Both transferred to art the transvestism of naming and the transvestite’s decorative impulse, which refashions the name as a first matrix of identity in order to correct the defect of monosomia through and with added elements. This constitutes the first ceremony of a refounding of identity, in which the transvestite consummates the act of disaffiliation, betraying the definitive quality of inherited names (one’s proper name) with transitory names – Marilyn, Sultana, Brigitte, and so on – that rebaptize, but without the ontological weight of the birth date’s designated saint, now profaned by the exuberance of a capricious pseudonym. (Masculine/Feminine 4)

In Tengo miedo torero, the importance of this poetics resides in the equivalent terra incognita of the characters’ real names. In his interview with Faride Zerán, Lemebel discusses the protagonist’s ambiguous, all-inclusive designation, “la Loca”: Por eso no tiene nombre, porque en ella se agolpan todos los nombres del travestismo o del folclore maripozón. Es una contradicción como estereotipo. Por un lado, arriesgada a toda pólvora, pero por amor, o calentura, no sé bien. Por otro, es una pluma en el vendaval del atentado. No quise personificar demasiado a la loca del frente, precisamente para repartir su gran capacidad amatoria o deseante. (letrasmysite.com) For that reason, she doesn’t have a name, because in her all the names of transvestism and queer folklore are agglomerated. She is a contradiction as a stereotype. On the one hand, risking everything, for love, or sexual heat, I’m not sure. On the other hand, she is a feather in the strong wind of an attack. I didn’t try to personify too much the queen on the corner, precisely to divvy up her great potential to be a good lover.

For some critics – Butler and Lauretis, for example – individuals who dress in clothes non-normative for their gender undo gender stereotypes by in fact reinforcing them; likewise, Lemebel seizes the opportunity to play on binary groupings to embody and simultaneously contradict the stereotypes that la Loca represents. The protagonist’s nickname evokes political undertones inadvertently as a gender and sexual resistance during the dictatorship and more blatantly as an affiliate of the group that attempted the Pinochet

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assassination. The English translation – “The Queen on the Corner” – refers to the physical locatedness of the protagonist, arguably one that hints at an implied sexual profession. As da Silva Alves points out, the “Loca del Frente” also carries: “referencia directa en la novela al grupo guerrilero chileno de la época llamado Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodríguez, de oposición a Pinochet” (194) [“direct reference in the novel to the Chilean guerilla group of the time, the Patriotic Front Manual Rodríguez, [who was] Pinochet’s opposition”]. This overt reference to resistance provides the reader with a glimpse of la Loca’s political activity despite her continual insistence on obliviousness. Part of la Loca’s political agency arises from her economic independence. Early in the novel we learn that she sustains herself through embroidery. As she listens to the golden oldies of syrupy ballads, “así se le pasaba tardes enteras bordando esos enormes manteles y sábanas para alguna vieja aristócrata que le pagaba bien el arácnido oficio de sus manos” (11) [“that’s how she spent whole afternoons, embroidering sheets and oversized tablecloths for aristocratic old ladies who paid a high price for her renderings of Arachne’s art”]. This art reflects women’s handicraft movements during the dictatorship. López Morales regards embroidery as “una muestra de sumisión y de pertenencia a la marginalidad que debe conformarse con el lugar que el Poder le asigna” (101) [“a demonstration of submission and belonging to the marginality that must conform to the place that the Power assigns it”]. This textile art provided a conflicting site of both perpetuation of gender expectations and resistance during Pinochet’s dictatorship. As a tangible sign of his intent to cultivate domesticity, Pinochet himself appointed his wife, Lucía Hiriart, as the director of the newly created Secretaría Nacional de la Mujer and of the Centro de Madres, both of which promoted craft-based workshops for women (Kaplan 73). At the same time, textile art, as Marjorie Agosín explores in Tapestries of Hope, Threads of Love: The Arpillera Movement in Chile, 1974–1994, was a site of resistance during the dictatorship: Each stitch is made by a woman wanting to respond and give a glimpse into the intimacy of life. I have often seen how the fabric is full of tears when memory is not ambiguous but personal and in a concrete form that is in radical opposition to the actions of the dictatorship. An arpillera has the power to give a voice to a witness and to allow her to imagine the unimaginable. The arpillera always surprises, because at first glance it gives the impression that it is an innocent art, but it is not. It is an art denouncing torture, forced disappearances, and violence. (17)

Likewise, for la Loca craft offers artistic and bodily exploration, as well as mobility. This artform presents an alternative to prostitution and a fulfilling means to make ends meet. Unlike la Manuela of Donoso’s El lugar sin límites, Lemebel’s la Loca chooses to leave the brothel and her performances, intending instead to

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embroider, ironically, for military families during the dictatorship. In Chapter 5, the narrative turns to the life la Loca left behind as a prostitute. In contrast with El lugar sin límites, where, as Cánovas notes, the brothel’s centralized location controls the town’s activity (Sexualidad y cultura 7), Tengo miedo torero’s peripheral and shabby bordello is located at the city’s other extreme. The grim la Recoleta, owned by la Lupe, la Fabiola and la Rana, was a starting point for la Loca at the onset of her sexual and gender identity formation. During that time, the brothel’s workers were her only social connection since she was ostracized from mainstream society. One veteran prostitute, la Rana, takes in and cleans up the destitute la Loca: Incluso antes de encontrar su casa, cuando ella era una callejera perdida, la única que le había dado alojamiento y un plato de comida era la Rana, una veterana cola de noventa kilos que la acogió como una madre, aconsejándola que no se dejara morir, que la cortara con el trago, […] la encaraba la Rana, obligándola a bañarse, presentándole ropa limpia, mientras quemaba con asco los trapos que hervían de piojos achicharrados por el fuego. (72–3) Before she had found her own house, when she was down-and-out and on the street hustling, the only person who gave her a place to stay and a plate of food was Rana, a two-hundred-pound veteran who treated her like a daughter, encouraging her not to let herself die, to lay off the booze, […] Rana would remind her, forcing her to take a bath, lending her clean clothes while she burned the old rags teeming with lice that sizzled in the flames. (58)

La Rana provides for la Loca’s basic needs in a society where her options are few. Through this comradeship, the presence of community constitutes an empowered unity in the face of marginality.19 This community support also involves education, as la Rana does not merely provide the destitute prostitute with temporary aid to alleviate her 19 Community initiatives such as the olla común [“the common pot”], which first gained popularity during the Great Depression, experienced resurgence during the 1980s – a time of national economic hardship that hit Chile’s lower socioeconomic population particularly hard – and demonstrated the fortitude of the community. The symbolism of the olla común would continue to infiltrate the Chilean psyche. In the first year of its publication, The Clinic, a biweekly newspaper initiated in 1988 in an attempt to resist conservative periodical sources, published a recipe for transition, “el caldo de transición,” metaphorically linking political resistance to the practice of the olla común during the dictatorship. The humble recipe, lauding the provisions of women who worked together to form soup kitchens in shanty towns, reflects the reappropriation of their efforts as a metaphor for community involvement, sacrifice and comradeship during the transition to democracy.

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current ailments. Rather, she teaches her a trade that will result in economic independence instead of placing her with the other prostitutes in her residence. La Loca’s elder cares for her and mentors her on a gendered trade distinct from that involving her sexuality: Después la Rana le dio trabajo. Porque no va a estar de princesa la linda aquí. Así que toma esta sábana, esta aguja, y saca hilo de color para que aprendas a bordar […] Así la vieja Rana le había dado las armas para ganarse la vida bordando servilletas, manteles y sábanas con punto cruz, con bolillo, con deshilado y naveta que aprendió a manejar como una experta en poco tiempo. (73) Then Rana gave her work to do. You’re not going to be the pretty little princess in this house, so pick up this sheet, this needle, and a piece of colored thread and learn how to embroider […] This was how good old Rana had given her the tools she needed to earn a living, by embroidering napkins, tablecloths, and sheet with a cross-stitch, running stitch, and fill stitch, all of which she learned to do like an expert in a very short time. (58–9)

La Loca’s talent is compared to that of Arachne, and allows her to charge old aristocratic ladies outlandish prices for her pieces. The needlewoman soon surpasses her mentor’s knowledge and is accused of stealing clientele from her teacher, and is forced to find a new residence: Y la vida le fue cambiando al recibir partidas de trabajos caros para tiendas pitucas y familias aristocráticas que aún conservan la costumbre de la lencería hecha a mano. Y por eso se tuvo que ir de esa casa, porque superó a la Rana en sus diseños más novedosos, en su puntada pioja, meticulosa y delicada que coloreaba de oros los capullos de sus sedoso bordar. (73) Her life changed when she began receiving orders for well-paid work from ritzy shops and aristocratic families who still preserved the tradition of having their linens hand-embroidered. And that’s why she had to leave that house, because she surpassed Rana in her designs, her tiny stitches, so meticulous and delicate, that spread like a golden foreskin across her silky fabrics. (59)

The rift between la Loca and her needlework instructor forces the protagonist to leave the confined brothel where prostitutes must wait in a private space for their clientele. Art and body merge, as la Loca fashions a metaphorical “golden foreskin,” a gendered protection of her newfound artistic and financial space. Instead of living in the brothel, she financially supports herself in her own humble home, which is a space of artistic production and business. La Loca’s apartment is small, damaged by earthquakes, and “Tantos años cerrada, tan llena de ratones ánimas y murciélagos” (10) [“Boarded up for so

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many years, so full of rats and ghosts and bats”] (2). Yet for the protagonist, her home is a safe space, and one in which she takes great pride: Aquella casa primaveral del 86 era su tibieza. Tal vez lo único amado, el único espacio propio que tuvo en su vida la Loca del Frente. Por eso el afán de decorar sus muros como torta nupcial. Embetunando las cornisas con pájaros, abanicos, enredaderas de nomeolvides y esos manteles de Manila que colgaban del piano invisible. (12) In the spring of ’86, that house was her refuge, the only thing, perhaps, that she had ever loved, the only space the Queen of the Corner had ever been able to call her own. Thus the great care she took in adorning the walls like a wedding cake, populating the cornices with birds, fans, flowering vines, and lace mantillas draped over the invisible piano. (3)

Within the safe space of the apartment, she performs, belting out old melodramatic ballads despite the neighbors’ whisperings. In this way, her space is semiprivate, slightly opened by la Loca to include the neighbors in her gendered performance. She takes great care of her tattered surroundings, decorating them and filling them with objects of her choosing. La Loca’s space is one of creation and economic independence. Moreover, when Carlos and his comrades ask her to hide their materials, she does so through her interior dressing, camouflaging the boxes with the fruits of her labor. She uses the cargo throughout the house like furniture, while adorning it with her textile creations. As an artisan, la Loca now works in a less restricted, more mobile context, leaving behind her private sphere and gaining entrance into other restricted domains, even though the trade remains traditionally female-dominated. Instead of depending on men for economic support, la Loca, as proprietress of her embroidery services, actually gains access to visit and observe the upper-class Chilean society. The instance in which la Loca enters the upperclass houses provides the novel with an opportunity for class critique. For example, while she awaits Doña Catita, one of her most esteemed clients, la Loca marvels at the military wife’s house while, at the same time, noting the institutionalized ambiance of her surroundings: “Cómo le gustaría tener una cocina así, tan fresquita con esas cortinas almidonadas que mecía el aire hospitalario de ese lugar” (58) [“How she would love to have a kitchen like this, so fresh and clean, with those little starched curtains stirring gently in the breeze, like in a hospital room”] (47). This access gives her a firsthand look at the strange eating habits of the upper class – “los ricos comen como pájaros, apenas un petibuché, una cagadita de margarina diet en una cáscara de pan sintético” (58) [“It must be because the rich eat like birds, just a few finger foods, whore d’oeuvres, a pat of diet margarine on synthetic bread”] (47) – as well as a chance to view the gothic surroundings that look like Dracula’s

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table (cf. 48). Finally, her imagination culminates with the grand dinner that she imagines having taken place on September 11, 1973, the day of Salvador Allende’s assassination. During her daydream, she begins to think about Carlos. Although she supposes that he was a child then, he still represents, for la Loca, the prototypical Marxist victim of the massacre. This association triggers an elaborate series of grotesque images, which portray the generals as metaphorically making themselves up with blood instead of makeup: En su cabeza de loca enamorada el chocar de las copas se transformó en estruendo de vidrios rotos y licor sangrado que corría por las bocamangas de los alegres generales […] Para hartarse de ellos mismos en el chupeteo de huesos descarnados y vísceras frescas, maquillando sus labios como payasos macabros. Ese jugo de cadáver pintaba sus bocas, coloreaba sus risas mariconas con el rouge de la sangre que se limpiaban en la carpeta. (61) From the depths of her fantasies of a faggot in love, she watched the chin-chin of the crystal turn into the shattering of broken glass and bloody liquor that ran down the sleeves of the happy generals […] [they] gorge themselves, suck on bare bones and fresh viscera, smearing on their makeup like some kind of ghastly clowns. The juice of the cadavers painted their lips, covering their bastard smiles with bloody lipstick they wiped on the tablecloth. (49–50)

The scene in this “drag queen performance,” in which the generals apply blood as lipstick, is reminiscent of the banquet imagery drawn by Mikhail Bakhtin in Rabelais and His World (1941), where the theorist explores the importance of carnival, laughter, and official feasts in the Middle Ages and Renaissance as stable markers of unchanging hierarchy (cf. 9). The grotesque plays an important role in the social inscription of body identity within the social context. Eating and drinking, both primary bodily functions, contribute to the image of this abject body: The distinctive character of this body is its open unfinished nature, its interaction with the world. These traits are most fully and concretely revealed in the act of eating; the body transgresses here its own limits: it swallows, devours, rends the encounter of man with the world, which takes place inside the open, biting, rending, chewing mouth […] Here the man tastes the world, introduces it into his body, makes it a part of himself […] Man’s encounter with the world in the act of eating is joyful, triumphant; he triumphs over the world, devours it without being devoured himself. The limits between man and the world are erased, to man’s advantage. (281)

For Bakhtin, eating allows the body to conquer its environment. La Loca’s idea of the feasting table also includes a hierarchy, a class distinct from her own. After reconstructing her version of that cannibalistic celebration,

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morbidly juxtaposing red wine with blood and juicy meat with cadavers, la Loca becomes nauseous and can no longer resist the urge to flee from the house with her embroidered tablecloth, an item more valuable than just an economic transfer for the protagonist: “A sus ojos de loca sentimental, el blanco mantel bordado de amor lo habían convertido en un estropicio de babas y asesinatos. A sus ojos de loca hilandera, el albo lienzo era la sábana violácea de un crimen, la mortaja empapada de patria donde naufragaban sus pájaros y angelitos” (61) [“Her sentimental sissy eyes watched as they turned her virginal tablecloth embroidered with so much love into a mayhem of murder and drool. Her seamstress sissy eyes saw the off-white linen turned into a violet-colored crime sheet, the drenched shroud of a nation where her angels and birds were drowning”] (50). In la Loca’s imagining of a political feast, the needleworker’s artistic creation presents a visual microcosm of the nation’s oftentimes violent measures toward diverse voices involved in artistic resistance. In creating the eloquent embroidered piece, la Loca exhibits agency through the implementation of her creative – and politically charged – decisions regarding its design. For example, la Loca, who enjoys her esteemed status as an artist, opts not to embroider the Chilean coat-of-arms for the head of the table as her aristocratic client had requested. In a hypothetical dialogue la Loca imagines voicing her opinion to Doña Catita, responding to the patron’s questioning with her own artistic view: “Sabe, yo encontré que era recargarlo demasiado. Sí, sé que usted insistió que era importante. Pero qué quiere que le diga, se veía…, cómo decirle…, un poco picante. Como mantel de fonda” (49) [“I thought it would have looked a bit overdone… Yes, I know you told me how important it was. But what do you want me to say? It looked… how can I say it… tacky? Like something you’d see in a roadside tavern”] (38). La Loca’s embroidery is not only an economic means of survival in which she would “prostitute out” her values to please the upper class, but rather a medium of autonomous self-expression. Fleeing the general’s house, la Loca places in jeopardy her relationship with one of her most prestigious clients. She keeps the domestic article and places sentimental attachment to her work before economic prosperity. While la Loca’s profession as a needleworker permits her economic freedom, her outer appearance, highlighted through her gendered female attire, facilitates her opportunities to challenge authorities. During her most fond outing with Carlos, she prepares for a picnic at the picturesque Cajón de Maipú. While gathering food and her treasured self-embroidered tablecloth, the aged protagonist vacillates over what she should wear. Although she is worried that her appearance will be outlandish and “queenish,” when they are stopped by the military police on the way to the site, Carlos quickly seizes the opportunity to utilize la Loca’s gender performance to get them out of a less-than-desirable situation.

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Ponte el sombrero, ¿quieres? ¿Y para qué? Para que te vean como dama elegante. Pero… Póntelo te digo y hazte la loca. Hazlo por mí, después te explico […] Por eso le hizo caso, porque no le costaba nada ponerse el sombrero amarillo y los lentes de gata y los guantes con puntitos y güeviar a los milicos. No le costaba nada hacerlos reír con su show de mala muerte, dejándolos tan encandilados que ni siquiera revisaron el auto y apenas miraron los documentos de Carlos que estaba tan nervioso. Y los dejaron pasar sin problemas gritando: «Feliz luna de miel, maricones». (25) How about you put on your hat? Why should I? So you look like an elegant lady. But – I’m telling you, put it on and do your drag-queen thing. Do it for me, I’ll explain later. […] But she did as he asked, because it was no skin off her back to put on the yellow hat and her cat’s-eye glasses and her polka-dot gloves and give those soldiers a run for their money. It was no sweat for her to make them laugh at her sleazy show, leaving them so turned on and unnerved they didn’t even check the car and barely looked at the documents Carlos, who was so very nervous, handed them. And they let them pass without a hitch, shouting after them, “Happy honeymoon, maricones.” (16–17)

The couple invert the officials’ laughter, glowing in their victory. Carlos congratulates la Loca’s performance: “Lo hiciste muy bien. Es que tengo alma de actriz. En realidad yo no soy así, actúo solamente” (25) [“Excellent job. I have the soul of an actress; I’m not like that, you see, it’s all just a show”] (17). Curiously, in this passage, la Loca denies that she is inherently connected to the gender dressings that superficially appear to define her, thus further obscuring gender norms. By “acting” the stereotypical queen, la Loca succeeds in resisting the officials. In foregrounding the theatrical, performative component of dressing, Lemebel inverts sexuality as associated with gender, but also the inner/outer paradigm, allowing for a questioning of reality itself. By granting a unique, self-defining space, cross-dressing gives agency to otherness. In the encounters with military officials, Lemebel’s novel explores the dissonance caused when one’s physical appearance does not match up with gender confinements. The success of this gender performance occurs when Pinochet delights in the “normal” heterosexual couple he sees in the countryside, before reflecting on their gender-prescribed attire and realizing he has been duped: Como esa pareja del sombrero amarillo. Él corriendo con la cámara fotográfica, muy joven, con el pelo al viento y la camisa abierta. Y ella tan señorita de sombrero, tan dama y colijunta sentada de medio lado en el pasto. Tan extraña esa mujer como de una foto antigua. Tan rara con esos hombros anchos y esa cara de hombre. Y ahora que lo pensaba mejor, ahora que la recordaba con más calma, caía en cuenta que era eso. ¡Un maricón!, gritó indignado despertando a su mujer que saltó en el asiento

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perdiendo el sombrero. ¿Qué cosa? ¿Qué te pasa hombre que me asustaste. ¿Te acuerda de aquella pareja del sombrero amarillo, cuando veníamos? Eran homosexuales, mujer y dos homosexuales. (45–6) Like that couple with the yellow hat. Now that the caravan was climbing the hill he remembered them, picturing her there on that rocky slope. He was running around with a camera, he looked very young, his hair blowing in the wind, and his shirt loose. And she looking so dainty with her hat, so ladylike and modest sitting to the side on the grass. That woman was strange, almost like something out of an old photograph. So odd-looking, with those broad shoulders and that masculine face. And now that he thought about it, now that he was recalling it more calmly, he realized what it was. A maricón! He shouted indignantly, awakening his wife who leaped out of her seat, her hat falling off. What? What’s going on? You frightened me! They were homosexuals, two homosexuals. (35)

This passage stresses the effectiveness of la Loca’s performance, as even the homophobic general first admires her as a woman. Also, while Pinochet is ultimately unable to enjoy himself because of the “homosexuals who have taken over like the communists,” Carlos and la Loca playfully enjoy their time together. In Gender Trouble Butler unpacks the complexities of societal definitions of gender, sex and performance, arguing the “giddiness” involved in the drag queen’s performance lies “in the recognition of a radical contingency in the relation between sex and gender in the face of cultural configurations of causal unities that are regularly assumed to be natural and necessary” (175). Unfazed by her surroundings, la Loca poses for the camera as Carlos insists on taking a picture of her, documenting the gender play that makes la Loca capable of provoking an unprecedented response from the general. In the novel, the relationship between Pinochet and Lucía – the general and the wife, following the novel’s preference for pseudonyms – forms a parallel with that of Carlos and la Loca. The narrator’s gaze on Carlos gives rise to issues of masculinity because, as Venkatesh notes, although the descriptions are masculinized they are presented through a highly sensualized gaze, resulting in a “queering” of the communist rebel (cf. 102–3). The first instance of suffering that the protagonist endures regarding her lack of compliance with heteronormative standards involves her father, who is determined to alter her gender identity by almost any means necessary: La profesora decía que un médico podía enronquecerme la voz, que sólo un médico podía afirmar esa caminada sobre huevos, esos pasitos fifí que hacían reír a los niños y le desordenaban la clase. Pero él contestaba que eran puras huevadas, que solamente el Servicio Militar iba a corregirme. Por eso a los dieciocho años me fue a inscribir, habló con un sargento amigo para que me dejaran en el regimiento. (17)

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The teacher told him that a doctor could make my voice deeper, that only a doctor could change the way I walked, as if stepping on eggs, with prancing footsteps that made the kids laugh, sending the whole class into an uproar. But he said it was all crap, that only the military could whip me into shape. So, when I turned eighteen, he enlisted me, and a sergeant friend of his agreed to let me join his regiment. (8)

La Loca’s violent exposure to homophobia leaves her with a sense of betrayal: family, classmates, and country all turning their backs on her true identity. Smuga explores these instances of homophobia in the novel, especially those among friends (citing an almost violent sexual encounter between Carlos and a close friend) and family (referring to la Loca’s experience with her father), and elaborates on the importance of community, resulting in affectionate pseudonyms such as “mother and daughter” (cf. 137). These relationships deconstruct the delimiting confines of the heteronormalized, traditional definitions of family, a unit oftentimes failing for individuals outside of societal norms such as in the aforementioned abuse by la Loca’s father. Carlos’s tender encounters with la Loca occur while he radiates traditional macho characteristics, all filtered through a sexual gaze: “Ese hombrecito tan sutilmente masculino” (119) [“that young man was so subtly masculine”] (101), “la cintura masculina empapada de sudor” (46) [“that masculine waist drenched in sweat”] (36), “esa guata de hombre” (46) [“that masculine belly”] (36). Pinochet, on the other hand, is portrayed as infantile, vengeful and henpecked by the first lady, a superficial character known for her foreign-brand dresses and ceaseless nagging.20 The novel depicts her entry into the position of a public figure as one that has transformed her: “El título de Primera Dama había transformado a la joven sencilla que conoció cuando era soldado raso. Esa niña de liceo allá en la provincial, donde alguna vez también compartieron 20 In “Military Fashion and Coup d’Etat in Chile,” Carmen Oquendo-Villar highlights the importance of image during the dictatorship until Pinochet’s death: “Fashion, specifically uniforms of rule, played an important role in creating the emergent dictator’s image” (445). The interplay of media outlets during the coup d’état – radio, television, and newspapers – presented disjointed fragments of news updates, seemingly revealing and withholding information at the same time. Despite television audiences’ unfamiliarity with military regalia, “military uniforms served to mitigate the vacuum of power that ensued from the demolition of the old order and the anonymous leadership that tried to fill the vacuum” (445). Image manipulation secured the perpetuation of masculine gender roles and a distancing from Salvador Allende’s critiqued clothing selections: “His imported silk ties and other similarly expensive clothing were used as indicators of his exquisite bourgeois taste and privileged economic status. They took to calling the socialist president a pije (dandy), a desclasado (class traitor), and a comunista-socialista de alfombra persa (communista-socialista with a Persian carpet)” (446).

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un picnic campestre igual que esa pareja de sombrero amarillo” (31) [“The title of First Lady had totally transformed the simple young woman he had first met when he was a soldier, that provincial schoolgirl from the small town where they too had once enjoyed a picnic in the countryside, like that couple with the yellow hat”] (22). Unknowingly the dictator yearns for a semblance of normality and bliss from the gender-bending couple, la Loca and Carlos, who remind him of his former relationship with his wife. In what is perhaps an ironic twist, Lucía, instead of receiving her advice from her dictator husband, chirps continuously of what she has learnt from her mentor: a feminized member of staff named Gonzalo (cf. 65). While Lucía receives all her fashion advice from “Gonza,” as she refers to him, she also attempts to manipulate her husband’s appearance, suggesting red uniforms to lighten up the mood of the drab military attire (cf. 29). The general’s wife uses his fashion choices as a gateway to enter his psyche regarding public opinion of his regime: Que Gonzalo me dijo, que Gonzalo dice, que Gonzalo cree, que debieras tomar en cuenta la opinión de Gonza, que es tan fino y tiene tan buen gusto. Y dice que todo es cosa de estética y color. Que la gente no está descontenta contigo ni con tu gobierno. Que la culpa la tiene el gris de los uniformes, ese color tan depresivo, tan sobrio, tan apagado, tan poco combinable. (29) Gonzalo told me, Gonzalo says, Gonzalo thinks, you really should take Gonzalo’s opinion into account, he’s so refined, has such good taste. And he says everything, absolutely everything, is a question of aesthetics and color. That people aren’t really unhappy with you or your government. That the problem is the gray color of your uniforms, such a depressing color, so dull, and it doesn’t go with anything. (20–1)

The dictator’s insecurities are exposed in an unlikely way through what Venkatesh calls a unique triangulation: “The queer Gonzalo, who although he does not appear explicitly in the novel provides a homosexual object to Pinochet’s homophobia. Gonzalo importantly does not have his own voice but speaks through the dictator’s wife, which compounds the intimacy afforded by historicizing the patriarch” (104). The final test of Pinochet’s masculinity occurs when he defecates on himself during the attempted assassination by the communist rebels. While Venkatesh regards this incident as a “staining of the patriarch” (cf. 104), the critic does not draw parallels between this abject action and those of the gay private spaces in the novel, such as the X-rated movie theater where la Loca spends an afternoon.21 As in the imaginary scene 21 Julia Kristeva’s Powers of Horror (1982) considers the relationship between observer and Other, the taboo subject. Kristeva utilizes both the noun form “abject” – meaning the taboo or unclean, the border, the indefinable – and the verb “to abject,” or to release, to let go, to discharge. Thus, we may recognize the proximity of ourselves

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in which generals ravenously feast, leaving blood-stained remnants of lipstick – a feminized visual clue linking the figures of power with the trans community – Pinochet’s defecation likens him to the bodily happenings involved in the forbidden taboo spaces he negates. While the novel lauds the masculinized character of Carlos in the face of the demasculinized figure of Pinochet, we also see a binary representation between la Loca and Lucía: the former acts instead of passively critiquing.22 The first lady’s chatter is largely empty, devoid of political substance. In contrast, la Loca, despite her apparent lack of interest in Carlos’s political involvement, is frustrated when her lover considers her incapable of discussing such matters. She criticizes him for assuming she is ignorant of his operation: “Diciéndole siempre: depués te explico, tú no entiendes, mañana conversamos. ¿Creía que ella era una loca tonta, una bodega para guardar cajas y paquetes misteriosos?” (36) [“And always telling her I’ll explain later, you wouldn’t understand, we’ll talk tomorrow. Did he think she was a fool as well as a queen, a mere warehouse for storing boxes and mysterious packages?”] (27). While la Loca appears politically ambivalent, throughout the novel she exercises her concern for the sociopolitical state of her country. While riding on the public bus and listening to an older woman grumble about the protestors and their convictions, la Loca finally rebuts with a public scene: Entonces, no aguantó más y las palabras le salieron a borbotones; mire señora, yo creo que alguien tiene que decir algo en este país, las cosas que están pasando, y no todo está tan bien como dice el gobierno. Además fijesé que en todas partes hay militares como si estuviéramos en guerra, ya no se puede dormir con tanto balazo. Mirando a todos lados, la Loca del Frente to the abject, as we ourselves engage in the action of “abjecting” in order to survive: “There, I am at the border of my condition as a living being. My body extricates itself, as being alive, from that border. Such waste drops so that I might live, until from loss to loss, nothing remains in me and my entire body falls beyond the limit-cadere, cadaver” (3). This discourse creates a space for memory to surface, often allowing a “border” or connection between living and dead and, in turn, an opportunity for self-preservation. Kristeva’s theories on the abject demonstrate the artificialities of the inside/outside binary, both literally and figuratively. 22 This representation occurs despite the Pinochet regime’s efforts to perpetuate the image of the “real” Chilean woman as mother and housewife. As a tangible sign of his intent, Pinochet himself appointed his wife, Lucía Hiriart, as the director of the newly created Secretaría Nacional de la Mujer and of the Centro de Madres, both of which promoted craft-based workshops for women (Kaplan 73). Yet gender roles, or political agendas, were not always clear-cut. For example, in a 1985 interview with women’s magazine YA, Lucía Hiriart expressed her own progressive views, such as on the implementation of divorce in Chile, which, she claimed, would especially empower poor women (9).

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se asustó al decir eso, porque en realidad nunca se había metido en política, pero el alegato le salió del alma. (55–6) Finally, unable to take it any longer, the words cascaded out of her mouth. Excuse me ma’am, but I think somebody’s got to talk about what’s really going on in this country, because everything’s not as great as the government says. Just look around you. There are soldiers everywhere, as if we were at war, and you can’t even sleep anymore with so many explosions and shootings. The Queen of the Corner looked around and became frightened as she spoke, because to tell the truth she had never been involved in politics, but these convictions rose up straight out of her soul. (45)

Upon receiving applause from nearby students who overheard her monologue, she convinces herself that she too has the right to express her concern: “Bah, uno tiene que defender lo que cree justo, se dijo, soprendéndose un poco de pensar así” (56) [“Bah, a girl’s got to stand up for what she believes, the Queen said to herself, surprised by her own ideas and a little scared that she had come out and said such things in public”] (45). Throughout the novel, Lemebel plays on the other characters’ acknowledgment of the “real” gender of la Loca. Just when the reader accepts la Loca’s predominant female identification, neighbors’ use of masculine labels contrast with the protagonist’s own identity.23 Yet, this first instance of la Loca’s overt public speaking on the bus, unlike her identity performances that blur sexual and gendered boundaries, expose her political inclinations and deep-held convictions regarding the state of her nation. The political, gender and sexual boundaries of the protagonist merge with her convictions when la Loca begins carrying out political endeavors and dodging military officials through her gender fluidity. Transporting a package for Carlos, the willing accomplice finds herself in a tear-gassed bus. The scene becomes chaotic as the micro first speeds away, and she must run to catch it. Once she recovers the package, la Loca becomes determined to fulfill her mission, gaining courage in the face of the protest and police officials, and using her transgressive identity as a weapon: Corra que parecen perros apaleando gente. ¿Y por qué me van a hacer algo a mí?, ni cagando pienso correr. Tendrán que respetar a una señora mayor, a una dama decente […] La muralla policial la tenía enfrente, pero la loca, dura, empalada de terror ni se movió, y arriscando su nariz con una mueca imperiosa, caminó directamente al encuentro de la brutalidad policial. ¿Me deja pasar?, le dijo al primer uniforme que tuvo enfrente. Y el 23 For example, during the birthday party that la Loca plans for Carlos, the neighbors praise her cake, “¡Qué linda torta, vecino!” (89) [“What a beautiful cake you have there, mister!”] (73).

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paco sorprendido ante el descaro de esta pajarraca real, titubeó al empuñar la luma, al alzar la luma […] Con tanto desorden una ni siquiera puede hacer las compras del supermercado tranquila. ¿Me da permiso?, le insistió al paco que se quedó con la luma en alto hirviendo con ganas de aporrear esa coliflora pinturita. (118–19) Run, they’re like wild beasts, they’re beating everyone in their path. Andy why would they do anything to me? I’m not going to run, not on your life. They will have to show respect to an elderly woman, a respectable woman […] There she was, facing the police formation, but the Queen, paralyzed with terror, didn’t move a muscle, and, lifting her nose in an imperious gesture, she walked directly into an encounter with the brutality of the police. Are you going to let me through? She said to the first uniformed man she encountered. The cop was so surprised by the impertinence of this prissy faggot that he hesitated before grabbing his club […] What with all these disturbances, I can’t even go shopping peacefully in the supermarket? Are you going to let me by? She insisted to the cop, who stood there with his club raised over his head, burning with desire to smash that sassy-faggot ass. (100)

La Loca takes advantage of the policeman’s rage – and attraction – to break through the police wall and continue. As a transgressive “Queen,” she completes the important mission that Carlos was unable to fulfill. In the process, she participates in the political cause, all in the face of explicit homophobia from both the national police and the communist recipient of the package, who is taken aback by her “homosexual presence” (119). La Loca reappropriates the negative and harmful verbiage and attitudes of those around her and relishes in her own identity with a sense of liberating authenticity. A Future of Her Own La Loca’s love interest in Carlos, resulting in her affiliation with the antiPinochet militant group and political involvement, results in forced displacement from her beloved home. Although Carlos asks her to flee the country and go to Cuba with him, an offer that la Loca compares to an engagement proposal, the Queen refuses to follow.24 She has left her beloved tablecloth entangled in the sea’s tide and is about to leave behind her life as she knows it. In the

24 Carlos’s final proposition, regarded by la Loca as comparable to a wedding proposal, represents, for Smuga, a transition from a political to sincere relationship (cf. 138). Venkatesh regards the communist rebels’ action of transporting la Loca to the unknown location where Carlos hides as “showing some tolerance of alternative sexual practices and expressions” (102).

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taxi that will take her to an unknown location, la Loca sings one of her old Argentine ballads: Tienen sus dibujos figuras pequeñas avecitas locas que quieren volar… (194). It has drawings of little figures, crazy birds who want to fly… (170).

In these closing lines of the novel, la Loca, like the small birds on her beloved and abandoned embroidered tablecloth, and those of the sentimental closing lyrics, desires to fly. She establishes agency as she refuses to follow her lover, opting instead for independence. La Loca, in her gender and even political performances, outside the walls of the brothel, forges a space for her entitlement. The protagonist has converted the private sphere of her home into a needlework business, economically sustaining herself and hiding the militants’ materials. She has unraveled the seams of sexual and gender confinement by entering the public sphere through protests and masked encounters with officials. La Loca is now a transient figure, ready to enter yet another unknown space.

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5

An Honest Measuring Tape: Peripheral Places in Frances de Pontes Peebles’s The Seamstress The caged bird sings with a fearful trill, of things unknown, but longed for still, and his tune is heard on the distant hill, for the caged bird sings of freedom. (Maya Angelou, “Caged Bird”) El amor es también el trabajo profesional hecho con amor, la posibilidad de desarrollar hasta el máximo de las capacidades humanas. Love is also professional work done with love, the possibility of developing human capacities to the maximum. (Ferré, “La autenticidad de la mujer en el arte” 415) Good seamstresses felt an attachment to their projects and spent days trying to fix them. Great ones didn’t do this. They were brave enough to start over. To admit they’d been wrong, throw away their doomed attempts, and begin again. (de Pontes Peebles 9)

In the year 2000, Rede Globo, renowned for elaborate and internationally consumed telenovela productions, celebrated Brazil’s quincentennial anniversary with the highly successful television series A Muralha. The period piece recounts the hegemonic momentum forged by overzealous explorers and Jesuit priests upon encountering the terrain’s native populations, as well as the physically and mentally taxing reality of the geographical protagonist: the sertão, the massive backlands of northeastern Brazil, a topography with a relentless dearth of rainfall and subsequent drought. The explorers, clothed in restrictive armor, accompanied by a handful of female protagonists whose cumbersome, mud-covered dresses prove impractical, face numerous challenges that highlight the gritty physical demands the geography places upon those seeking to survive within it.

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Frances de Pontes Peebles was born in Pernambuco, Brazil, and though raised in Miami, Florida, her novels foreground the historical settings of the land of her birth. The novelist, who thoroughly researches the historical backgrounds of her works, acknowledges the overarching stereotypes involving her birthplace: Brazil often gets simplified into three common perceptions: the Amazon, violent favelas, and a continuous carnival party. Obviously, Brazil is much more than any of those things. It is as vast and as heterogeneous as the United States, if not more so. There is no one Brazilian identity. There is no one Brazilian culture. (interview with Alex Espinoza)

Her first novel, The Seamstress (2009), breaks with these tropes and instead revisits the sertão, focusing on the early twentieth century when cangaceiros, bands of poor peasants, roamed the backlands, exhibiting an anti-government stance to the ignored social plights of the region’s inhabitants. Often relying on violence and looting for survival, some achieved both criminal and heroic status. Their controversial roles in Brazilian history provoke continual intrigue and cultural reconsiderations.1 Cut from Distinct Cloths: Responses to Gender Limitations The elaborate epic tome revisits the arid sertão during the early twentieth century and illustrates the conflicted depiction of the bandit outsiders in which “the definition of a cangaceiro depended on who was asked” (11). The story vacillates between the lives of two sisters: free-spirited and taciturn Luzia, and conventional and status-aspiring Emília. Though divergent in personality, both share a perfectionist spirit instilled by their caregiver, Aunt Sofia, who teaches them to sew, embroider and navigate the gender-limited and societally prescribed norms for women during a historical moment when the fear of being dishonored – even if only in public perception – controlled women’s every move. Understanding the gender codes of the era helps women secure marriage and avoid becoming subjects of destructive gossip – necessary for even the most basic economic survival. For their aunt, sewing offers a metaphorical framework through which she may instill discipline and values: 1 The cangaceiro community has been popular in films such as O Cangaceiro (1953), A Morte Comanda o Cangaco (1961), Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol (1963), O Dragao da Maldade Contra o Santo Guerreiro (1968), Baile Perfumado (1997) and O Madador (2017).

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A good seamstress had to pay attention to detail, to recognize the shape of people’s bodies and understand how different fabrics would fall or cling to that shape, to be efficient with these fabrics, never cutting too much or too little, and finally, once a cloth was cut and set under her machine’s needle, she could not waver, she could not hesitate. A good seamstress had to be decisive. (22)

This decisiveness commands a sort of bravery that Emília does not value since it entails only, in her opinion, a possibility of error but no risk (cf. 6). Though Aunt Sofia lauds bravery in sewing, when faced with societal expectations, she lives under harrowing gender restraints, and abides by the demands of mourning: “it had been years since Uncle Tirço had passed away, yet Aunt Sofia wore only black dresses with two camisoles underneath. Wearing any less, Aunt Sofia declared, was the equivalent of walking about naked” (24). For their caregiver, the body must be contained under all circumstances. Her views on relationships require marriage for physical contact: “Their aunt believed that holding hands in public was shameful, that a kiss in a public square meant marriage” (28). While the older sister, Emília, delights in fashion and dreams of social mobility through matrimony, younger Luzia exudes a rebellious, problematic temperament. After falling out of a mango tree and permanently maiming her arm, she endures ceaseless taunting by her peers – and even elders – who erase her identity and superimpose a new one, naming her “Victrola.” After Luzia is abducted by the most notorious cangaceiro group, Emília marries and enters high society. The sisters’ lives, although physically separated, maintain a binding thread as they confront the complexities of culturally prescribed gender barriers. Throughout the novel, the language of sewing, as their aunt refers to it, becomes a lens to interpret reality (cf. 7). The girls adapt their aunt’s teaching to their philosophies of sewing, as well as to life. Emília lacks bravery when encountering an uncut fabric, and approaches blank textile canvases with caution and restraint: Unlike Luzia, Emília preferred making paper patterns. She wasn’t as confident at measurement and felt nervous each time she took up her scissors and sliced the final cloth. Cutting was unforgiving. If the pieces of a garment were cut incorrectly, it meant hours of work at the sewing machine. Often these hours were futile – there were some mistakes sewing could never fix. (8)

Luzia, on the other hand, never makes patterns. Trusting her measurements, she cuts into the fabric, a gutsy methodology that Emília chalks up as skill. Throughout the novel, Luzia’s approach to uncut fabric is a metonym for her approach to life, which resembles a cloth full of possibilities outside societal prescriptions.

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Marriage is the normative institution into which both girls enter. Yet both marriages are distinct from what would constitute an “appropriate” nuptial situation. After the most notorious cangaceiro leader, Antonio – more commonly known as “the Hawk” – stumbles upon Luzia as she releases caged birds to reclaim their freedom, he is intrigued by the fearless youth and her moxie. She exudes confidence as she introduces herself as a seamstress, a profession that the leader both respects and values. After Luzia, Emília and Aunt Sofia have sewn uniforms for him and his men, the cangaceiros return for Luzia. Without resistance, she joins their group and after suppressing her desire for the group’s leader, the two enter matrimony, an unprecedented act for a group known for prohibiting women in its closed membership. Like the birds Luzia released, she enters a life without physical walls or bars to contain her. Though she leaves the small town of her youth, her background as a seamstress promotes her powerful ascension into the controversial cangaceiro subculture. Emília, on the other hand, continues to dream of entering high society, joining a world that, as she will discover, surrounds its inhabitants with hegemonic walls of incessant expectations. After her aunt’s death and sister’s abduction, she supports herself through her sewing endeavors. Her independence sparks gossip since social norms discourage young women from living alone. When she meets Degas van der Ley Feijó Coelho she sees an opportunity to escape her frugal reality and pursue a privileged life such as the one reflected in the fashion magazines of her youth: Her life had become the monotonous pumping of the Singer’s pedal, the clicking of its needle, the feel of cloth beneath her calloused fingertips. Soon, she could identify fabrics by touch: the ridged crepe da china, the crosshatched linen, the rough brim, the filmy algodãozinho. The only things that broke the monotony of her life were the growing stack of mil-réis beneath her bed and the presence of Degas Coelho. (125)

Degas, the self-absorbed society man, pales in comparison to the romantic companions exalted in the female-directed magazines that Emília consumes voraciously. For in the young seamstress, he finds a way to quell suspicions regarding his hidden sexuality. Viewing Emília as a tabula rasa, his parents approve his unlikely choice; they believe she will prove a malleable and submissive wife since she has no family ties. While he promises her a luxurious wedding and future, she uneventfully moves into his family’s home, where she is often reminded of her lowly class background. Despite Emília’s rapid success as a trendsetter and businesswoman in Recife, she grapples constantly with her humble beginnings and the stigma associated with her work. After her husband’s death, A few of the wreaths were from society women hoping to be in Emília’s good graces. The women had been customers in Emília’s dress shop. They

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hoped her mourning wouldn’t stifle her dressmaking hobby. Respectable women didn’t have careers, so Emília’s thriving dress shop was considered a diversion, like crochet or charity work. Emília and her sister had been seamstresses. In the countryside, their profession was highly regarded, but in Recife this tier of respectability didn’t exist – a seamstress was the same as a maid or a washerwoman. And to the Coelhos’ dismay, their son had taken up with one. According to the Coelhos, Emília had two saving graces: she was pretty and she had no family. (5)

Although the Coelho household often taunts her for her class background, like Luzia, she finds agency in her talents with sewing, resulting in a powerful breaking of norms – in her case as a business owner – from what was considered a gendered profession. Living Up to Her Name: The Social Debutante and the Unlikely Bandit While the novel elaborates on both sisters’ sartorial skills, the storyline gives precedence to rebellious Luzia. The bandits she joins replace given birth names with meaningful – and oftentimes chiding – nicknames, and with time “Luzia” and the disrespectful “Victrola” are replaced by numerous sobriquets: she is “my saint” to her husband, “Mãe” [“Mother”] to the other group members and “the Seamstress” to the media. The nickname’s unknown origin heightens her mysterious persona: No one knew where the name the Seamstress had come from. Some said it was because of her precise aim; the Seamstress could fill a man with holes, just like a sewing machine poked cloth with its needle. Others said she really knew how to sew and that she was responsible for the cangacieros’ elaborate uniforms. […] The final theory about the Seamstress’s name was the only one Emília believed. They called that tall, crippled woman the Seamstress because she held her cangaceiro group together. (12–14)

As the novel progresses, all these theories prove true. Luzia’s fall and the bullying she endures as a result turn the young girl taciturn. Both sisters engage in the gender-specific pastime of embroidery, but Luzia renounces delicate flower figures for more surreal and raw imagery: “On those throwaway cloths she stitched armadillos with chicken heads, panthers with wings, hawks and owls with human faces, goats with frog legs” (28). Her fascination with the natural world, including the grim conditions of the sertão, alienated from the material comforts of modern life, attracts her to liberated sartorial creativity. She becomes indispensable to the cangaceiros, and her fine skill converts Luzia, cast aside for her maimed physical appearance and apparent limitations, into a vital asset for their public image and self-expression. Their elaborate attire develops into a peripheral style, an overt identifier of those within the group:

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The cangaceiros wore well-tailored jackets and pants. Their hats had the brims cracked and upturned, resembling half-moons. Everything the cangaceiros carried – from their thick-strapped bornal bags to their cartridge belts – was elaborately decorated with stars, circles, and other indecipherable symbols. Their clothes were heavily embroidered. Their leather rifle straps were tooled and studded. To Emília, the cangaceiros looked both splendid and ridiculous. (12)

Their gaudy appearance rivals that of their peer cangaceiros and elicits conflicting responses filled with disgust and intrigue: “The photographs, though deplorable, illustrate the ridiculousness of the cangaceiros. The bandits are so grossly ornamented they appear dressed for a Carnaval ball” (443). On the other hand, “Their wives wanted to imitate the Seamstress. The Recife women competed to make cangaceira costumes with the most embroidery, rhinestones, and false jewelry. Emília resolved not to attend any Carnaval parties” (478). In other words, Recife society defines the cangaceiros’ attire as non-normative while also indulging in those peripheral styles they deem carnivalesque. Media, especially newspaper photography, plays a vital role in the sisters’ identity production. Aunt Sofia teaches the girls to read so that they may keep up with the changing world and read patterns and sewing manuals. Despite her traditionalist intentions, such education runs counter to the small town’s discouragement of education for women: “And for farm girls, literacy was a barrier rather than an asset. Wives who could read would put on airs, trick illiterate husbands, and worst of all, be able to write love letters” (34). While Emília first uses her literacy to flirt with her sewing instructor, after unrequited love, she gives up her epistemology interests. Both sisters become avid newspaper readers, cognizant of Brazil’s rapidly sweeping political and social changes. Photography not only constructs images but also facilitates communication between the estranged siblings. During their childhood, the visual lure of this artform was a valuable rarity. Having saved for three months, Aunt Sofia arranges a professional photograph for the girls as memorabilia of their first communion. Emília approaches the session with excitement and seriousness, wanting nothing more than to seize the opportunity to immortalize a moment of their lives. Yet, like the caged birds she releases, Luzia will not be contained. When the photographer conceals Luzia’s maimed arm with a sheet of lace, the defiant youth moves, removing her imposed mask: “In it, her sister was blurred. It looked as if there was a ghost moving behind Luzia, as if there were three little girls in the portrait instead of two” (36). Emília is deflated by the imperfect result, yet guards the photograph nonetheless, referring to it throughout her life as the newspaper photographs reveal a Luzia different from the one Emília knows as her sister. Like the haunting image, Luzia’s character

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as the Seamstress evolves into a bifurcated, complicated individual, in some ways a ghost of her former self, in other ways, manifesting the frustration that has always existed within her. Emília’s contemplative fascination with the blurry image of the siblings is paralleled by her interest in Luzia’s defiant press depictions. The socialite anxiously awaits articles about her sister. Since reading the newspaper remains a faux pas for a woman of her social standing, she conceals her daily periodical by wrapping it in a fashion magazine, its pages filled with images of the immaculately groomed women she once admired. Emília lives vicariously through her sister’s gritty, unbridled existence: She read about Luzia’s life as if her sister were a dark heroine in a romance. Emília felt excited to wake each day. Excited to see what Luzia would do next. Her sister was hundreds of kilometers away, but Emília felt as if Luzia was near her again. As if she was harboring a fugitive under the Coelhos’ noses. (346)

Trapped in a passionless marriage and bound by the restraints of her in-laws’ stifling household, through her readings of Luzia’s adventures Emília rekindles her excitement to wake up each day. The newspapers mock the group, and as the only female member, Luzia receives the most derogatory media coverage, and Emília recognizes the gender disparities in the reports which focus on her sister’s physical attributes while passing over the details of the men’s looks: Who is this Seamstress? One could say she is just a woman, but she wears men’s trousers and brass-rimmed spectacles of considerable value. One hint of womanliness can be found on her belongings: her bags and canteens are decorated in gaudy colors. In this respect, she is like many women in the backland’s small, dingy towns: trying to look presentable but failing. She is unusually tall and has a deformed arm. Despite these unique attributes, in every other sense she is like any farmer’s wife. She has big feet, dirty nails, a meaty mouth, and flaccid breasts. She is a vulgar woman, and the backlands are filled with such women. (341)

Encouraged by the Hawk, Luzia no longer fades into the background. Her round-rimmed glasses, gifted to her by Dr. Eronildes, waist-length braid and striking height, convert the bandit into the focal point of every picture. Emília sees past the demonized descriptions, instead perceiving a Luzia who looks “otherworldly. She was regal. Powerful. Like the queen of some forgotten tribe” (478). The salacious report attributes to her the decapitations and increasingly violent actions carried out by the group: “She was merciless, the papers said. She had no shame” (479). At first, Emília does not judge whether or not the accusations are true. Instead she reflects on how the word “shame” is a gender-specific confinement for women of all classes:

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Emília had heard this expression many times before. Back in Taquaritinga, when she wore heeled shoes, or rouged her face, or when she and Degas took unchaperoned walks during their brief courtship, Emília heard people whisper about her: That girl has no shame! Shame was admirable in a woman. Even in Recife it was important for ladies to have shame, though they didn’t call it that. They called it composure. (479)

Apart from their familial ties, the two seamstresses are bound by the limiting expectations placed upon women. Although their realities diverge, both opt to challenge the hegemonic bindings that surround them. Their ease with the needle and thread affords them career and survival possibilities outside financial reliance on their spouses. While the Seamstress’s image as a savage bandit materializes, Emília’s newspaper identity takes on an increasingly codified subtext. Luzia first recognizes pictures of her sister, now Mrs. Coelho, when she is among men in business attire, and upon observing closer she sees an unfamiliar side of Luzia: “The woman in the photos rarely smiled. She jutted her chin out. She pressed her lips together in what resembled an expression of defiance” (410). On the surface, Emília has climbed the social ladder and escaped the dire, lonely existence of Taquaritinga. The small town had promised the seamstress only hours of tedious work and callused hands. Now married into a household demanding complete control and subjugation, Luzia’s sister is entrapped in a newfound dependent reality. Only through her background as a seamstress and fashionista may she break the glass ceiling of a male-dominated business world and achieve economic – and eventually physical – mobility. Finally, newspaper photography delivers a medium for the siblings to not only conjure possible realities for each other but also communicate. After Luzia gives birth to Expedito, realizing she is unable to raise him in the perilous conditions of the sertão, the Seamstress entrusts her son to a rancher and apparent sympathizer, Dr. Eronildes, until he may turn him over to Emília for adoption. After persistent drought causes famine in the sertão, Emília undertakes several clothing drives to aid the ailing refugees known as the flagelados. She breaks down regionalism and classism as she refuses to wear gloves while distributing supplies, and she scolds her colleagues, who consider those they help ungrateful: “‘They’re starving,’ she whispered, folding a pair of children’s knickers. ‘Manners aren’t important’” (484). When featured, the philanthropist, sporting a gleeful smile and holding Expedito, wears bold fashion statements. When the stories detail the route of the freight, the trains are spared from the cangaceiros’ attacks. The problem arises when Degas realizes Emília is communicating with her sister through these reports. Her husband, trying to win his father’s approval, insists on the cargo transporting ammunition to attack the bandits. Forced to comply, Emília changes all the visual markers, no longer smiling or holding Expedito, to prompt

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Luzia’s suspicions. The sisters’ familial literacy facilitates their non-verbal communication, though physically separated and inhabiting two distinct socioeconomic spheres. Wide-Open Spaces: Nowhere Blind to Gender Luzia and Emília suffer from the confinements of sexism, both within mainstream culture and on the fringes of society. When Emília joins the Coelho household, adorned with antiques and with snapping turtles lingering in the courtyard, she is looked down upon for her callused hands, and she marks the cultural divide between the city and countryside: Degas had told her that the maids lived in shacks in the flood-prone Afogados and Mustardinha, but they were born Recifians and that fact alone made them hold themselves above her. In the countryside, Emília would have been considered an excellent wife. She knew how to pound manioc root into farinha, how to grind corn until it became fubá, how to plant beans, how to sew a lady’s dress and a gentleman’s shirt. These talents were suddenly handicaps in Recife. Emília had no family name. She was not a colonel’s daughter or a wealthy rancher’s relation. (413)

Emília finds herself in a liminal position: excluded from entry into high society and shunned by the family’s hired help. The maids present the young bride with “poorly folded napkins, the dirty spoons and humid towels” to remind her of her social standing (213). Her mother-in-law often berates Emília for her initiative; Dona Dulce reminds her of her humble beginnings: Those New family women in there, they laugh at you. When you aren’t near them. They think it’s quaint, the way you try to be a lady. […] Do you know what happens when an ant grows wings? It gets a big head. It flies about like a bird. But it will always be an insect. And you will always be a seamstress. (384–5)

At first, Dona Dona’s abusive banter thwarts Emília’s aspirations of entering the Coelhos’ closed social circles and demoralizes the young, motivated protagonist: When her mother-in-law walked away, Emília slumped onto the couch behind her. A mirror hung on the opposite wall. It was large and wide, unlike the bit of glass she’d had in Taquaritinga. She could see herself fully instead of in fragments. She didn’t look any different from the other women in the Ladies’ Auxiliary – she was dark but not too dark, plump but not too plump, her hair curly but not kinky. The women in the Auxiliary copied her clothing. They sat next to her at sewing circles and invited her for coffee.

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But what did they do after Emília left their homes? Did they scald her used coffee cup with boiling water? (385)

Following, in part, Dona Dulce’s limiting societal prescriptions, she realizes entry into her new reality remains impossible despite all earnest attempts: During her lessons, Dona Dulce had purposefully simplified things. Emília could memorize table settings, she could train herself to walk, to dab her mouth, to hold a coffee cup, to listen with just enough interest, to laugh with just enough mirth. But there were things she could never learn: codes that were hidden from her, motives that could never be explained. (386)

Unable to thrive, Emília first spends her time embroidering in the courtyard. Soon she longs to fashion her creations since Dona Dulce thwarts her progressive fashion sense. After Degas and Dr. Duarte, her father-in-law, finally gift her a pedal-operated Singer, she plunges back into the controversial possibilities of sewing. As we shall see, Emília exhibits agency, creative prosperity and latent political involvement. Unable to find acceptance with Dona Dulce, Emília becomes increasingly interested in Dr. Duarte and his radical ideas. His office space becomes an unlikely educational haven for Emília, who listens to her father-in-law’s ramblings on science and politics. Exhibiting the complexities of change and societal “progress,” as a pioneer of phrenology, the doctor maintains a quantitative approach to humankind. A staunch believer in the ability to measure and classify people, Dr. Duarte takes a determinist stance on people’s inability to transcend their anatomical traits – indisputable markers of behavior, according to Duarte. Despite a dearth of known female criminals, he holds to the notion of women’s insensitivity and cruelness (cf. 342). Although Emília does not subscribe to his reductionist classifications, similar to the ones she had heard as a child in the context of religion, she contemplates his ideals through the lens of a seamstress: Emília was accustomed to choose. Every seamstress was. Even the dullest, roughest muslin could be dyed, cut, and shaped into a fine dress if the right choices were made. Similar choices could turn the loveliest silk into a dimpled, snagged catastrophe. But individual fabrics, like people, had unique limitations and benefits. Some were tissue thin, lovely but fragile, undone by the smallest snag. Some were so closely woven that you could not see the fibers. Others were coarse, thick, and scratchy. There was no changing the character of a cloth. It could be cut, ripped, sewn into dresses or trousers or table settings, but no matter the form it took, a cloth always remained the same. Its true nature was fixed. Any good seamstress knew this. (346)

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With each violent report of Luzia’s behavior, Dr. Duarte obsesses over his zealous beliefs, and the Seamstress and her unborn child become his most desired subjects. Soon he lauds European models of racial nationalism – namely Nazism – as a political agent to employ phrenological findings. Meanwhile, ascribing Luzia’s lewd behavior to physiological underpinnings also disparages Emília, who suffers from the actions of her sister, the person with whom she shares a biological, familial connection, as well as an affinity for creating through textile arts. While Dr. Duarte warns of the maliciousness of what he considers the female criminal genotype, Luzia’s ascension to power seemingly reinforces these claims since her downward spiral into violence surpasses even that of the Hawk. Yet, feminine attributes are what she must suppress in order to command respect and assume her newfound leadership role. After Antonio’s death, she must exhibit masculine, emotionally null behavior; she lops off her waist-length braid as a visual marker of her transformation: With her good arm, she grasped the bottom of her braid. It was tied with stiff twine. The top of her braid, near the base of her scalp, was very thick. Luzia sliced hard. When she faced the men, she stood tall. She kept her hands steady. She looked into each cangaceiro’s eyes, making sure not to miss one man. With her good arm, she raised the severed braid high, like a snake in her hands. She didn’t have time to be afraid. That’s what Luzia later realized when she recalled that moment. She could have cried, mourned, whimpered as a wife was supposed to, but the men would have sniffed out her weakness and hated her for it. She would have been useless to them – no longer their blessed mãe, but a mere woman. Pregnant, at that. Seeing her with her hair shorn, her hands stained, her face stiff, had frightened them. Luzia saw it. In that instant, they feared her. They believed in her. (462–3)

Eschewing the traditional mourning composure required of her aunt and sister, Luzia does not assume a distinct attire or limit her mobility. Instead, she evokes fear through her image as a menacing Medusa, now transformed in an otherworldly paradox: both a universal mother to all the men estranged from their maternal figures, and a savage leader who severs her feminine attributes along with her signature braid. The Seamstress’s continual behavioral confirmation of the malicious potential of the female criminal exists simultaneously with Dr. Duarte’s insistence on promoting women’s rights. With a patronizing tone, Emília’s father-in-law welcomes her in his office, taking her in as his secretary and disclosing his scientific and political beliefs, much to his wife’s chagrin. The doctor supports suffrage and Emília’s sewing “hobby.” While Dr. Duarte looks to Europe for political inspiration, Emília champions foreign fashions inspired

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by her current following of dynamic couture. The young seamstress introduces a progressive, internationally influenced flair to women’s fashion: “Dona Dulce did not approve of Emília’s pleated creations. She said they were too athletic. But Dr. Duarte declared them modern and charming” (327). Soon Emília’s talent for fashion becomes a mode of escape from the slew of naysayers who surround her, and her father-in-law maintains the modernizing potential of the seemingly innocent female pastime. In this way, Emília finds acceptance and support from Dr. Duarte as long as she navigates the gendered rhetoric that surrounds her. Far from the physical comforts Emília enjoys in the Coelho household, antiquated and redolent of old money, yet progressive in boasting amenities such as electricity, Luzia trades the comforts of her small town and her aunt’s safe home for the vast, grueling sertão. The cangaceiros’ nomadic lifestyle exists outside societal confinements. From the beginning of her entry into the group, the Hawk demands a degree of gender equality regarding Luzia: “He gave her no comforts or guarantees. He simply handed her the extra uniform she’d sewn for Baiano and said, ‘I have never seen a woman like you.’ Yet he regarded her without pity or fascination. He didn’t even glance at her bent arm” (136). Unlike the photographer of the sisters’ childhood, who attempts to hide Luzia’s maimed arm as if it were an inconvenience, the captain proudly encourages her to show the entirety of her impressive, towering body when photographed. Upon joining, she must drink xique-xique juice like the other men of the group, making her voice hoarse and throat raw. The substance compels the members to listen instead of speak and intensifies the Hawk’s position of authority. Under such taxing physical conditions, Luzia thrives, eventually rekindling her knack for textile arts in the wide-open sertão, an atelier without any comforts of modernity. Although the Hawk regards her as ranking alongside any other member of the group, some of the men test her as an unwelcome outsider, namely on account of her gender. After she has learnt to use weapons, some of the men challenge Luzia’s gun knowledge. When she threatens their masculinity – “Bad seamstresses always talk about their machines. Or their needles. Good ones just sew. Seems to me it’s the same with shooting. Ten or twelve, that’s talk for people who can’t aim” (171) – Little Ear retaliates. Using her former name, “Victrola,” he orders her to bring salt to mask the shortcomings of her unpalatable cooking. Unexpectedly the Hawk requests that she comply, causing her to fear she has suddenly become “a person meant to be mocked and ordered about” (171–2). Yet Antonio pours the container’s contents onto Little Ear’s plate, insisting he finish it in its entirety. In this way, he defends Luzia, as well as his decision to allow her into the group: first as a bringer of good luck, later as a seamstress, and soon as his wife.

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Challenging Taboos: Seamstress as Business Owner Navigating societal limits on owning property or managing personal finances, the sisters create their own working opportunities that promote their survival and independence from relying on a spouse for economic solvency. In the small town of their childhood, Emília had developed an unlikely penchant for fashion. Aunt Sofia often discouraged this enthusiasm, which was incompatible with the realistic survival skills required in her small town: Remember your beginnings, they said, and Emília knew what was behind those words: remember the orange stains on your feet, the sewing calluses on your fingertips, the ugly cloth of your dresses. Remember that you are the daughter of a coffee picker and the town drunk. Remember that you can have your Fon Fons and entertain your dreams and ideas, but in the end they will do more harm than good. You may forget your beginnings, but no one else will. (57)

Although her sister had not shared her lofty ideals, with time she understands how Emília’s dabbling with image and identity creation facilitate her upward social mobility: “And Luzia would finally see that all of Emília’s magazines and perfumes, her notecards, her homemade hats and ill-fitting shoes were not silly things at all, but small steps, necessary steps, on her way to a better place” (59). The industrious young woman finds her escape from sewing death-suits and communion dresses in her small town, and eventually defines Recife’s fashion scene, a visual measure for society’s hunger for political and cultural change. A dexterous Emília had designed her clothing with scant supplies while in Taquaritinga, dreaming of the bounty of fashion she imagined she would experience upon entering high society. In Recife she is elated to accompany Dona Dulce to her first appointment at the atelier, but once there her fashionable aspirations are soon quashed: Finally, she would be the one on the pedestal instead of the one holding the measuring tape. She would stand before the mirror and give orders to tuck this or hem that. Her excitement quickly faded. Dona Dulce placed no value on cloche hats, smart dresses, or heeled shoes with delicate clasps. She chose “classic” linens, all drab and neutral colored, and instructed the stylist to cut dresses similar to the simplest ones in the shop window: discreetly collared, low waisted, with straight skirts that revealed ankle but covered any hint of calf. (227)

Before arriving at Recife, Emília had dreamed of the freedom in fashion that money could buy. After entering the Coelho household, she realizes the complicated layers of what is socially acceptable. A balancing act requires an image full of contradictions: one must embrace the “new,” remain morally

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upstanding and not be a suffragette (cf. 277). As the fashionista discovers, in the struggle between what is known as “New” and “Old” money, clinging to the antiquated assures the upper class’s privileged position as the arbiters of décor and decorum. In the space of the atelier, Emília becomes cognizant of the reality of those who fashion the city’s wardrobes. During her first trip to the dressmaker’s shop, Emília enters the private backspace of the exploited seamstresses who toil tirelessly in harsh working environments: When she left the stall, Emília did not return to the front of the store; she followed the clatter instead. At the end of the narrow hallway, the sound grew louder. There was a wooden door; Emília peeked inside. A waft of stale air made her recoil. The room was dimly lit and hot. Three rows of pedal-operated Singers cluttered the small workspace. Young women hunched over the machines, feverishly pumping the pedals and moving cloth through the needles. Some of the girls wore head scarves, which stuck to their foreheads, wet with perspiration. One girl looked up at Emília, then went quickly back to work. (228)

When Dona Dulce retrieves the young girl, she sarcastically schools her daughter-in-law on the difference between seamstresses and dressmakers: ‘“Those are the seamstresses. A dressmaker designs. Seamstresses just string things together. I thought you knew that”’ (228). Emília immediately remembers her ungloved hands, still hiding slight calluses. She realizes her fate could lead her to work under such dire conditions in the city. In her future leadership role as a shop owner, Emília remains conscious of these women’s exploitation and insists on working conditions that exceed legal requirements. Once Emília emboldens her demeanor and discards the reserved and unimaginative fashions required by Dona Dulce, she rekindles her aptitude for sewing. She not only influences high society on the supposedly superficial plane of fashion, but also has a tangential influence on the turbulent political sphere formerly forbidden to women. Emília’s empowerment through sewing mirrors Sira’s in El tiempo entre costuras. Both protagonists are taught by their caregivers, mentored by female members of the upper class, and as a result, enter into political participation. While Rosa was Sira’s elegant, bubbly muse, Emília finds a companion in her husband’s childhood friend, Lindalva. Unlike Rosa in El tiempo, Lindalva is not a picture of conventional physical beauty: “Her face was smooth and round, like the convex side of one of Dona Dulce’s silver soup spoons. There was a large gap between her front teeth” (236). Upon their first encounter, the energetic girl rejects the insincere manners insisted upon by her class: “I’m speaking candidly because that’s how I would like to be spoken to. You’ll see that it’s a rare thing here” (239). Lindalva recognizes from Emília’s drab dress that she is confined by her mother-in-law’s insistent adherence to social

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norms. Daughter of a baroness who, like Emília, comes from the countryside, Lindalva finally finds a friend who respects her working background: “‘I saw you in the park and begged Mother to invite you. I thought you would be so different from these ninnies. I mean, you’ve held a job! A seamstress!’ She clasped Emília’s hand. ‘I’m a firm believer in women not living parasitically’” (238). Along with her appreciation for Emília’s humble beginnings, Lindalva inquires about the former seamstress’s goals, assuring her that her mother-inlaw will take it upon herself to define her future plans if she does not exercise her agency. Emília’s newfound friend discloses the rumors concerning the former seamstress’s mysterious background and unapologetically instructs her on the interworkings of the upper class: “Listen very carefully to me,” Lindalva said, once again taking Emília’s hands between her own. “If you dig deep enough into any of these so-callednoble families, Old or New, the search will end up in the jungle or in the kitchen. No one here will question you too deeply, as long as you know that questioning can go both ways.” (239–40)

Lindalva offers a counter-mentorship to Dona Dulce’s dehumanizing rhetoric. In the young socialite, Emília finds an advocate for her progressive fashion leanings and eventual economic stability. Encouraging Emília to use her voice, Lindalva first supplies reading material on the feminist movement. Soon Emília, like Sira in El tiempo entre costuras, becomes an avid reader, disciplining herself to plunge into the erudite texts of the Coelho household. In one of Dr. Duarte’s news magazines, Emília stumbles across a picture of an English tennis star. She is inspired by the tidy look of a pleated skirt and cardigan and begins a trend known as a twin set: Lindalva saw the outfit, she insisted on having one. Emília instructed the baroness’s seamstress on the design, teaching the girl how to make pleats. Several ladies from the Auxiliary approached Emília and inquired if they, too, could share the pattern with their dressmakers. Before long, every influential woman in Recife had a twin set. At social functions, these women stopped referring to Emília’s origins or asking her about the backlands. Instead, they grilled her about fashions. During these conversations, the women’s demeanor changed – they nodded, smiled, became deferential – and Emília realized that admiration came not only from social status or fine manners but also from ideas; her talent could erase her past. (322)

Soon the women become an empowered team and open their own atelier. Emília does not forget her background as a seamstress who once supported herself through her intrinsic talent with the needle and thread, and she insists on providing humane working conditions with a window, fresh air and literacy classes for the seamstresses. Soon she envisions a future “beyond her marriage

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and the confines of the Coelho household” (376). She employs her humble background and skills learned as a seamstress to the financial backbone of the business: “Emília had always been a frugal saver. Sewing, with its measurements and pattern making, forced her to calculate numbers quickly in her head. Emília’s ability with math translated to bookkeeping; she kept the ledgers for the atelier. Profits rose” (534). Though Emília facilitates their shop’s success, Lindalva must place all the earnings in separate accounts, since “as a married woman, Emília was considered a ward of her husband, like a child or a demented relative” (323). Although Lindalva is ignorant of the societal confines of poverty, the idealistic socialite is a trustworthy sympathizer to Emília’s plight – she creates her escape fund and teaches her to drive. As an insider, she may critique Recife’s conservative norms while also benefiting from them. Unencumbered by the necessity to work or marry, Emília’s privileged friend has the luxury of facilitating her own aspiration, and Emília finds a supportive proponent of modernized attire in a society in which the new clashes with the old. Lindalva, like Dr. Duarte, is drawn to the idea of modernity. Emília sees progress in the sleek image it projects: The women in Lindalva’s feminist magazines were educated and modern. Lindalva was fond of the idea of modernity, but Emília liked its look, its sheen. She appreciated the smart hats, the bold dresses, the triumphant image of herself driving a motorcar, or striding into a voting center with a neatly folded ballot in her hand. Most of all, Emília pictured a many-windowed atelier with a dozen pedal-operated Singers humming to her command. (329)

Resigned to life in a loveless marriage, Emília seeks societal approval: “If Emília took on the sheen of modernity, if she wore the right dresses, expressed the right opinions, acted industriously and creatively, she would win Recife’s admiration” (329). Designing her own clothing allows her to influence those around her. Upon coming to terms with the delimiting classism surrounding her, Emília finds power in her talent for fashion: “Emília sensed that Recife women believed she was below them in every way – except for stylishness. Realizing this had made Emília bold. She dressed as she pleased” (473). Much to Dona Dulce’s displeasure, her daughter-in-law breaks through the prescriptive formulas of class and dress and redefines her atelier as a site of power and progress.2 Part of the quest for modernity involves the fraught topic of women’s rights. For unfaltering supporters of Gomes’s Green Party, such as Dr. Duarte and Lindalva, suffrage is of utmost political importance, and a revamping of the image of suffragettes – “always elephantine and never stylish” – is essential 2

Also, it is important to note that the atelier becomes a site of resistance for Degas, who uses it as a place to meet his lover (cf. 532).

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(339). Emília capitalizes on the political milieu to further her independent agenda. However, the crisis brought on by the stock-market crash hinders their business plans: “Women did not want new dresses, and if they did the styles they bought were demure, dark toned, and simply cut. Fashions had taken on the world’s somber mood; Emília had to rethink her designs” (334). Emília’s sense of style encourages her as an influencer. According to her mother-in-law, it was Emília’s responsibility to manipulate her husband: to place ideas in his head and convince him they were his own. Instead, she begins artfully to market her ideas to her backers: Lindalva and Dr. Duarte. When disappointing election results end both the campaign for suffrage and her father-in-law’s ambitions for a state-sponsored Criminology Institute, Emília works with the situation to win over her supporters: In the months since the election, she’d resurrected her weekly visits to Lindalva. Emília slowly transformed her friend’s disappointment into resolve. They could thumb their noses at the Blue leaders and run a business, Emília told her friend. They could single-handedly bring women’s trousers into style. They could educate their seamstresses, making them literate workingwomen to join the ranks of typists, schoolteachers, and telephone operators. (353)

By pulling on Lindalva’s social heartstrings, she convinces her friend of the political potential of their future business. Their sewing workshop would be a springboard toward women’s education and the first step toward other professions, albeit still within the confines of what was considered socially acceptable for a woman. Having listened carefully to Gomes’s lively radio speeches, Emília decides that his populist rhetoric lacks a plan of action. She will not make the same mistake. While Luzia wears men’s trousers as she traipses through the scrubland, her sister begins to pour over patterns for what European fashion magazines label “Ladies boating pants” (cf. 345). The fashionista adapts her own plunge into modernity and modifies her language to suit her audience: “When she spoke [to her father-in-law] of her desire to outfit Recife women, she made sure to use the words Dr. Duarte liked best: modernity, advancement, innovation. She never used the term business; instead she said hobby” (353). Although he at times addresses her fashion agenda with a paternalistic chuckle, Dr. Duarte defends Emília’s clothing choices. Much to his wife’s vexation, he asserts that “we must greet modernity with modern style” (353). His support of Emília’s “hobby” leads him to offer one of his properties as a location for the friends’ atelier. Yet, the business-minded women insist on their own autonomy and business plan: Emília and Lindalva offered a limited number of prêt-à-porter outfits. There were no long fittings or custom-made gowns. There was no exact pattern for

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all women, so Emília employed a seamstress to tailor the premade outfits after they’d been purchased, bringing up a hem for a shorter woman or nipping a dress’s waist for a skinnier one. Emília manufactured only five items of each style. This compelled Recife women to buy the garments immediately. Emília’s designs were inevitably imitated, but styles changed so quickly that, by the time another seamstress had learned to make the garments, they were already obsolete; Emília and Lindalva already had new creations in their shop. (474)

Insisting on paying her father-in-law, Emília also saves her earnings, building a sum known by Lindalva as her “escape fund.” The business team must work within the societal confines that dictate what is appropriate to their gender and class. Marketing, signs and even bill collecting must be avoided, since all would imply presumptious business aspirations. The women maintain their guise as hobbyists, concealing their dreams of financial independence and gender equality. Challenging Taboos: Seamstress as Cangaceira Captain Before assuming leadership of the cangaceiros, Luzia’s sewing skills convince the men of her worth as a member of the all-male group. The Hawk initially sways the men to accept the first woman in the group with the promise that she will bring them luck, but it is her sewing prowess that really convinces the bandits of her worth: “So the cangaceiros, at first suspicious of Luzia’s presence, grew to believe that the Hawk’s prediction had partially come true: Luzia had not yet brought them good luck or bad, but she had proven useful” (257). The men develop an enthusiasm for her work, and soon they are seeking sewing supplies during their raids so as to provide materials for Luzia’s creations: “The cangaceiros appreciated her sewing. When the group invaded a town, the men looked for cloth and thread. They searched dusty stockrooms. They raided ladies’ sewing closets. Then they presented their findings to Luzia” (257). Her sewing and embroidery talents lessen the visibility of the low socioeconomic status that had hitherto prevented them from having lavishly decorated items: Only the very wealthy – colonels, merchants, politicians – had richly embroidered and appliquéd treasures. Now the cangaceiros did as well. And like everything they valued, they wanted more. They asked Luzia to adorn their cartridge belts, to make covers for their water gourds and canteens, to sew their initials onto their leather vaqueiro gloves. (257)

The entire bandit group – even Little Ear and Half-Moon, who had challenged Luzia’s entry – enjoy the Seamstress’s abilities with the needle and thread. The cangaceiros’ style provides a visual marker of group inclusion, and

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the Seamstress’s embroidery becomes an integral part of their identity. In the backlands, Luzia teaches the men to sew (Ponte Fina in particular), and “Sewing relieved the cangaceiros’ boredom” (398). Although their lack of patience prohibits the men from excelling in sewing, Luzia assumes a powerful role in teaching the men to embroider, something that had traditionally been known as a women’s pastime. The rest of the men watched. Luzia embroidered the more delicate stitches by hand but used the Singer to attach the appliqué fabrics – meticulously cut into tiny triangles, diamonds, crescents, and circles – onto bags and canteen covers. The machine had transformed sewing into an acceptable skill, a useful trade. Men did not fuss with lace or embroidery hoops but they could operate machines. Between the clatter, the cangaceiros asked Luzia questions and admired her work. (257)

The lessons offer a diversion outside those activities required for mere survival, and also plant seeds of loyalty. Ponta Fina, who becomes the Seamstress’s most trusted assistant upon the Hawk’s death, proudly turns the Singer machine’s hand crank, standing in for her maimed arm (257), and helps teach new recruits to embroider (cf. 397). Soon the men begin to joke and tease her, “as if she were a tomboy cousin they’d known since childhood” (259). Such chiding is a marked indicator of their growing affection for Luzia, who wins their acceptance by sharing her sartorial expertise. One reason for Luzia’s success is her ability to recognize the group’s deeply engrained gender expectations, challenged through their participation in what were traditionally considered “feminine” activities. She makes sure to use masculine references with them, and the linguistic register of the sertão: A skilled tailor (she didn’t dare call the men “seamstresses”) could read stitches like letters in an alphabet, Luzia said, and when she was met with the men’s blank stares, she corrected herself. A skilled tailor was like a good vaqueiro: he could decipher between stitches as he deciphered each cow in his herd. (257)

The men playfully begin to make the art their own by creating their own language for the stitches: This took memorization, and the men had terrible memories. They renamed the stitches to help themselves remember. The backstitch became Baiano because it was consistent, straightforward, and used whenever you wanted the cleanest lie. The caterpillar stitch was Vanity, because when you twirled the thread around the embroidery needle, the stitch looked elegant and complicated, but the result was always less than expected – just a few odd-shaped nubs along the cloth. Inteligente and Canjica were satin stitch and its outline. Satin was a thick filler stitch. It could be cumbersome and

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crooked without its outline to guide it and hem it in. Little Ear, to Ponta Fina’s delight, was the thorn stitch: a simple line of thread held down by pairs of sharply crossed stitches. Every new stitch that Luzia introduced had a man to go with it. (258)

Like their personalized nicknames, which had erased their previous identities, these moments of group bonding, outside of violence or survival, foster a new language of stitches and instill pride in the men, who may now participate in the beautification and personalization of their sparse belongings. While this newfound exposure to textile arts sparks creativity and bonding among the men, who relish translating their own realities into the stitches, the cangaceiros do not dare name a stitch for their leader, but instead – perhaps suspecting her attraction to Antonio – ask Luzia to assign a stitch to the Hawk. She says she has not identified a stitch that reflects the captain, but This was a lie. His was the first stitch she’d thought of when they’d started their memorization game. He was the shadow stitch. It did not resemble a stitch at all, but a block of color that showed through a fabric’s weave. It was made on the reverse side of a thin, almost transparent cloth – a fine linen or a light crepe. From the front, it was impossible to know how the effect was made or what stitch was used. Admirers knew that there was something behind the cloth but did not know what. The effect was lovely and disconcerting. (258)

For Luzia, the Hawk is a complicated figure. Each exhibits an unspoken understanding of the other’s physical limitations – her maimed arm and his eventual blindness. She reads Antonio’s scarred face as a marker of his bifurcated persona: “The scarless side of his face moved too much – twisting and rising as if pulled by invisible strings. It was boyish and animated. But the slack side of his face was placid, serious. It looked sensible, as if it did not approve of the other side’s behavior” (86). Likewise, the shadow stitch could be deceiving, “it was either the sign of a great seamstress or a way for a poor one to hide her mistakes” (258). By turning the cloth over, and finding either a neat, tight back or a “messy clump of knots” Luzia can learn the truth (258). The Hawk’s treatment of Luzia is problematic and difficult to read. As his trusted confidante, he requires her to taste his food in case it is poisoned, seemingly giving precedence to his own life over hers. On other occasions, he rubs her blistered feet and offers her his own flesh during a time of food scarcity while she is pregnant. After they are wed, Antonio first compliments Luzia only in private, maintaining bravado in front of his men. As his own health and appearance deteriorate, he no longer hides his fondness for his wife’s unconventional appearance: “He encouraged Luzia to pull back her shoulders and stand at her full height, to hold her locked arm proudly beside her and not to cradle it over her chest” (398). With time, her

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husband’s repeated assurances instill steadfast confidence in her appearance, her rifle aim and her ability to promote the group’s image. After the Hawk’s death, Luzia assumes the role of captain. Her inclusion had been a betrayal of the strict code that prohibited women from entering the group. Under the Hawk’s leadership, commitment was lifelong, and lasting love was not an option. Soon after Luzia becomes captain, however, the men take companions. For Luzia, this is a strategic move since she believes women will be more loyal under her command, and she recognizes the Spartan potential for fighting alongside one’s significant other. When Ponta Fina falls in love with Baby, Luzia first prioritizes sewing as the skill the woman should bring to the group. She demands lifelong loyalty and warns Baby of the hellish demands of the scrubland. Allowing Baby to enter prompts a reflection of her own life trajectory: “She thought of her own stubbornness when she’d left Taquaritinga, afraid of being trapped behind a sewing machine. That fate didn’t sound so terrible now. But if she hadn’t left Taquaritinga, she and Emília might have ended up like Baby: forever indebted to a colonel” (456). Newspapers depict the women as the most violent of the group (cf. 537). Part of the Seamstress’s empowerment stems from her break with gender norms, surviving in the backlands without complaint or special accommodations. The curious strength she exudes, however, is not unique to her but rather shared with the other women of the sertão. It fortifies their abilities as cangaceiras: The women attacked quietly and efficiently, with the same cool detachment they’d shown in their former lives when ringing the necks of chickens or slicing off the heads of goats, innately understanding that such tasks were grim but also necessary for their survival. Luzia understood this brutality. She felt it in herself. (556)

Soon Luzia’s otherworldly aura wears off for the hardened females of the group: “They listened to Luzia, obeyed her, and knelt before her during prayers, but unlike the men, the girls stared. They saw every tremble of her hand, every hesitation, every unsure step” (561). Her female members’ silent skepticism makes her regret allowing them to join, and she realizes she may not dazzle them with her distinctive look: “Luzia could lead the men by awing them. The cangaceiros were intimidated by her height, her short hair, and the threat of Antônio’s ghost. The women were different” (562). Her leadership breaks gender expectations as she employs less compassion and more violence than her male predecessor. A pivotal moment occurs in her first time in a movie theater, a space symbolizing modernity; when she loses control and torches the premises, the Seamstress massacres everyone there. While Luzia had first enjoyed her notoriety – even gaining international fame – with such aggression the public loses respect for her. Determined to maintain her power, she resorts to outlandish violence: “If she could not awe the girls in her group, she had to

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frighten them. Slowly she became the Seamstress, neither woman nor man but something apart. Some scrubland predator: pitiless and unknowable” (562). Overwhelmed by the demands of leadership and saddened by her husband’s death, the group’s “Mother” embarks on an outrageous spree of violence, inadvertently rebranding her name “the Seamstress”: a firearm capable of shooting 500 rounds is nicknamed “the better seamstress” because it can outshoot even her (cf. 624). Soon the anger sparked by her own personal losses is transformed into one rooted in political conviction: She thought of city people, who claimed to be civilized and proper yet coveted the Diário’s gory reports. Cangaceiros who removed soldiers’ heads were called brutes, but soldiers who cut off cangaceiros’ heads were called patriots and scientists. Now, before a raid, Luzia didn’t have to dig up anger. It already existed. (554)

The dehumanizing reports become a fulfilling prophecy for the Seamstress driven by rage and unrecognizable to the one who loved her most, Emília. After committing arson and killing innocent bystanders, the complicated image of the cangaceiros – as rebels, charity workers, local folklore figures and bandits – converts into one of criminality. Their brutality now facilitates the Gomez government’s campaign against backland violence. The Loneliness of Motherhood, Leadership and Otherworldliness The sisters not only challenge gender limitations through their subversive roles as a businesswoman and a bandit leader but also address the traditional role of motherhood as an empowered position. Although providing an heir to the Coelho is deemed Emília’s primary responsibility as Degas’s wife, after dutifully experiencing passionless sexual encounters with her husband, she takes matters into her own hands and regularly takes a natural contraceptive to prevent pregnancy. Upon adopting Expedito, Emília not only controls Recife’s fashion scene, but also becomes a social trendsetter: Emília held a baby in her arms. “If we could all save one poor soul,” a journalist wrote, “by giving a child otherwise doomed to ignorance a chance at education and civilization, we would solve our social woes.” Within weeks, the Society Section reported that Mrs. Degas Coelho had started another trend, one that had nothing to do with fashion. Other wealthy Recife women wanted to rescue their own drought babies. There were unsavory stories of refugee women being paid for their babies, while others had their infants snatched by servants who wanted to please their mistresses. (513)

Though Dr. Duarte finds Emília’s adoption progressive – like her international fashion sense – Dona Dulce must be convinced, through pity, that Emília’s

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initiative comes from her innate desire to become a mother. Emília’s connection with Expedito uncovers motherly inclinations, as well as insecurities. She becomes jealous of her sister, Luzia, the child’s biological mother, who she begins to deem the superior sibling: “One day, he would ask about his mother – his real mother. Those words made Emília angry. It was a petty, confusing anger she recalled from childhood. His mother was brave, audacious and strong. A cangaceira! What was Emília compared to this? No one called her brave” (531). Despite Emília’s success as a trendsetting businesswoman, the genderladen position of motherhood, deemed essential to fulfilling innate female needs, uncovers unsuspected anxieties. Maternal challenges, such as Emília’s first night with the infant, mark a changed reality for the young protagonist: By nightfall, the other women had moved back to their seats in the delegation car. They had the freedom to walk away from the child, to sleep, to eat leisurely dinners. Emília could do none of those things. She sat, frazzled. Her dress smelled of spilled goat’s milk. Her bolero jacket was spotted with Expedito’s spit-up. Her hat was crushed. In that empty train car, Emília understood the loneliness of motherhood.3 (494)

Having grown up without her biological mother and raised by her aunt, the parallels are not lost on the young debutante. She fears her new role, which will see her bridled with a gamut of responsibilities, all rooted in reality, an instinct for survival and quotidian tasks. Realizing that she will soon be called upon to maintain discipline and teach the boy morals, she finally understands her Aunt Sofia’s plight: “to compete with an imagined mother who was always prettier, kinder, and smarter. Fantasy was always better than reality” (531). Unable to disclose the identity of Expedito’s mother, Emília must embrace her new maternal role and harness her economic potential through her fashion endeavors in order to provide for Expedito and cement her independence from her in-laws. Until adopting her nephew, Emília’s only contact with infants exposes her father-in-law’s morbid enchantment with science. Among Dr. Duarte’s medical relics, she is drawn to an unborn fetus in a jar, one she regards as the “Mermaid Girl,” again prompting her to reflect on the physician’s scientific beliefs through the lens of sewing terminology: Emília lifted the jar from its shelf. She held it in her lap. The glass felt cold at first, but slowly warmed to the temperature of her skin. Emília

3 The two sisters, though physically separated and living vastly distinct lives, share a common sentiment: that of loneliness (cf. 494). While Emília is faced with the loneliness of motherhood, for Luzia, “the trade-off for leadership was loneliness” (504).

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didn’t understand all of Dr. Duarte’s ideas, but she liked the simplicity of measurement. Emília quickly put the Mermaid Girl back on her shelf. The child was not living, she reminded herself. And people were not like dresses. They could not be measured, marked, cut to size. (252)

Emília’s interest in the fetus is documented in a newspaper article that reads “Mrs. Degas Coelho tries her hand at science in Dr. Duarte Coelho’s new Criminology Institute” (453). Luzia is unsettled by a photograph she fears may be a warning from her sister, in which “Emília cradled a glass jar. Inside, floating in cloudy liquid, was an infant. The child’s eyes were closed. Its face was perfectly formed but its body was stumpy and misshapen, like a clay saint left unfinished by its sculptor” (454). Surrounded by the laughing, dark-suited men, Emília, like the jarred fetus, becomes a specimen under the men’s mocking, paternalistic gaze. Yet the young protagonist takes on the otherworldly presence of the Virgin Mother Mary as, “She seemed unaware of their presence. She stared at the child in the jar. She did not smile. Her face resembled a Madonna’s, frozen in an expression of affectionate sadness” (454). Soon, Luzia notices similar otherworldly elements when she sees a photograph of Emília holding Expedito: “A blanket covered the child’s face, so only his hands were visible. Luzia stared at those small, white fingers. They reached up, toward Emília. She was his savior. And Luzia was nothing, not even a memory” (516). Emília appears empowered and ethereal through her role as a mother, although eventually it is her talent as a seamstress that will allow her to escape with Expedito, leaving their delimited reality to begin anew in the United States. Luzia also assumes otherworldly status, both in her role as mother and as a member of the Hawk’s cangaceiro group. During her childhood, the Seamstress had demonstrated more spiritual interests and inclinations than her sister. She prays diligently in her prayer closet and promises St. Expedito that she will cut her waist-long braid as an offering. Upon joining the Hawk’s group, she experiences a new form of devoutness. The Hawk is capable of bloodshed, but also of eliciting his men’s devotion through his own spiritual fervor and a certain vulnerability: Luzia had attended mass all of her life and had never heard Padre Otto say such prayers. But the priest had never knelt before them as the Hawk did. The priest had never used such a deep, sad tone, praying with such fervor that his voice cracked. When this happened, the Hawk seemed fragile, confused. It proved he was a man, like any other, and this was a comfort. (147–8)

Over time, the Hawk loses his sight and comes to rely on Luzia; he refers to her as “my saint,” an endearment that alludes to her otherworldly gifts, trusting her to interpret reality for him and also protect him through her accurate aim with a rifle.

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With time the Seamstress adopts a position that encompasses the sacred image of “Mãe,” or “Mother,” as each man asks for her blessing. Her pregnancies further this image of a benevolent maternal figure: In the past weeks, the men had become more fervent in their reverence. After she’d traded her hat for the molasses, Antônio gave Luzia a long linen shawl that she wore over her head to protect her from the sun. The shawl, coupled with her growing belly, had affected the men. They kissed the cloth’s dirty edges, placed small offerings of food at Luzia’s feet, and argued over who would carry her sewing machine. Early on, Antônio had convinced his men that Luzia’s presence protected them from harm, but even he was surprised by the strength of their reverence. (436)

Having survived two miscarriages and finally given birth to Expedito, Luzia’s unprecedented physical and emotional strength further the idea of her supernatural connection: “What other woman could carry a child through the scrubland? What other woman could survive such long walks and such dry times, and still look so plump, her stomach so round and full? Only the Virgin Mother herself” (449). When she goes into labor, the Seamstress maintains a firm stance on not seeing the infant so that she may not be tempted to keep him. Since the Hawk has only recently been killed, Luzia knows she must push herself to recover faster than is considered normal after childbirth: She’d been in bed for four days. If she stayed there much longer, the cangaceiros would see her as a normal woman – not their invincible captain or their vigorous mãe. She’d entered into an agreement with the men, just as Antônio had. She’d cut her hair and called herself captain. She’d frightened them into believing in her, making the men dependent on her leadership, just as they’d felt dependent on Antônio’s. By doing this she’d promised to forgo her personal well-being for the group’s. She’d promised to give the men direction. They, in turn, had promised to give her obedience. (503)

Racked by debilitating pangs of hunger – the sertão’s crippling drought has left them short of food – she suppresses her maternal desire despite the love that consumes her, “It was as if an invisible thread hooked her to her boy. The thread could go taut or slack but it could never come undone, it could never reach the end of its spool because there was no end; it bound them forever” (501). She realizes that the maimed arm that has marked her for life had a function apart from sewing or shooting: to cradle (cf. 506). Luzia imagines teaching her son to sew as an inherited art:

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She’d show him how to thread a needle, how to cut a pattern. She’d teach him when to measure, when to cut, and when to mend. If he shied away from her calloused hands or her too tight embrace, if he preferred his pretty aunt to his ungainly mother, Luzia could bear it. (564)

Despite Luzia’s intense connection to Expedito, she smothers her affection, and childbirth becomes not merely an expelling of another being, but rather a casting off of humanity itself: “Luzia felt that along with her child, she had pushed out any remaining feeling. All of the goodness, all of the love she had ever felt or would” (499). Left with this void, Luzia forges ahead with her group, braving harsh geographical conditions that reflect the agonizing emotional pain she must endure. Conclusion: Denying an Honest Measuring Tape Despite the unromantic nature of their relationship, Emília’s husband Degas foresees the peril of an unlikely enemy, Dr. Eronildes, the cangaceiros’ friend turned foe, who urges a meeting between the two sisters. A skeptical Emília finally takes heed of Degas’s premonition and decides to give her sister a warning with a physical sign: her homemade measuring tape from Taquaritinga. The girls’ childhood had been marked by their aunt’s constant admonitions: “Don’t trust a strange tape. Trust your own eyes” (612). By manipulating the measurements of her perfectly crafted tape, she sends one final non-verbal message to her sister: Emília could only hope that the measuring tape would communicate all that she could not. If Luzia read closely enough, she might see the wrong numbers and recall Aunt Sofia’s old warning. Luzia might understand what Emília was trying to tell her – the meeting itself was a trick, a trap, just as Degas had predicted. (613)

Yet her sister’s pride and determination cancel Emília’s caution – just as they had during their childhood before Luzia fell from the mango tree. While Luzia, whose name the novel bears, appears as the more controversial and liberated of the two sisters, Emília’s emotional strength surpasses the physical bravery the Seamstress exudes. After Lindalva reveals the gossip surrounding Degas’s affair with a young pilot – “They talk about Degas, but they condemn you for not reining him in. It’s not fair” (535) – Emília becomes embittered by the responsibility she must assume as a result of others’ actions: “Now it seemed Degas and the Seamstress could do whatever they pleased, while Emília was left to worry about the consequences” (535). Disabused of the romantic expectations that had once dominated her childhood, her talents as a seamstress mean she now has the option to leave her situation, knowing that she can make ends meet regardless of locality or language: “Even in a

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foreign place, a good seamstress could always find work” (597). Migrating to the United States with Expedito and starting a new business before remarrying and extending her family, Emília shows the bravery of a new seamstress, not one to dwell on or attempt to fix her errors, but rather a woman determined to begin again. In the end, it is Emília who must continue to bear the burden of approaching an uncut cloth, the unknown, and starting afresh despite the flawed stitching of the past.

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6

Tailoring Peace and Purpose: Sartorial Representations in Children’s Literature The fairy tale, which to this day is the first tutor of children because it was once the first tutor of mankind, secretly lives on in the story. The first true storyteller is, and will continue to be, the teller of fairy tales. Whenever good counsel was at a premium, the fairy tale had it, and where the need was greatest, its aid was nearest. This need was created by myth. The fairy tale tells us of the earliest arrangements that mankind made to shake off the nightmare which myth had placed upon its chest. (Walter Benjamin, 373–4) Si un día decidía regresar, el hilo le indicaría el camino. If he decided to return one day, the thread would lead the way. (Txabi Arnal, El corazón del sastre)1

In 2014 the Chilean animated short film Historia de un oso [Bear Story], directed by Gabriel Osorio Vargas, made history; having received an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film at the 88th Academy Awards, it became the first-ever Chilean winner of an Academy Award and the first Latin American animation to win an Oscar. Based on the life of the director’s grandfather, who was imprisoned after the 1973 coup d’état, eventually living out the rest of the seventeen-year dictatorship in exile, the enchanting animation and melancholic soundtrack transport the viewer to a familiar historical milieu as lived through a child’s innocence. The whimsical and nostalgic tone of the short film confronts directly the horrific human-rights abuses, still a divisive ground regarding collective memory and the complexities of forging ahead as a unified nation.2 1 Two books in this chapter, El corazón del sastre and El de-sastre perfecto, do not have page numbers. 2 Child protagonists, especially in terms of bildungsroman, often feature in literature created under oppressive governmental regimes. Works such Carmen Martín

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Continuing with the same modus operandi, contemporary representations in literature and popular culture embrace the child narrator as a unique interpretive voice for reflecting on times of dictatorship.3 The works rely on the perspective of the child to address the preoccupations of adult audiences. In a similar vein, children’s literature treats real historical and societal rifts, oftentimes masked in imaginative magical plots. When approaching children’s literature, philosophers and scholars remind us of the latent agenda of the genre. Perry Nodelman, in The Hidden Adult: Defining Children’s Literature (2008) warns, “claiming that anything any child ever reads is children’s literature is a seriously counterproductive move” (3). The critic points out how children’s literature resembles Victorian or “women’s” fiction and popular literature in that the organizational nomenclatures indicate intended audiences rather than the authors of the text (cf. 3–4). In this way, markets and audiences dominate the publishing field: “Children’s literature is not so much what children read but what producers hope children read” (4). Simultaneously, the purchasers of the text – whether parents, teachers or librarians – tend to be adults (cf. 5). With literature dedicated to young readers, we must remain cognizant of the presence of the adult as an interpreting authority, responsible for part of the reading experience, and opting for personal and societal development as a didactic thematic thread. Although the complexities of political strife suggest adult preoccupations, historical injustices and contemporary reminders of these appear as a common theme in children’s literature. Laura Rafaela García’s article on what she refers to as “kids’ fiction” treats political violence and memory, specifically in Southern Cone children’s literature. Rooted in Walter Benjamin’s theoretical writings on the genre, the critic highlights the interpretive potential of children’s literature as a result of its didactic nature: Entendemos la literatura para niños como una zona cultural que convoca al sujeto lector a ocupar un lugar protagónico en la construcción de sus propias representaciones del mundo, que hace de la fantasía y el elemento lúdico del lenguaje sus principales herramientas para interpelar la realidad en la infancia. En la narración de las historias el lector encuentra una forma singular de participar del mundo, de sensibilizarse con el otro y de construir íntimamente su lugar a través del mundo simbólico. (85)

Gaite’s El cuarto de atrás (1978) and Ana María del Río’s Oxido de Carmen (1986) circumvented censorship, in Spain and Chile respectively, while using the candid voices of child narrators to disguise political undertones beneath a surface of fantasy and innocent imagination. 3 Albert Fuguet’s Mala onda (1991) and Andrés Wood’s Machuca (2004) offer two examples in the Chilean context.

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We understand children’s literature as a cultural area that invites the reading subject to occupy a leading role in the construction of their own representations of the world, which makes fantasy and the playful element of language its main tools for questioning reality in childhood. In the narration of the stories, the reader finds a singular way of participating in the world, of becoming aware of the other and of intimately building her or his place through the symbolic world.

While nostalgic twinges appeal to adult audiences, children’s literature currently finds a more optimistic hue in reconsidering the oppressive backdrop of the past. Representations involving a historical milieu and professions involving the needle and thread inspire reflection at both individual and collective levels, regarding the role of ethnic and sexual equality, vocational purpose and international peace. In this way, children’s literature undertakes a pedagogical function, referencing the historical predominance of professions involving the needle and thread as powerful tools for stitching history back together, and in the process, sewing a more enlightened future.4 Of particular interest for this chapter are picture books. Janet Evans outlines the strong influence illustrations have on readers’ interpretations, especially in materials with graphic content: How the words and illustrations work together in any kind of picturebook is crucial, as of course is the subject matter; however, as previously mentioned, the illustrations can change the way in which a contemporary picturebook is viewed and responded to. Different picturebooks may use exactly the same story (often a traditional fairy tale) but may be illustrated and presented in totally different ways, making one version easy to read and understand. (15)

Evans refers to the classic example of Hansel and Gretel, noting that the dark subject matter of the tale, involving “murderous intent and cannibalism,” might be expected to provoke horror (15). Yet, according to Evans, versions involving distinct illustration styles solicit different reader reactions. In this chapter, we will consider the role of illustrations in the presentation of at times difficult content. Following Evans’s model, both humor and artistic skill may have a softening effect, easing readers’ reception of challenging material. An Unlikely Fairy-Tale: Rosario Ferré’s El cuento envenado Although this chapter focuses primarily on children’s literature, before delving into the picture books we shall pause to consider Puerto Rican writer Rosario Ferré’s thematic use of fairy tales coupled with enchanting depictions of textile 4

García refers to the work of Michèle Petit, to consider the role of adults in the transmission of the reading experience for the child (cf. 87).

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arts. Ferré’s first collection of short stories, Papeles de Pandora (1977), was published in Spanish; later she ventured into writing in English, and has since enjoyed a long, celebrated literary career across languages, cultures and genres. Her short stories, exploring disparities in class, gender and ethnic groups, have resulted in international success as well as a canonical presence in Hispanic literature. With elements of the fantastic, in addition to oftentimes unexpected endings, the Puerto Rican writer invites the reader to question reality. Ferré’s short story “El cuento envenado” [“The Poisoned Story”] threads the needle with a discursive string of empowering possibilities for gender through sewing and the medium of fashion upon returning the reader to a decaying Puerto Rican aristocracy. Through the exploration of design, Ferré arms her protagonists with production and reproduction possibilities for power, and at the same time uses the imaginative setting of a fairy tale to take down the unfortunate, self-indulgent persona of a budding fashion baroness.5 The story vacillates between a fairy-tale like setting and one of stark realism, as one of the protagonists interposes her menacing voice. Having lost her mother, young Rosaura, sad and timid, lives within the literary realm of her books, an interest that her father encourages: An educated man, well versed in literature and art, he found nothing wrong in Rosaura’s passion for storybooks. He felt guilty about the fact that she had been forced to leave school because of his poor business deals, and perhaps because of it on her birthday he always gave her a lavish, gold-bound storybook as a present. (264)

This particular penchant is one that the girl’s stepmother, Rosa, finds despicable. She insists on the practical, economic solvency to be secured in her local sewing workshop, a business only made possible by selling her husband’s estate. Rosa’s artistic entrepreneurism is complicated. Through frequent first-person interjections, the dressmaker relates to the reader the sorry, dilapidated state of her new husband’s belongings. According to Rosa, her modest background – she is one of ten children – prepared her to “clean house.” She rids the estate of the majority of its contents, with a firm intention of turning around the family’s bad luck. The town – as well as the omniscient narrator – critique what may be

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One of Ferré’s most widely read short stories, “La muñeca menor” (1972) [“The Youngest Doll”] is the tale of a single aunt with nine nieces who seeks – and obtains – revenge after a doctor exploits her debilitated state due to an injury by a chágara (a type of crustacean found on the Caribbean islands). She creates elaborate, life-sized dolls representing each of her nieces, her attention to sartorial details taking a macabre turn when she opts for an unlikely stuffing to fill the last of her creations.

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deemed as selfish motives. Her constant chiding of Rosaura persists, as she attempts to separate father and daughter: And when she saw that he remained silent, his gray head slumped on his chest, and refused to disinherit his daughter for her sake, she began to heap insults on Rosaura, accusing her of not earning her keep and of living in a storybook world, while she had to sew her fingers to the bone in order to feed them all. Then, before turning her back to put out the light, she told him that, because he obviously loved his daughter more than anyone else in the world, she had no choice but to leave him. (326)

In order to thwart the dubious intentions of the businesswoman, Ferré’s short story begins to unfold interlocked fantastical elements, all nestled in the creative space of the fairy tale. While Rosaura cooks guava compote, a traditional Puerto Rican delicacy reminiscent of the glory days of the Creole estate, the power of this sweet treat permeates the pages of her most recent volume of fairy tales. She has a dream that suggests one of the stories will kill the first person who reads it, but she cannot remember the details and the premonition is ignored. Yet this sinister power prevails as Rosa, who has picked up the book for sartorial inspiration, begins turning the fantasy-filled pages written in guava-colored ink just as we readers reach the story’s conclusion. Laden with magical realism, Ferré’s story transports the adult reader to the fairy tales of youth, offering a stark reminder of the misleading tendencies of nostalgia, similar to those experienced by Puerto Rico’s aristocratic past. Threading a Search for Meaning in El corazón del sastre El corazón del sastre [The Tailor’s Heart] (2009), the first children’s book we have discussed, is a collaboration between prolific children’s author Txabi Arnal, who is Basque, and Argentine illustrator Cecilia Varela. It narrates the crisis in personal and social meaning experienced by an aging tailor in an unknown land whose life-long profession has been fashioning lavish attire for the palace court in seemingly restrictive circumstances.6 The metonymic importance of the body focuses on both his hands, involved in the mechanical maneuvers of the craft, and his heart, representing the satisfaction of a life filled with purpose:

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Arnal has published in Castilian, Catalan, Basque and Galician. Varela’s illustrations have been published in both Mexico and Spain. The serious content matter of Arnal’s texts has been noted. For example, in her introduction to Challenging and Controversial Picturebooks: Creative and Critical Responses, Janet Evans describes Arnal and Amckan’s Caja de carton [Cardboard Box] (2010), which treats theme of migration, as a “troubling and very distressing book” (15).

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Pero, a pesar de que sus manos habían fabricado las prendas más bellas del reino, nunca había puesto en ellas su corazón. Después de toda una vida cosiendo, el viejo sastre sentía un vacío inmenso; necesitaba cambiar de aires, sentir que bajo su pecho un músculo hacía pon-pon. But, although his hands had made the most beautiful clothing in the entire kingdom, he had never put his heart into his work. After an entire life sewing, the old tailor felt an immense void; he needed a change of scenery, to feel that muscle in his chest that went boom-boom.

The interweaving of narration and illustration encourages the reader to participate in the blank spaces where visual text reveals what the written texts veil. For example, though only explicit through pictorial cues, the tailor’s hunched body resembles a spool of thread and his hat a thimble.7 Throughout the book, the illustrations play with readers’ understanding of scale, as the characters’ hands and feet are particularly small, while his corpulence is concentrated in the torso, where lies the tangible representation of the tailor’s search for meaning – his heart. The opening and ending illustrations, unaccompanied by written text, provide important markers for interpretation. The inside cover first reveals a yearning tailor, peering longingly out the window at a bird who freely perches on an outside branch. The metaphorical implications of an engaged tailor turn literal as the story commences. Now, the bird has entered the tailor’s working quarters. While the old man toils in a massive cage, the bird waits outside with a thread: the omnipresent tool that will facilitate the tailor’s quest for purpose while lacing together the dispersed members of humanity, all facing their own hardships. Bolts of fabric and a dress-in-progress tower over the caged tailor, exacerbating the sense of downtrodden hopelessness. The minuscule bird gingerly and patiently holds the key to the aging tailor’s new mission. The tailor makes an important decision: he will escape the palace while everyone else is fast asleep. While the guards yawn and walk around the premises, a small hand holding large pair of scissors sneaks in to cut the curtain – striped in a curved fashion and once again alluding to a caged existence. Upon obtaining his freedom, the aged seamster leaves without looking back. Like Delia in César Aira’s La costurera y el viento, he takes with him only his sewing bag, “Eligió como único equipaje el cofre donde guardaba sus instrumentos de trabajo: ovillos de hilo, un retal de tela, un trozo de cuero, agujas de varios grosores y sus viejas tijeras” [“He chose as his only luggage the chest where he kept his work instruments: spools of thread, a scrap of fabric, a piece of leather, needles of various thicknesses and his old scissors”]. 7

Throughout the book, male characters wear solid or horizontally striped attire, further emphasizing the uniqueness of the tailor’s clothing.

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Travel, a theme explored in the novels analyzed in the previous chapters, is facilitated by his sartorial skillset. Although he sets out without a concrete agenda, his dexterity as a tailor results in a string of good deeds. He embarks on a pilgrimage involving seven locations, riddled with challenges to survival, ranging from natural to man-made disasters. A series of suffering peoples illustrated in a beautiful, whimsical fashion offsets the severity of the book’s content. Evans explores the propensity – especially among Italian and French publishers – to favor challenging picturebooks as an artform. While El corazón del sastre involves various levels of misery, ranging from war to natural disaster, Varela’s illustrations do not explicitly treat these, but rather focus on the beauty of the tailor’s work or the breathtaking landscape. For example, in the tailor’s most glamorous undertaking, sewing a beautiful hanging bridge in addition to river banks for a flooded region, the illustration involves an enamored couple ambling elegantly with an umbrella. In this way, Varela spares her audience from an explicit portrayal of human suffering. On the other hand, when the tailor visits the northeast and encounters a volcano, its threatening rumblings warning of an imminent eruption, the illustrator presents an anxious scene of furrowed brows and tightened lips. The importance of livestock to the village’s daily life – a leitmotif of the text – means it is vital to save fellow animals, as well as people. A young baby, swaddled in her mother’s arms and wrapped in striking crimson, wears a facial expression similar to her elders, highlighting the inescapability of worry among the residents. A frightened horse’s maddened eyes resemble the eye of the stallion in Picasso’s Guernica. The horse’s open mouth contains proportionally tiny teeth and reflects an animal in distress, again recalling the horse in the Spanish painter’s masterpiece. The tailor’s body positions him on the same visual plane as the volcano, while his pensive gaze signals his determination to act. The structure of the book involves two double-fold illustrations per geographic region and episode. Despite the heart-wrenching content, unhappy scenes, such as that involving the volcano, are offset with humor. This is a resource Evans lauds as an effective counterweight to challenging texts. The tailor, in this instance acting selflessly rather than repaying a previous good deed, comes to the rescue: Con el corazón desbocado, el viejo sastre corrió volcán arriba. Una vez en la cima, unió los bordes del crater con hilo ni inflammable. Con el culo chamuscado Corrió volcán abajo y se puso a salvo. With his heart racing wildly, the old tailor ran up the volcano.

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Once at the top, he sewed the sides of the crater with flame-resistant thread. With his butt on fire He ran down the volcano and was safe.

This passage highlights how the tailor’s heart has come to life. The humor of the word “culo” appears in the illustrations, as two subtle puffs of smoke trail from the tailor’s lower extremities. Also, humor materializes as he gets in the last word at the angered landscapes – “¡que aproveche!” [Enjoy!”] – in response to the volcano’s small hiccup of vapor, and in this way humor may triumph over overwhelming natural disaster. The tailor’s journeys shift between challenges involving natural surroundings and those created by mankind. In his interactions with the local residents, he initiates the solution, an act of gratitude or reciprocity for an act of kindness bestowed by one of the ailing, gracious inhabitants. For example, in the southeast a woman invites him to dinner and explains the background to the sadness experienced by the town’s entire population, which is suffering from the atrocities of war. Once again feeling his heart, this time with twinges of anger, the tailor decides to act. While the soldiers of both sides sleep, he resorts to his tools of choice: El sastre sacó de su cofre Un ovillo de hilo metálico y una aguja muy resistente. A continuación cosió la boca de cada pistola, de cada rifle, de cada cañón y de cada general. The tailor pulled out of his chest A ball of metallic thread and a very strong needle. Then he sewed the mouth of each pistol, each rifle, each cannon and each general.

This graphic scene, hinting at the macabre, plays with a pun: the mouths of the weapons and the mouths of the generals, who can no longer call out their orders to attack. This act of needlework results in peace, albeit by gruesome means. While the textual subject matter could be disturbing, the illustration that accompanies the scene softens the tone. Instead of depicting the generals in a role reversal, experiencing physical pain instead of inflicting it, the two-page illustration presents a serene scene of a dining table with a dog slumbering in spite of its violent surroundings. The nameless old woman who had offered such kindness to the traveling tailor now resides in a house with the promise of peace. The tailor’s encounters, though at times resulting in whimsical creations, culminates in a tragic turn. His tired heart no longer wishes to continue. After contemplating using his resources to remedy this, he decides: “Hay rotos que

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ni el mejor zurcido puede arreglar” [“There are tears that the best mending will not fix”]. As the tailor closes his eyes and finds refuge in the lives that filled his emptiness, the opening’s blue bird stands at the edge of the tailor’s sewing bag, now containing only one single needle and spool of thread. The book’s ending creates an open space for dialogue on aging and loss. The omnipresent bird, again carrying the connective thread, continues flight with the remaining red thread – visibly resembling a life-giving vein – and ends with a heart-shaped map outlining the different regions the tailor visited. The empowered bird, set in flight with the tailor’s thread, provides a hopeful message for the individual tailor, the communities he touched and the lasting legacy of his heart-filled craft. Having generously gifted his sartorial talents to remedy daily strife, the tailor feels the deep sense of meaning for which he was longing. El corazón del sastre not only places vocational purpose at the center but also highlights the importance of action. Reminiscent of Delia’s thimble in La costurera y el viento, in the microcosm of the thimble the entirety of the tailor’s life and work is contained. With each thread, the tailor leaves a connective reminder that will aid his return to each region; as it turns out, given the brevity of his remaining days, his work instead connects each geographical area, a visual reminder of the interconnectivity of humankind and the universal pangs of suffering. Through the needle and thread as tools of a profession of creativity and innovation, readers are encouraged to follow their own tethered threads to seek purpose-driven self-fulfillment. Surpassing Loss and Inheriting Legacy in La costurera y el hilo de agua Prolific Spanish children’s book writer Mar Pavón and illustrator Daniel Montero embark on a short picture book that addresses a number of complex themes such as vanity, a fight for survival and the inner voice of inherited knowledge.8 The book’s setting, “En un lejano país de otro tiempo” (5) [“In a far off country in another time”], is reminiscent of Aira’s La costurera y el viento, in which the antiquated profession of sewing – according to the narrator – is the novel’s only temporal indicator. Despite La costurera y el hilo de agua’s insistence on the setting as an unnamed country, the protagonists, whose names involve wordplays with Arabic and Sanskrit – Al-Agua (the king) and Naira (the seamstress) – give the reader a sense of possible place and culture. In the story, the vain king, Al-Agua, whose palace walls are adorned with mirrors of all sizes and shapes, requests that Naira, the most 8 To date, Pavón has published over fifty children’s books, poems and stories in six languages. Montero has illustrated over thirty children’s books. Both have received a number of prestigious awards in their fields, such as the International Latino Book Award.

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well-known and talented seamstress of the country, fashion him clothes so beautiful that he will never want to take them off (cf. 6). She doubts her ability to satisfy the king, especially given the conditions of his impossible request: “¡Eso es! ¡Coserás con hilo de aqua! Te doy tres días con sus tres noches; si pasado el plazo no lo has conseguido, ¡serás confinada al calabozo de palacio para el resto de tus días! (7) [“That’s it! You will sew with thread made of water! I give you three days and three nights; if after the deadline you have not succeeded, you will be confined to the palace dungeon for the rest of your days!”] (7). Al-Agua is clearly an unjust and vain king, a common character in children’s literature, and this trope invites measures to address his violent behavior. Naira’s sartorial talents – famed aptitudes that got her into this mess in the first place – must now preserve her liberty. The young seamstress’s inherited sewing box, a visual reminder of the textile wisdom of her family’s matriarchs, responds to the young girl’s anxiety regarding the seemingly impossible task that Al-Agua has given her. A small seahorse on the box’s lid begins to move and give the young seamstress practical advice: Naira, creyendo estar soñando por momentos, abrió el bonito costurero azul, herencia de su madre, quien, a su vez, lo había heredado de su abuela. Pero en su interior, en lugar de las bobinas de hilo habituales, encontró una de aire, otra de fuego, otra de tierra, ¡y otra más de agua! (14) Naira, believing she was dreaming at times, opened the beautiful blue sewing box, inherited from her mother, who, in turn, had inherited it from her grandmother. But inside, instead of the usual bobbins of thread, she found one of air, another of fire, another of earth, and another of water!

The sewing box, containing magical bobbins of earth’s four elements, holds the answer to Naira’s challenge. The seahorse reminds the young seamstress that she must simply get started on her work because the answer lies within her and her inherited sartorial skill. Upon finding the perplexing thread made of water, capable of flowing fluidly through Naira’s fingers, the young girl must decide what article of clothing would most impress the lavish king. The helpful seahorse has an idea: it must be a hat turned inside out (i.e. with the water threads on the outside). At first the logic of this design is lost on the young seamstress. Yet, a series of unlikely events helps her to understand the clever plan. The vain king is impressed by the unusual design, but Naira has missed the deadline and, despite her achievement, Al-Agua insists that she must suffer the consequences. Nervously, she suggests he try the hat on the other way – with the water threads inside – a suggestion that angers the king, who does not wish to wet his splendid hair. Regardless of his resistance, the seamstress follows the seahorse’s advice. The king is convinced to try the hat, and immediately turns

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into an enormous besugo, a type of fish. One of his subjects takes pity on him and reverses the hat again, but the power of the egocentric king is curbed. If he removes the hat, he will become a fish once more. The power of the needle and magical thread curses him with his own wish. No longer able to remove the one-of-a-kind hat because of the curse, he loses his penchant for mirrors. The seamstress’s skillful hands have not only preserved her freedom but have also humbled the vain king and put a stop to his self-indulgent practice of constantly gazing at himself in his house of mirrors. Like in El corazón del sastre, the use of humor engages young readers as Naira is empowered in the face of an enraged leader who not only looks like a giant fish, but also smells like one. Both the illustrations (for example, the seamstress’s tight, long pencil skirt reminiscent of a fish’s tail) and the text (the king’s name “Al-Agua,” meaning “to the water”) foreshadow this unplanned removal of his power. The townspeople taunt the tyrant in his debilitated state. In the chaotic scene that follows, Naira escapes to her home, where she finds another transformation: the seahorse has been replaced with a heart and the magical spools no longer contain earth’s four elements. Rather, the box contains a scroll with a letter from Naira’s deceased mother and grandmother. While recounting their legacies, they convince Naira that her fate involves a sartorial transfer to her future daughter. She must take her sewing box and travel far from Al-Agua’s enraged reach. Although his new fish-like identity cures his vanity, the tyrant is now filled with another all-consuming life goal: revenge upon the seamstress. Like the protagonist of Tengo miedo torero, Naira must travel to save her life. La costurera y el hilo de agua concludes with a fairy-tale ending, though not in the traditional sense. Although rumors circulate in Naira’s native town that Al-Agua’s obsession with locating the young seamstress stems from his relentless love, the story finishes its seams with the uniting of two skilled professionals: the seamstress and a carpenter, who fashions an identical sewing box for their two daughters. Similar to El corazón del sastre, the story concludes with the death of the protagonist. The illustration includes two sewing boxes that resemble coffins for the protagonist and her husband. Despite the seemingly tragic ending, the story presents discursive possibilities through the idea of textile arts as a seamless legacy, continuing even after the conclusion of one’s corporal life. Through the connective thread in El corazón del sastre and the transformative sewing box in La costurera y el hilo de agua, the protagonist may continue touching lives through the binds and bonds found in sewing. Needling Social Change in A princesa e a costureira Continuing with the trope of royal kingdoms, the next book explores the romantic lure of the princess – whether born or made – who unites with her

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Prince Charming. Although this endures as a frequent motif in children’s literature, in recent years variations of this trope have included social preoccupations, among those, the gendered undertones of more traditional texts. In A princesa e a costureira, Janaína Leslão, a Brazilian psychologist specializing in young adults, uncovers the societal pressures and injustices underlying royal responsibilities while casting a humble, good-hearted seamstress with a magical needle as the princess’s true love. According to Ione Aguiar, the writer’s motivation to write children’s literature began with what she deems a lack of representations of same-sex love. Yet it was not easy to find a publisher for the unorthodox fairy tale, and the author received nearly twenty rejections over a five-year period. Leslão’s only children’s book to date embarks on a rewriting of gendered tales of oppressed princesses, fairy godmothers and the redeeming potential of love. Princess Cíntia is betrothed to Prince Febo from a nearby kingdom so as to unify the “Entrerios” and “Entrelagos.” The similarity of the names, both involving their geographical locations “Between Rivers” and “Between Lakes,” emphasizes the arbitrary nature of regional discord: both select their topical descriptor as their identifying nomenclature. This diplomatic match is challenged, however, by Princess Cíntia’s fairy godmother, who prophesies a different future for the young royal: she will marry her true love instead of one chosen by others. This apparently liberating prospect does not come without challenges for the young girl, who instead of falling in love with a man, as heteronormative social structures dictate, becomes enamored with Isthar, a single mother and seamstress. This unlikely match challenges not only gender and sexual norms but also those involving ethnicity and socioeconomic boundaries. The princess, of Afro-Brazilian descent, becomes infatuated with a struggling seamstress far below her royal status. Similar to El corazón del sastre, A princesa e a costureira uses sartorial tools to symbolize potential. They can be harnessed for humanitarian causes as well as for delving into multifaceted realms of creativity. In the case of A princesa, a golden needle allows the seamstress to sew “todos os tipos de tecidos que existiam no mundo” (122) [“every type of fabric that existed in the world”]. This wonderful item is an heirloom, a gift of gratitude from a wanderer for whom her family had provided shelter and food, and, like the art of sewing, it has been passed down through generations. The needle’s value surpasses that of any commodity: “Mesmo nas maiores dificuldades, nunca ninguém pensou em vendê-la, afinal, um objeto mágico não é algo que se possa vender ou comprar” (122) [“Even in the greatest difficulties, nobody has ever thought of selling it, after all, a magic object is not something that can be sold or bought”]. The needle’s symbolism involves permanence, and despite the brevity of the text, the author explores how sewing evolved as a basis for civilization:

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As agulhas foram inventadas há muito tempo, em uma época em que as pessoas viviam na natureza. Feitas de madeira ou osso, este instrumento servia para unir os pedaços de fibra vegetal, pelos e pele de animais que, entrelaçados, eram transformados em roupas para aquecer e proteger. Mas essa não era a agulha de Isthar. Passou muito tempo até as pessoas começarem a viver em casas e plantarem seus alimentos. Somente quando isso aconteceu é que surgiu a agulha de ferro, muito mais forte que as anteriores e que, por ser de metal, foi considerada uma grande invenção. Mesmo essa grande invenção ainda não era uma agulha mágica. (129) Needles were invented a long ago, at a time when people lived in nature. Made of wood or bone, this instrument was used to join the pieces of vegetable fiber with animal hide. Interlaced, they were transformed into clothes to warm and protect. But that was not like Isthar’s needle. It was a long time before people started living in homes and planting their food. Only when this happened was the iron needle invented, much stronger than the previous ones, which, being made of metal, was considered a great invention. Even this great invention was not yet a magic needle.

The special powers of the seamstress’s needle facilitate a modernized entry into the kingdom’s interworkings since the family exchanges sartorial services for the necessaries of survival. Yet this tool’s practical use surpasses its ordinary function, and soon it becomes an instrument capable of healing ill bodies and ailing kingdoms. Although the princess’s social position alienates her from daily preoccupations, she is known as a simple and amicable princess, approachable despite her social standing. Unlike other fairy tales of its kind, love between the young princess and the seamstress does not manifest through any traditional medium. Instead, it is through the seamstress’s vocation that the two realize their immediate connection, specifically during the seamstress’s fitting of the wedding gown: E foi enquanto ajudava Cíntia a subir na banqueta que Isthar tocou a mão nas costas da princesa: a profecia se cumpriu! Uma luz tomou conta de todo o ambiente. Um redemoinho de vento se formou na sala, girando Cíntia e Isthar junto com as flores que ali estavam. As duas deram-se as mãos por medo e, passado o susto, continuaram assim, girando e sorrindo, desfrutando da magia daquele encontro. (164) When Isthar helped Cíntia climb on the stool and touched her hand on the princess’s back: the prophecy was fulfilled. A light took over the whole room. A whirlwind of wind formed, whisping up Cíntia and Isthar, along with the flowers that were there. The two of them clapped their hands in fear and, after a fright, they continued on, spinning and smiling, enjoying the magic of that encounter.

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Despite the exuberance of first love, which stirs even the wind and flowers around them, societal norms dampen the two women’s connection. Upon discovering her true love is the seamstress, the princess is filled with anxiety since her love for Isthar will inevitably hurt her best friend, to whom she is betrothed, Febo. Cíntia is responsible for presenting her situation to others: “Como faria para que todos entendessem que esse amor era tão amor quanto outros amores?” (175) [“How would she make everyone understand that this love was just as much love as other loves?”]. The young princess has no precedent for two women loving each other, and the seamstress must untangle the twisted knot that results from the princess’s loving disclosure. Like in a traditional fairy tale, in which all loose ends are tied up in a harmonious resolution, Febo’s desires are also satisfied since he and the younger princess, Selene, harbor a secret love for one another. Yet, the greatest challenges occur when Cíntia reveals her love for the young seamstress. As a result, her mother falls ill, causing chaos and uncertainty among the subjects. Concerned members of the kingdom wait outside the castle doors, ready to offer their services to relieve the ailing queen. The seamstress is among this group of well-wishers, but is thrown out each day until, finally, when all else has failed, she is permitted to see the queen. Isthar cures her love’s mother with her magical needle, healing her wound with a sewing notion traditionally used to mend clothing, not bodies. The elated king intends to repay the seamstress with wealth, even removing her need to work in her beloved profession. Refusing his request, the seamstress infuriates him when she attempts to convince him that he should instead allow the princess to marry the person who cured the queen. The seamstress not only saves the queen’s life, but also places her own needs to one side, becoming a peacemaker among the kingdom’s inhabitants, who are enraged by the injustice of the king’s decision. The revolt that follows stuns the soldiers, who are not used to harming their own people. To resolve this belligerent situation, the seamstress once again steps in. While she lauds the people for protesting according to their convictions, she also demands rational behavior from them, prioritizing peace over all else. Her gesture calms the masses, and she finally gains support from the skeptical king, who can now appreciate her valor. Though the two women’s spring wedding, celebrating love and beautifully sewn gowns, constitutes a happy ending, the author leaves the reader with more sewing-laden wisdom: No costura da vida, a agulha do Tempo alinhava o tecido dos acontecimentos com a linha de nossas atitudes. Por vezes, precisamos de uma linha mais firme para coser panos mais ásperos, acontecimentos duros… Em outros momentos, o ideal é uma linha brilhante ou multicolorida para bordar as tramas singelas dos dias de felicidade. E, assim, o Tempo vai

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nos transpassando, cerzindo os laços de nossa existência no encontro com outras histórias, lugares e pessoas. Ele costura, em cada um, uma exclusiva colcha de retalhos: colcha contendo muitas linhas, texturas, cores, tamanhos e formas. (397) In the seam of life, the needle of Time aligns the fabric of events with our attitudes. Sometimes we need a firmer thread to sew rougher cloths, such as hard events… At other times, it is a bright or multicolored one to embroider the simple happenings of happy days. Even so, Time is passing us by, binding the bonds of our existence, our encounters with other stories, places and people. It sews an exclusive quilt on each one: one containing many threads, textures, colors, sizes and shapes.

The book’s conclusion poetically encourages reflection and action. Rich in metaphors drawn from the seamstress’s professional repertoire, the author celebrates the uniqueness of humankind that refuses to submit to the shackles of socially regulated norms and expectations. Instead, like in El corazón del sastre, we are reminded of the connective thread that binds us, and as a result creates a beautiful, distinctive tapestry. Cut from a Unique Cloth: Unexpected Peace in El de-sastre perfecto Resembling A princesa e a costureira, Rocío Martínez’s El de-sastre perfecto delves into the fragility of international relations and the fallibility of humankind. Reflecting the flawed nature of the battling nations’ inhabitants, a tailor in charge of dressing the regime proves that he is imperfect, capable of making a critical mistake with uncertain consequences.9 As we shall see, such mistakes can be forgivable – positive even – all depending on the willingness of others to search for and adopt an alternate perspective. Like in El corazón del sastre, the unnamed nation suffers from turbulent times and surroundings. From the book’s opening passage, the author crafts a troubled backdrop filled with military details: “Durante años y años dos países estuvieron en Guerra destrozando todo lo que tenían: árboles, montañas, casas… hasta personas” [“For years two countries were at war, destroying everything that they had: trees, mountains, houses… even people”]. The bifold opening illustration shows firing tanks and burning buildings, countering the small cemetery whose white tombstones dot the countryside. Despite the book’s grim opening, the plot swiftly develops a hopeful tone when the two leaders decide it is finally time for peace. A symbolic parade will follow and the need to keep up appearances leads one

9

El de-sastre perfecto is the 2010 winner of the V Concurso Internacional de Álbum Infantil Ilustrado.

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side to seek professional help: that of a local tailor who will refashion their uniforms for the celebratory event. The tailor’s position of agency is evident as he is in such high demand that the soldiers have to convince him to take on the project of fashioning their uniforms. Nevertheless, the tailor does not allow the soldiers to intimidate him with their request. Instead, he accepts while warning them that the order will not be ready far in advance. Like El tiempo entre costuras, the text luxuriates in the actual process of sewing, involving all the technical tools and mathematical exactitudes necessary for a tailored piece. Although not mentioned in the text, in the illustrations we discover a young, unnamed apprentice who aids the tailor in his meticulous work. Although the young girl never speaks in the text, she communicates through a small sewing mannequin, which is at first without adornment or clothing. When the tailor realizes that a mistake has been made with the fabric order, resulting in bright prints with tropical flora and fauna as the new fabric backcloth, the small mannequin, now with hair made out of pattern paper and bright blue earrings like those of the female leader, holds a small white paper with an olive branch. The tailor decides to continue with the sewing assignment and exercises his position of power. Without consulting the military, he decides to forge ahead in the spirit of the words of his military employer: “En nombre del buen entendimeinto con el país vecino” [“In the name of good understanding with the neighboring country”]. Peace is near, and a sartorial slip cannot get in its way. The soldiers are disgusted when they try on the pieces, which transform their neutral bodies into vibrant sounding boards. The scene highlights the underlying problem between the two dueling nations: a lack of communicative understanding. While the soldiers consider the “frivolous” choice of uniforms a possible conflict-starter, the opposite is true. Instead, the other nation interprets the uniforms as a peacemaking gesture: “¡Qué detalle tan hermoso han tenido al llevar en sus uniformes símbolos de nuestra tierra… ¡Con esta actitud, la paz durará!” [“What a beautiful gesture they made by wearing their uniforms with symbols of our land… With this attitude, peace will last!”]. The vibrant party and parade that follow contrast with the somber war-stricken beginning of the text. Like the small mannequin, the crowds hold up pictures of olive branches, symbolic reminders of an extension of peace. Now the mannequin also wears a brightly colored dress and matching headgear, with vibrant flora and fauna. Through the vivid colors, a decisive tailor fashions an unlikely, amicable celebration, allowing two countries at conflict to revel in their similarities instead of their differences and, as a result, understand how they are both cut from the same cloth.

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Upcycling and Creative Possibilities in the Rewriting of Arroz con leche This chapter has focused on the conciliatory possibilities of both seamstresses and tailors, all empowered through their sewing auxiliaries: a connective thread, a communicative sewing box, a magic needle, and vibrant fabric. The final book we will discuss does not include the formal sewing professions, but rather the individual possibilities found in the textile arts. In 2017, Argentine Natalí Tentori, winner of the Ciudad de Orihuela’s Premio de Poesía para Niños y Niñas, reconceptualized the children’s classic “Arroz con leche,” giving an empowering twist to the centuries-old song and dance. The folkloric piece, which dates from the Golden Age of Iberian culture (fifteenth–seventeenth centuries), has permeated throughout Latin America, resulting in myriad variations, most of them promoting traditional domestic arts – such as sewing and embroidering – as well as marriage as an end goal for young females. Tentori’s poetry, together with masterful illustrations by Colombian illustrator Elizabeth Builes, revisits these textile arts, all while presenting liberating possibilities. Elizabeth Builes’s multimedia illustrations, composed of fine watercolors, drawings and embroidery stitches, accompany the majority of Tentori’s poems. The prolific illustrator, whose initial training was in the natural sciences, describes her creative process as one which seeks to draw on the writer’s silences without conditioning the reader (cf. circuloabierto.org). In this way, the reader may participate in interpreting the careful interplay between text and illustration. The poetry collection is filled with celebrations of women in all stages of life. Most avert their gaze downward, while others slumber oblivious. Only two poems, “Jugar” [“Play”] and “Arroz con leche,” from which the book takes its title and cover illustration, depict a young girl who gazes at the reader, inviting a playful entry into nostalgia, maternal warmth and the whimsy of childhood. The short video “Agua, río y mar” (“Water, River and Sea”) follows the creative process of the celebrated Colombian illustrator, whose images almost always contain water. Her fascination with this natural resource flows through Arroz con leche. For example, the poem “Conversar” [“Conversation”] mixes verb tenses with narrator voices: Será que cuando alguien iba al mar mi mamá siempre decía ¡Que le lleguen mis saludos! Será que cuando yo era nena le hablaba al mar. (33) Is it that when someone went to the sea my mom always told me Give them my greeting! Is it that when I was a child I talked to the sea.

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Through the use of the future tense, the poet introduces a self-questioning of her remembrance of the past. Her mother’s participation in her communication with the sea reinforces her behavior that she assumes would not be accepted by modern society. Yet, because she suffers no corrective measures for her non-normative behavior, she may continue in dialogue with birds and the sea: “(el mar contesta con las olas y la espuma)” [“(the sea answers with waves and foam)”] (33). The accompanying illustration presents the reader with vertical waves and a young girl standing and embracing them, speaking into the sea’s depth. Her white dress shows blue fish in opposite directions. The ebb and flow of the fabric mirrors, in literal terms, the sea’s natural movement, and in figurative terms, active dialogue. The sea’s surface contains a bright, white running stitch that defines the dark waves. While the first stanza presents self-questioning of the narrator’s personal experience as a child, the second transcends the microcosm of the self in order to explore more universal manifestations of conversation: ¿Así hablaban los mapuches con los árboles? ¿Los guaraníes con los jaguaretés? ¿Así será que las chamanas aimaras oían el canto de la Madre Tierra? Is that how the Mapuches talked with the trees? The Guarani with the jaguars? Would this be the way that the Aymara Shamans heard Mother Earth’s song?

The poetic voice recognizes other possibilities for dialogue in the natural world. If we observe the illustrator’s engagement with the author’s silences, we also see visual manifestations of these encounters in the young girl’s encounter with the sea. In addition to the bright running stich, muted white lines traverse the sea’s surface. These faint strokes evoke tree knots, transporting the sea’s image into a large tree, like those with which the Mapuche spoke. The crest of the wave, rounded and full, held between the young girl’s hands, suggests a maternal breast, a humanized depiction of Mother Earth and her song. Finally, the waves’ crests, a result of the sea and moon’s continual conversation, resemble the mountains. Softened lines leave the darkened mass of the sea, developing depth and texture as they create white mountains, etched into the young girl’s legs and feet. Her unity with nature’s roots, like that of those who came before her, represents the shared knowledge of textile arts that remains an inherited language among her family’s matriarchs. The text opens within an unnamed poem, expanding on the creative potential of a beloved sweater, worn-out through daily wear-and-tear, and magically transformed by the narrator’s aunt:

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Vino su tía llena de pensamientos dibujó dos jirafas en la pollera rota, las cortó, las cosió, puso relleno, agregó dos ojos de botones y le regaló por la mañana ese alto animal africano que la niña montó de inmediato. (4) Her aunt came full of ideas she drew two giraffes on the torn sweater, she cut them out, sewed them and stuffed them, she added eyes out of buttons and she gave it to her in the morning, that tall African animal the girl mounted immediately.

Suddenly, the upcycled creation becomes animated and inseparable from the young girl. The pair enjoy both land and sea until the stuffed companion itself becomes worn out. The dexterous aunt arrives with her powerful tools: a reparative needle and thread. Similar to the needle in A princesa e a costureira, the instrument is capable of healing both corporal and textile wounds. These two sewing notions set the scene for other masterpieces, even some that will accompany the narrator throughout adulthood.10 In the poem “Bordar” [“Embroidery”], the act of embroidery is not only a way to channel creativity, but also an art passed down by the narrator’s grandmother, a way for the two women to be connected through a metaphorical thread and needle, even after the matriarch’s death: Ahora están en tus dedos (aunque yo me vaya), 10 The two following poems, “Cantar” [“Singing”] and “Llorar” [“Crying”] continue with themes and imagery presented in “Conversar.” In “Cantar” a young girl sleeps as the embroidered trail – in the bright red line found throughout the text – flows into her eye and out the other side. While the poem’s text emphasizes the role of maternal songs in aiding children’s slumber, as well as language acquisition, the red fish, traveling the entire horizontal length of the page, creates motion as a metaphorical representation of words and songs that fill the young girl’s ears and dreams. In “Llorar” the communication with nature continues as a young girl stands crying among sketches of flowers. Her white jumper is filled with vertical blue embroidery lines that represent her flood of tears. Yet, her actual tears are rose-colored and fall abundantly from her eyes, creating puddles around the colorless flowers that resemble Argentina’s national flower, the Erythrina crista-galli (Ceibo). The flowers, which face downward, grow in swamps and wetlands. In this way, the child’s nourishing tears care for her natural surroundings.

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Al enhebrar la aguja Van a volar pájaros azules. (7) Now they are on your fingers (even if I leave), Upon threading the needle Blue birds are going to fly.

The image of the bird, reminiscent of the liberating ballad that concludes Lemebel’s Tengo miedo torero, represents an aspirational textile creation for the narrator. Her grandmother had shown her a tablecloth decorated with blue birds sewn by both the grandmother and her sister. Instead of merely replicating the impressive scene, she taught her granddaughter to embroider scattered nests, waiting one day to be filled by her granddaughter’s contributions. Builes’s characteristic illustration style of visible pencil strokes and dominant, oftentimes earthy, tones – in this case, muted greens and oranges – are common features throughout. The young woman carefully holds a thread, ready to unite it with the needle that awaits. The thread’s starkly contrasting color, a vivid red, appears throughout the illustrations in varying stiches – running stitch, back stitch, cross stitch and French knot. Like a red vein filled with the body’s life source, the connective red thread feeds the body with maternal bonding and textile knowledge. The fabric of the woman’s dress, covered with white birds that face upward toward the wearer’s downward gaze, couple two physical birds perched on her collarbone and wrist. The backdrop, a soft rose color, contains faint pencil strokes of simple leaves in the same color and trespass onto the woman’s cheeks. In this way, the illustration elaborates on the protagonist’s connection with nature as she literally fades into her natural surroundings, while the birds emerge from the two-dimensional fabric. Her rootedness in her natural surroundings, alongside her inherited textile art, transcend time and space. The short poem “Hilar” [“Spinning”], revels in the connection between oral tradition and textile arts. The young girl’s grandmother interweaves directions on how to prepare one’s yarn with instructions on the art of storytelling. The piece of yarn becomes a metaphorical “hilo de su voz” (21) [“thread of her voice”]. The illustration, void of contextualized surroundings, presents the young girl sitting on a large rose-tinted ball of yarn in a white room. With her back turned to the reader, she spins the yarns within her fingertips. Having received Grandmother Juanita’s teachings, she must now research the end of the string to carry on her own through the physical process of bringing together threads and stringing together words. In this way, the illustrator fills in the silence of the text, providing a hopeful sense of agency lined with carefully crafted familiar legacy. Likewise, the communal and transformative nature of textile arts is

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foregrounded in the poem “Tejer” [“Weaving”]. The opening scene transports the reader to a female-centered space: Se sientan en círculo unas mujeres y tejen sueños y bufandas, mantas, caminos posibles. (22) They sit in a circle some women weave dreams and scarves, blankets, possible paths.

The act of weaving physical items (scarves and blankets) is visually interwoven with figurative manifestations (dreams and possible paths) as Tentori’s text combines these images. The ceremonial atmosphere of the scene builds as the women light candles, drink from the same cup and release their hair to fly free in the wind. The accompanying illustration exhibits a distinct type of communal weaving as a young woman peacefully shuts her eyes and relishes the protective hands of an unknown female figure who loosely braids her hair. Pencil strokes on the braider’s hands unite her with her serene friend or loved one. The signature red embroidery thread found throughout the text creates large flowers on the young woman’s blouse. The final text of the poem describes another type of communion, one that transcends time: Detrás de ellas, sentadas, sus sombras se ponen de pie Son siluetas de niñas Tomadas de las manos Jugando a la ronda. (22) Behind them, sitting, their shadows they stand up They are silhouettes of girls Holding hands Dancing in a circle.

While the beginning of the poem demonstrates the comradeship of women during their shared experience of making textile creations, the poet reminds us of the women’s happy childhoods, evoking another circular image, that of the lifecycle.

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While the textile arts – as well as other activities such as hunting, sweeping, playing and cleaning – serve the narrator as an imaginative canvas for the young girl to interpret her surroundings, in the final poem of the collection Tentori reimagines the rhyme from which the book takes its name: Arroz con leche yo quiero encontrar a una compañera que quiera soñar que crea en sí misma y salga a luchar por conquistar sus sueños de más libertad. (38) Rice pudding I want to meet a friend that wants to dream that believes in herself that wants to fight for her dreams of more freedom.

Although throughout the collection of poetry Tentori’s vision presents us with exciting options in which domestic arts facilitate personal fulfillment and creativity, especially as a source of communion among women of different generations, here she rewrites the traditional lyrics of the song that recounts a young man’s search for a perfect wife who is knowledgeable and adept in all areas of domesticity, among them sewing and embroidery. The author fashions these as a purely individual delight, unburdened by the need to conform to socially determined gender roles in order to be happy. Instead, Arroz con leche encourages young people to delve into the arts of creation – oftentimes involving a needle and thread – while also standing up for individual dreams, unfettered by cultural limitations. Tentori’s revised lyrics were first published in 2015 on social media platforms that denounced gender violence and femicide under the tag #NiUnaMenos. This social movement has since spread throughout Latin America. One of its most prominent images is by the renowned Argentine illustrator Liniers, depicting a young girl standing by a single flower. In one hand she grasps a teddy bear, reminding the public of innocence. While her downward gaze evokes sorrow for those lost, her small closed fist is raised in solidarity.11 Such camaraderie is also found in

11

This movement is named after Susana Chávez Castillo, Mexican poet and human-rights activist who created “Ni una muerta más” [“Not one more [woman]

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Arroz con leche’s poems and illustrations, filled with the unbroken thread of women united across space and time. Textile Legacies without Conclusion In celebrated Mexican writer Angeles Mastretta’s short story “Mujeres de ojos grandes,” Tía Jose’s daughter faces a life-threatening illness. Instead of succumbing to the doctor’s grim prognosis, the desperate mother seeks refuge in the power of hope: Una mañana, sin saber la causa, iluminada sólo por los fantasmas de su corazón, se acercó a la niña y empezó a contarle las historias de sus antepasadas. Quiénes habían sido, qué mujeres tejieron sus vidas, con qué hombres antes de que la boca y el ombligo de su hija se anudaran a ella. De qué estaban hechas, cuántos trabajos había pasado, qué penas y jolgorios traía ella como herencia. Quiénes sembraron con intrepidez y fantasías la vida que le tocaba prolongar. (155) One morning, without knowing why, enlightened only by the ghosts in her heart, she approached the girl and started telling her stories from her ancestors. Who they had been, which women had knit their lives with which men before her daughter’s mouth and navel had formed a knot with her. What these women were made of, what toils they had been through, what sorrows and merriments she had inside her as her heritage. Who sowed, with boldness and fantasies, the life she was to continue.

Like the shared maternal bond in Mastretta’s story, the power of legacy, one filled with hope and shared knowledge, remains a constant denominator in the children’s books involving textile arts in this chapter. These books and illustrations, spanning different linguistic and cultural traditions, place inherited textile arts alongside retellings of beloved literary tales. The pedagogical underpinnings involved in these imaginative plotlines enable emotional explorations of human suffering, loss, war, and sexual and socioeconomic identity. Sartorial tools allow seamstresses and tailors to mend aching hearts and metaphorically stitch communities back together. These fantasy-filled texts reflect the inclusive nature of sewing and textile arts that seamlessly build strong communities and inherited bonds.

dead”] in response to rampant femicide in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. At age thirty-six, Chávez Castillo was found murdered and mutilated in the city of her birth.

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Final Notions: Toward Consumer Consciousness […] clothes in fiction are clothes in action, clothes observed, clothes experienced – and, finally, immortalized. (Hughes, “The Novel and Dress” 528) Textiles have been central both to histories of capitalism and to organized resistance against its ruthless systems of production. (Bryan-Wilson 7)

Sewing, needlework, textile arts, all centuries-old skills developed for survival, as well as self-expression, continue to make a comeback in radical ways throughout Latin America and Spain. While parallel currents continue to run between fast fashion and slow fashion, even in flagship stores such as H & M, market projections are leading companies to overhaul their tried-and-tested business models. New generations are demanding environmental mindfulness and consciousness of who is behind each garment.1 Popular culture’s obsession with sewing only grows as reality shows such as Spain’s popular Maestros de la costura [Masters of Sewing] (2018), a successful adaptation of Britain’s Sewing Bee, averages almost two million viewers and continues for a third season.2 The successful television series Velvet, after celebrating four seasons, released a sequel, Velvet Colleción, this time situated in Barcelona in 1967. The protagonist, Ana Rivera, dares to leave the confines of her humble beginnings as a seamstress in Madrid. After finding success in the exclusive business of haute couture in Madrid, she

1 See Black and Root, “Introduction,” in The Handbook of Fashion Studies (2013), for a discussion of other corporate initiatives regarding sustainability by Patagonia, Adidas and Levis (cf. 518–19). 2 This reality show has been adapted in eight other European countries.

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begins to dream big: first aspiring to success in Barcelona and later becoming a global franchise. With more bespoke clothing stores popping up throughout major urban areas, the value of knowing the story behind garments becomes even more apparent. While sweatshops have been under the critical eye of the public, conflicting business models involving sewing in prison settings, rehabilitation and profitable business further tangle the ethical complexities involved in garment production.3 In “Made on the Inside, Worn on the Outside,” Elizabeth Paton and Andrea Zarate describe Peru, in particular, as a new case study involved in prison and sewing labor. The authors recognize that fashion and prisons have a long history stretching as far back as the eighteenth century. In the United States and Britain, government bodies or correctional boards have historically looked to prison settings for mass-produced, low-value items; at the end of the twentieth century, with a record number of people behind bars, private companies too – many fashion conglomerates included – turned to prisons for mass labor. Yet, in Peru, it is high-end, luxury fashion that employs prison inmates. Two brands in particular – Carcel (Prison), a Danish brand founded in 2016, and Pietà, founded by Thomas Jacob, a French designer who had previously worked for Chanel – employ women and men in Cuzco and Lima. Both promise decent wages, and perhaps more importantly, an opportunity to develop invaluable skills that may translate into economic solvency after inmates are released. Ethical concerns regarding clothing fashioned in the confinements of the prison setting remain, since uncensored accounts by inmates regarding their experiences are difficult to obtain. While maintaining cultural traditions, throughout Latin America textile artists break through the confines of space, even escaping traditional enclosures for their work. In Fray: Art and Textile Politics (2017) BryanWilson metaphorizes the powerful, not easily categorized nature of textile artists: “Edges – or borders – are more prone to fraying, as they are subject to more friction” (4).4 The art historian’s global approach to the agency of textile artists concentrates on the period between the 1970s and 1990s, turbulent political and economic times for much of Latin America. In a twenty-firstcentury context, textile artists continue to traverse the canvas and tightly 3 Lisa DiGiovanni’s Unsettling Nostalgia in Spain and Chile: Longing for Resistance in Literature and Film (2019) explores the role of the sewing machine in political prison settings during and after the Spanish Civil War. Female prisoners were obligated to “redeem themselves through forced labor” (102). In this way we see sewing as a means to relocate women to the private sphere and thereby facilitate gendered political agendas. 4 In the Latin American context in particular, Bryan-Wilson explores the corpus of Chilean artist and author Cecilia Vicuña. Works such as “The Glove” merge textile and performance art.

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knot messages of social plights into the culturally rich art of textiles, passed down from generation to generation. Internationally renowned Colombian textile artist Olga de Amaral is one of the most celebrated postwar Latin American artists, casting her multimedia masterpieces “off stretcher.” Her works are forged from strands of fiber, paint, gesso and precious metals, provoking reflections on both historical and personal identity. Peruvian textile artist Teresa Barboza’s unique embroideries spill out of the parameters of the embroidery hoop in works such as Volver a mirar. Her three-dimensional pieces, reflecting plant life and landscapes, reject static notions of nature and instead represent its constant, perpetual movement. Interdisciplinary artist Mandy Cano Villalobos’s multimedia work combines both textile and performance arts to address human-rights violations among female factory workers. While textile arts are passed down throughout generations and centuries, Cano Villalobo’s artistic corpus, alongside those of artists such as Olga de Amaral and Teresa Barboza, demonstrate the ways in which textile arts not only inherit cultural and historical legacies, but also push forward as dynamic and lasting forms of artistic expression. In the literary works analyzed in this study, fashion and sewing intertwine. Museums throughout Latin America begin their fashion theory in the nineteenth century, when Latin American fashion was notable due to the highly structured caste system, a remnant of colonization, that permeated all aspects of life. Fashion as a visually organizing marker facilitates such categorizing. In the Foreword of Fashion in Fiction Louise Wallenberg reminds us of the fleeting qualities of fashion: “Fashion has to do with becoming, and not with being, and hence it is a process that cannot be fixed or frozen” (xv). Even the more homespun term for fashion, “dress,” is not exempt, for the garments we put on our bodies always suffer from the passing of time and exposure to nature’s elements. In addition to meeting our basic needs, clothing, however, contains layers of meaning and identity formation. In literature, as Clair Hughes reminds us in “The Novel and Dress”: “Clothes in fiction, however, are rarely described in full; significant details are picked out, but a general effect is understood between author and reader. These details contribute importantly to the pattern of images created by the novel, as well as contributing to the ‘reality’ effect” (528). In the novels analyzed in this study, at times clothing provides a vital aid to identity transformation. At other times, the process of fashioning clothing results in a transformative creative journey that offers economic solvency and self-realization. In addition to the pedagogical thread involved in the children’s literature explored in this book, one can also contemplate the brewing of sartorial interest among young populations. This would not be the first time that youth were targeted for marketing purposes. In “The Sewing Needle as Magic Wand,” Eileen Margerum reflects on how mid-twentieth-century sewingmachine manufacturers concentrated on marketing their products to young

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female populations, since older generations, influenced by the austerity of the Great Depression and the First World War, still viewed the machine as a necessary item: In January 1946, The Singer Sewing Company, America’s largest domestic sewing machine maker, began selling directly to girls by offering the Singer Teen-Age Sewing Course, declaring that it was exclusively for girls aged twelve to seventeen. The ads appeared sporadically in four magazines aimed at middle-class teenage girls: The American Girl, Modern Miss, Calling All Girls and Seventeen. […] The campaign lasted until the mid-1960s, a two-decade period when Singer so dominated the home-sewing market in the United States that many American women would have been hard pressed to name another maker of sewing machines. (193)

Singer’s successful reach of youth eventually allowed it to dominate the global sewing-machine market. The cultural shifts regarding attitudes toward sewing and other textile arts continue to accelerate as literature and popular culture, coupled with social media exposure, celebrate the needle and thread and delight in the process of making. Since I began writing this book, Latin America has experienced some unfortunate historical hauntings. In Chile the last months of 2019 brought about mass protest, followed by a heavy-handed response from the government, one that involved a curfew reminiscent of that in Lemebel’s Tengo miedo torero. Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, exhibiting a questionable stance regarding the Amazon rainforest, mirrors the nonchalant attitude of the government officials found in de Pontes Peebles’s The Seamstress. The novels explored in this book clothe themselves with the language of sewing. As Hunter eloquently puts it, “Sewing is a visual language. It has a voice. It has been used by people to communicate something of themselves – their history, beliefs, prayers and protest” (275). By reconsidering the figures behind textile arts, these works elaborate the labor-intensive and message-laden process behind the products made with needle and thread. In the spirit of reflection, what does it mean exhibit consciousness as a consumer? Is being a mindful shopper just another label for a clever marketing strategy? Interest in sewing has historically been a marketed one. In the nineteenth century, conflicting narratives aimed at reaching distinct classes – from leisurely aesthetic sewing by the middle class to sewing out of necessity for the lower-class – permeated promotional materials driven to create a mass market out of sewing (cf. Fernandez 157). At the same time, on a distinctly less market-driven note, celebrations of sewing and textile arts may connect with other cultural changes. Consumer consciousness is filled with personal choices and negotiations. Creative ways to consume less, transume, upcycle, mend items, and buy and sell secondhand depend on resources – both financial and labor-filled – available to individuals. Yet, one cannot ignore the laborious,

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luxurious accounts of making involved in the works studied in this book. By educating consumers about the intrinsic process of making and creating, albeit in the fantasy-filled realm of fiction, these authors and artists “sew” seeds of empathy, raising awareness of the reality that no matter how automated the process, a person is still behind the clothes we wear. In the first months of 2020, the uniting power of sewing experienced a global revival. During the onset of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, fashion designers, seamstresses and those willing to learn or return to the age-old art of sewing united to craft protective masks for healthcare workers whose lives were being put at risk by shortages of the most rudimentary protection. In Spain, where the devastating virus spread rapidly and fatally, fast-fashion retailers such as Inditex laid off 25,000 workers, reminding the world of fast fashion’s vulnerability. At the same time, the world’s largest fashion leader vowed to aid in the weekly making of masks for Spanish health authorities. Community collaborations rippled through the crisis as nuns, military officials and individual volunteers all contributed to ease the shortages. Having felt the numbing effect of fast fashion’s lure, the power of the needle and thread surged back onto the global scene, reminding us that, after all, our sewing boxes contain tools for our basic survival.

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INDEX abject  124–5 n. 21 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film  157 Africa  30–1, 45, 51–7 See also specific countries agency  10, 13, 34, 48, 57, 79, 92, 115, 121, 128, 138, 182–3 Agins, Teri  18 n. 9 Agosin, Marjorie  115 Aguirre, Sonia Montecino  112 n. 16 AIDS epidemic  107 Aira, César  11 auto-fiction and  76–7 n. 3, 77–80, 78–9 n. 4 La costurera y el viento  11–12, 73–80, 76–7 n. 3, 82, 85, 92, 93–4 n. 17, 98–9 Ema la cautiva  93–4 n. 17 La liebre  93 n. 17 Las noches de Flores  75 publishing preferences of  75, 75 n. 2 social criticism and  76 Alberca, Manuel  76–7 n. 3 Alexander, Lynn  6, 6–7, 6–7 n. 12, 6 n. 12, 7, 10 Allende, Salvador  102, 102 n. 3, 110–11 n. 12, 112 n. 17, 119, 123 n. 20 Almodóvar, Pedro, Volver  73 Amaral, Olga de  183 Amazon rainforest  184 American literature  6, 9 Amireh, Amal  9 n. 15 ángel del hogar (“angel of the home”)  5 Angelou, Maya  129 anonymity  3 n. 4 antihistory  10 Antílope  22 Argentina  11–12, 31, 73–80, 84, 84 n. 7, 93, 93–4 n. 17, 161 barbarism vs. civilization question in  79–80, 92 disappearances in  80 financial crisis of 2001  75

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immigration and  79–80 memory in  79–80 See also Patagonia region Arnal, Txabi  13, 157, 161 n. 6 El corazón del sastre  13, 161–5 arpilleras  8, 8 n. 14, 107, 115 Arteixo, Galicia  20 n. 15 artistry  2 See also self-expression; textile arts Asia  25, 27–8 See also specific countries assembly-line work  11 See also factory labor; maquiladoras atemporality  10 auto-fiction  76–7 n. 3, 77–80, 78–9 n. 4 Aymara women  34 Bakhtin, Mikhail  119–20 barbarism, vs. civilization  79–80, 92 Barboza, Teresa  183 Barthes, Roland  16–17 n. 5, 16 n. 5, 17 Bellatin, Mario  75–6 Bello, Juaquín  103 El roto  103 Benjamin, Walter  3, 157–8 bespoke clothing stores  182 big business  22 bildungsroman  157–8 n. 2 Black, Sandy  25, 27 Black Legend  45 blogs  22–3, 23–4, 37 body identity, the grotesque and  119–20 Bolaño, Roberto  26–7 n. 24, 28 Bolívar, Simón  101 Bolivia  31, 34 Bolsonaro, Jair  184 Bonne, Valentina  8 Border Assembly, Inc.  26 Borges, Jorge Luis  78–9 n. 4, 97–8 “El Aleph”  97–8 brands ethically conscious  37–8 See also specific brands

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198 INDEX Brazil  12, 19 n. 11, 24, 31, 129, 184 Breccia, Mariano  38 British Board of Trade  67 n. 7 Brooks, Andrew  30, 39 Brown, Sass  37, 38 Bryan-Wilson, Julia  181, 182–3, 182 n. 4 Buenos Aires, Argentina  2 n. 3, 78 Builes, Elizabeth  13 Arroz con leche  173–9 Burman, Barbara  2 n. 2, 7 n. 13 Bush, Matthew  75 Business Assembly Inc.  26 Butler, Judith  101, 104, 114, 122 Cabello de Carbonera, Mercedes  3 Blanca Sol  3 Campoy-Cubillo, Adolfo  44–5, 53 n. 4, 54 n. 5 Canada  33 cangaceiros  130, 130 n. 1, 132–4, 146–7, 151, 154 Cánovas, Rodrigo  112 n. 16 Cano Villalobos, Mandy  183 capitalism  17, 22, 38–9 “capsule closets”  36–7 Carcel  182 Carvalho, Susan  9–10 Casas, Francisco  105–6 n. 8, 105–7 “Yeguas del Apocalipsis,” “The Mares of the Apocalypse”  105 Casini, Silvia  78, 92 Castaño, Pilar  21 Castile  46 Castro, Fidel  110–11 n. 12 Catholic Church  8 caudillos  108 censorship  104, 157–8 n. 2 Centro de Madres  115, 125 n. 22 Chanel  182 Chávez Castillo, Susana  178–9 n. 11 Chica del Dept 301  23–4 child labor  25 children’s literature  13–14, 157–79 dictatorship and  157–8 n. 2, 158 in Latin America  13–14 pedagogical function of  159 in Spain  13–14 Chile  2–3, 12, 24, 31, 84, 101–28, 107 n. 10, 110–11 n. 112, 125 n. 22, 158 n. 2 arpilleras in  8, 107, 115 community initiatives in  116–17, 116 n. 19

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divorce in  125 n. 22 fashion blogs in  22–3 fashion in  23, 104 gay movement in  102 n. 3, 105–6 n. 8 gender in  2, 104 human rights in  104–5 LGBTQ+ community in  102, 102 n. 3, 103 n. 5, 114 mass protests in  184 mestizos in  112 n. 16 military fashion in  123 n. 20 olla común in  116 n. 19 prostitution in  102–5 queer sensibility in  103 n. 5 textile arts in  8 transgender individuals in  102–5 transition to democracy in  102, 116 n. 19 used clothing in  31–2 women in public sphere in  110–11 n. 12 women’s protest in  110–11 n. 12 See also Patagonia region China  21, 25, 27, 29, 34, 35 Churchill, Winston  63 Ciudad Juárez, Mexico  26–7 n. 24, 27–8, 178–9 n. 11 civilization, vs. barbarism  79–80, 92 Civil War  9 n. 15 class  19, 22, 46–52, 67, 112, 112 n. 17, 118–20, 136, 137, 141–6 Cline, Elizabeth  22 n. 17, 24, 29–30, 32, 40 clothing as artifact  18 changes in production of  4 democratization of  19 design of  20–1 n. 15 fairly sourced  20 gender and  18, 106–7 (see also cross-dressing) identity and  183 machine-embroidered  36 n. 38 reappropriation of  107 story behind  182 technology and  36 n. 38 (see also sewing machines) youth and  183–4 See also fashion Cole, Catherine  17 colonization, in Latin America  183 Columbia  21–2, 23, 24

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INDEX

“Condition-of-England” literature  6 consumer consciousness  35, 181–5 buying less  36–7 buying local  34–6 eco-consciousness  20 n. 12, 35, 37–9, 181 ethically conscious consumers  37–8 consumerism  16 n. 3, 17, 21, 22, 33, 38–9 See also consumer consciousness coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic  184 Council on Hemispheric Affairs  27 Craik, Jennifer  35–6 n. 37 creativity  9, 10, 34, 38–9, 118, 138, 148, 165, 168, 175–6, 184 See also self-expression; textile arts criminality, gender and  138–40 cross-dressing  102–5, 104 n. 6, 108–27 cultural appropriation  33–4 cultural identity See national cultural identity Cuzco, Peru  182 Dansvogue  37 Darwin, Charles  84, 86 n. 7, 89, 90 n. 12 da Silva Alves, Wanderlan  109, 112 n. 15, 114, 115 Dávila, Arlene  21, 33–4, 40 n. 41 Dávila, Juan  101 n. 2, 102, 114 Davis, Kathleen  5 n. 9 del Pilar Sinués de Marco, María  5 del Río, Ana María  157–8 n. 2 de Pontes Peebles, Frances  12 n. 18 A Costureira e o Cangacaeiro  12–13, 129–56, 184 design  2 culturally insensitive  20–1 n. 15 ethically conscious  37–8 Dhaka, Bangladesh  29 Dickens, Charles  6–7 n. 12, 6 n. 12 dictatorship children’s literature and  157–8 n. 2, 158 masculinity and  108 mythification and  108 of Pinochet  103–5, 108, 109–16, 112 n. 17, 116 n. 19, 123–4 n. 20, 123–5 private space of  108 DiGiovanni, Lisa  182 n. 3

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digital media  22–4 Dior  19 Dirksen, Kristen  40 displacement physical  9–12, 93–4 (see also migration; travel; travel literature) temporal  10, 93 Docena (12NA)  38 do-it-yourself (DIY) culture  39–41, 40 n. 41 domesticity  5 Dominican Republic  31 Donoso, Claudia  101 n. 1, 104 La manzana de Adán  104 Donoso, José  103 El lugar sin limites  103, 109, 115–16 Dougher, Kelly  37 dressmaking profession of  11, 43–72 See also seamstresses; sewing Drexler, Jorge, “Todo se Transforma”  73 Driver, Alice  27–8 Dueñas, María  12 El tiempo entre costuras  11–12, 43–72, 142–3 Eagan, Greata  20 n. 12 eco-consciousness  20 n. 12, 35, 37–9, 181 eco-fashion  37–8 economic independence  13, 29, 51, 56, 58, 117–18, 120, 132, 138, 141–6, 183 economic policy  26–9 Ecuador  31 Eileen Fisher  32 El Clarin  102 n. 3 Elle Grand Prix award for fiction  12 n. 18 El Mercurio  104 n. 6 “el Supermán criollo”  108 Eltit, Diamela, “Las batallas de Coronel Robles”  106–7 embroidery  41, 108–27, 175–6 machine-embroidered clothing  36 n. 38 as resistance  115 self-expression and  133–4 See also needlework empowerment  13, 148 England child labor in  25

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200 INDEX clothing factories  25 needlework in  6 n. 11 seamstresses in  6–7, 6–7 n. 12, 6 n. 11 English literature, seamstresses in  6 Entre Irmãs  12–13 environmental devastation  10, 20, 25, 28, 184 See also eco-consciousness environmental exploitation  29–30 Errázuriz, Paz  104 La manzana de Adán  104 Espinoza, Alex  130 Europe See European Union; specific countries European Union  45–6 Evans, Janet  159–60, 161 n. 6 factory labor  2–3, 11 catastrophes and  29 working conditions and  25, 28 See also maquiladoras Falabella Department Store  23, 23 n. 21 fascism  17–18 fashion  10, 16, 17–24 1960s  19 class and  22 contemporary  15–42 crisis in  10–11 democratization of  21–4, 32 n. 32 ethical obligation of  37–8 “ethnicization” of  35 fourteenth-century  18–19 “global”  19 haute couture  20 n. 12, 22–3, 34, 59, 60 medieval  18–19 memory and  60–1 men’s  19 modernity and  10–11, 18 national trends  19 nineteenth-century  19 origins of  18 n. 10 postwar  19 prisons and  182 recycling and  60–1 self-expression and  18–19 sewing and  183 sustainability and  34, 34 n. 34, 37–8 transnational trends  19 twentieth-century  19

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wasteful nature of  25–6 women’s  19 fashion industry  10–11 See also specific countries fashion plurality  19–20 fashion theory  10–11, 15–16, 15 n. 1, 16–17 n. 5, 20 n. 12, 183 fast fashion  11, 20–1, 20 n. 15, 24, 33, 181, 184 cultural change and  33 cultural erasing of fashion as seasonal marker and  33 environmental devastation and  29–30 excess stock and  32 national cultural identity and  21–2 fast food  20, 20 n. 12 “Fast Luxury”  35 Faux, Susie  36 female friendship  49–50, 53–4, 54 n. 5, 59, 142–3 female sewing cooperatives  3 n. 5 femicides  178, 178–9 n. 11 maquiladoras and  27–8 feminine identity  4 femininity, spectacle and  103–4 Ferré, Rosario  161 El cuento envenado  159–61 “La muñeca menor”  160–1 n. 5, 160 n. 5 Papeles de Pandora  160 First World War  48, 61, 184 flagelados  136 flâneur  3 Flintoff, Paul  41 n. 42 fluidity  45 foodie movements  39–40 food industry, parallels to  20, 20 n. 12, 39–40 forced labor, during Spanish Civil War  182 n. 3 Forever 21  21–2 Foster, David William  112 n. 17 Fragoso, Monárrez  28 France, fashion industry in  11 Franco, Jean  105–6 n. 8 Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodríguez  115 friendship See female friendship Friends of American Writers Award  12 n. 18 Frye, Susan  6 n. 11 Fuentes, Carlos  26–7 n. 24

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INDEX

Fuguet, Albert  158 n. 3 García, Laura Rafaela  158–9, 159 n. 4 garment disposal  29–30 “garment pieces”  28 garment production  2, 13, 24–6 See also factory labor; fashion industry Gaultier, Jean Paul  34 gay movement, in Chile  102 n. 3, 105–6 n. 8 gender  2, 12, 43, 122 criminality and  138–40 gender-bending  101–28 gender-organizing function of clothing  106–7 masquerade and  44 (see also gender performativity) representations of  101–28 travel literature and  92 See also gender identity gender codes  130–3, 147–8 See also gender limitations gendered stereotypes  80–4, 121 gender identity  112 bourgeois  5 formation of  116 gender limitations  135–6, 137–41, 146 breaking of gender norms  148 challenging  141–50 double standards and  2 responses to  130–3 gender performativity  113–15, 121–2, 128 gender roles  125 n. 22, 138–40 gender violence  178, 178–9 n. 11 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)  26, 27 Germany  33, 46, 55–8, 62–70 Giardinelli, Mempo  92, 92 n. 15 Final de novela en Patagonia  93, 93 n. 16 global borrowing  34 globalization  21, 28 Global North  38 See also specific countries Global South  11, 24–6, 30–1, 32 n. 32 See also specific countries Globo network  12 Great Depression  116 n. 19, 184 Great Spanish Depression  46 Greenfield, Patricia Marks  36 n. 38 the grotesque, body identity and  119–20

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group identity  13 Guy, Donna  2 n. 3 H & M  32, 181 handmade goods, demand for  35 Hansel and Gretel  159 Harris, Beth  6–7 n. 12, 6 n. 12 haute couture  20 n. 12, 22–3, 34, 59, 60 Haywood Ferreira, Rachel  73 hegemony  17–24 Hel looks  22 Herchcovitch, Alexandre  19 n. 11 heteronormativity  102, 107, 109, 122–3 Hilfiger company  35 n. 35 Hiriart, Lucía (Pinochet’s wife)  108, 115, 122, 123–4, 125 n. 22 Hispano-Arab cultural proximity  53, 53 n. 4, 56–7 Hispanotropicalism  54 n. 5 Historia de un oso  157 historical climate  85 historical novel  10 See also specific works history  102 Hollander, Anne  15 home economics  40, 41 homophobia  122–3 homosexuality  102 n. 3, 103, 103 n. 5, 105–6 n. 8, 108–27, 112 n. 17, 132 See also LGBTQ+ community Hoskins, Tansy  20–1 n. 15, 22, 24, 35 huacho  112, 112 n. 16 Hughes, Clare  17 n. 6, 181, 183 human rights  10, 20, 20–1 n. 15, 25, 26–9, 35, 80, 104–5 Hunter, Clair  3 n. 4, 7–8, 184 Hutchison, Elizabeth Quay  2 hybridity  45 hypermodernity  19–20 Iberian literature  2, 6, 13 See also specific works identity  55–63 clothing and  183 feminine identity  4 gender identity  5, 112, 116 group identity  13 media and  134–7 mestiza identity  112 identity (continued) national cultural identity  21–2, 46

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202 INDEX photography and  134–7 image manipulation  123–4 n. 20 immigration  79–80 See also migration independence  9 India  21, 27, 59 Inditex  20–1 n. 15, 20 n. 15 individualism  19 Industrial Revolution  4 influencers  22 Inglesias Prieto, norma  26–7 n. 24 innovation  10, 34 See also creativity Isla Negra, Chile  8 Italy  11 Jacob, Thomas  182 “Juki girls”  28 “Juki pieces”  28 Kaiser, Susan  21 Karaminas, Vicki  17 Karan, Donna  36 Kemp, Laura Lee  44–6 Kenya  30, 31 Kiunguyu, Kylie  31 n. 30 “knockoff” culture  40 n. 41, 60 Kristeva, Julia  124–5 n. 21 Kuna Indian women  7–8 Kurnick, David  74–5 Kutesko, Elizabeth  19 n. 11 Labanyi, Jo  45, 71 labor  2 factory labor  2–3, 11, 25, 28, 29 (see also maquiladoras) forced labor during Spanish Civil War  182 n. 3 labor exploitation  2, 4, 6–7 labor migration  26–7 n. 24, 27 n. 25 slavery  25 La Tercera  32 Latin America  11, 27, 31, 34, 38, 45, 102 artificial “seasonal” changes in  33 children’s literature in  13–14 clothing production and  24 colonization of  45, 46, 183 eco-fashion in  38 “ethnicization” of fashion  35 fashion industry in  11 fashion theory in  183

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historical novel in  10 maquiladoras in  25–8 post-independence  102 seamstresses in  2 “seasonal” clothing and  33 shopping malls in  21–2 textile arts in  6 n. 12, 7–8, 182–3, 182 n. 4 used clothing in  31–2 See also specific countries Latin American literature  2–3, 6, 13 See also specific works Lauretis,Teresa de  114 leadership  148–9, 150–4 Lemebel, Pedro  12, 101–28, 105–6, 114 founds “Yeguas del Apocalipsis”  105–6 n. 8, 105–7 “Hablo por mi diferencia”  101, 101 n. 1 “La loca del Frente”  108, 114 Loco afan: crónicas de sidario  107, 112 n. 17 “El proyecto nombres (un mapa sentimental)”  107 Tengo miedo torero  12, 107–28, 184 Leppe, Carlos  114 Leslão, Janaína  13 A princesa e a constureira  13, 167–71 LGBTQ+ community  102, 102 n. 3, 103 n. 5, 114 Lima, Peru  182 Liniers,   178 Lipovetsky, Gilles  15, 15 n. 1, 18–20, 33 Lisbon, Portugal  47, 69 literary criticism, seamstresses and  6–7 Lizama, Jaime  106 Llanos, Bernardita  109 la loca  108–27 local, buying  34–6 localness, refashioning  30–1 locatedness  10 See also place London, England  20 n. 13 López, Mar Soria  5, 6 López Morales, Berta  6, 109, 115 Lukács, György  10 Lynch, Caitrin  28 Madres de la Plaza de Mayo  80 Madrid, Spain  43, 47, 50, 63 Maestros de la costura  181

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INDEX

Malawi  30 malls  21–2, 33 Mansilla, Lucio V.  93 n. 17 Maquiladora Decree  27 maquiladoras  25–8 March of the Empty Pots  110–11 n. 12 Margerum, Eileen  183–4 marginality  115, 116 the market, morality and  39 marketing, sewing machines and  183–4 marriage  132, 143–4 Martín, Saray  37 Martínez, Mechi  38 Martinez, Rocío  1, 13 Martínez, Rocío, El de-sastre perfecto  1–2, 13, 171–2, 171 n. 9 Martín Gaite, Carmen  157–8 n. 2 masculinity  102, 108, 122, 123–5, 139 masks, COVID-19 and  184 Mastretta, Angeles, “Mujeres de ojos grandes”  179 Matich, Olga  1, 3 n. 5 Matto de Turner, Clorinda, Herencia  3 Mayers, Ozzie  9, 10 Maynard, Ashley E.  36 n. 38 Maynard, Margaret  32 n. 32, 34, 34 n. 34 McNeil, Peter  17 McWilliam, Rohan  7 n. 12 media  134–7, 143 memory  60–1, 76–80, 93–4, 102, 107, 124–5 n. 21 mending  184 See also tailoring Mera, Rosalía  20–1 n. 15 mestiza identity  112 mestizos, in Chile  112 n. 16 metahistory  10 Mexico  31 n. 31, 35 n. 35 maquiladoras in  26, 27–8, 27 n. 25 migrant workers from  26–7 n. 24 NAFTA and  26 sewing machines in  4 undocumented workers in  27 n. 25 Miami, Florida  130 Middle Ages  19 migration  46–52, 78–80 Milan, Italy  20 n. 13 military attire  123–4, 123–4 n. 20 Miller, Daniel  16–17 n. 5, 17 n. 5 Minney, Safia  40 n. 41 mobility  9, 13, 28, 46–52, 66, 93, 118

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See also social mobility modernity  4, 10–11, 17–24 See also hypermodernity molas  7–8 Monárrez Fragoso, Julia  28 monstrosity  90–3, 91 n. 14, 95, 98 Montalva, Pia  104 Morir un poco  104 Montecino Aguirre, Sonia  112 n. 16 Montero, Daniel  13, 165 n. 8 La costurera y el hilo de agua  13, 165–7 morality  1, 4 the market and  39 “moral case for trade”  28 See also consumer consciousness; eco-consciousness Moreno, Francisco Pascasio  84, 90 n. 12, 91–2, 92 n. 15, 98–9 Morgan, Andrew  29 n. 28 Morocco  11, 21, 44, 46, 51, 52–3, 53 n. 4, 55–63 Morse code  66–7 mother-daughter relationships  62 motherhood  150–4 Moulian, Tomás  108 Mozambique  30 Multi-fibre Arrangement (MFA)  27 multinational clothing companies  20–1 n. 15 See also specific companies multinational supply chain  38 See also factory labor; maquiladoras Muxe  102 national boundaries  1–2 new patterns for  46–52 national cultural identity  21–2, 46 nation-building  102 Naturalism  89, 103 Nazism  46, 63, 66, 138, 139 needlework  6 art of  10 profession of  11 (see also seamstresses) revival of thematic trope of  41 as survival skill  168–9, 181 symbolism of  168–9 transgender individuals and  102–5 Netherlands  33 news magazines  143

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204 INDEX newspaper photography  134–7 newspapers  134–7, 148, 149, 152 New York, fashion and  20 n. 13 nicknaming  114–15 Nietzsche, Friedrich  3, 18 Nigeria  30 Nodelman, Perry  158 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)  26, 27 n. 25, 28 the North Face  32 Nouzeilles, Gabriela  84 Oaxaca, Mexico  102 olla común  116 n. 19 Oquendo-Villar, Carmen  123–4 n. 20 oral tradition, textile arts and  176 Ortega, Amancio  20–1 n. 15, 20 n. 15 Osorio Vargas, Gabriel  157 Historia de un oso  157 the Other  124–5 n. 21 otherworldliness  152–4 overconsumption, postmodern crisis of  10–11 Palaversich, Dianna  112 n. 17 Panama  7 Pardo Bazán, Emilia  5 “Casi artista”  5 “El mundo”  5 Pari, France  92 Parque Nacional Talmpaya, Argentina, Valle de la Luna in  73 Parra, Violeta  8 Patagonia (company)  32 Patagonia region  92 n. 15, 92 n. 16, 98 in Aira’s La costurera y el viento  11, 74, 80, 84–8, 84 n. 7, 87 n. 10, 89–95, 89 n. 11, 93–4 n. 17, 98 Darwin on  90 n. 12 indigenous “others” in  92 travel literature and  84–5, 91, 92, 92 n. 15, 92 n. 16 Paton, Elizabeth  182 Pavón, Mar  13, 165 n. 8 La costurera y el hilo de agua  13, 165–7 Peluffo, Ana  3 Peñaloza, Fernanda  84, 90 n. 12, 91–2, 98–9 Pérez Galdós, Benito  5, 43 Pérez Gáldos, Benito  5

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Pérez Galdós, Benito, La corte de Carlos IV  43 Pérez Gáldos, Benito, Tormento  5 performance  64–5, 105–6 n. 8, 105–7, 118, 119, 122, 128 See also performativity performativity  21, 36 ethically conscious designers and  38–9 gender performativity  113–15, 121–2, 128 Peru  3, 23, 24, 31, 182 Petit, Michèle  159 n. 4 photography  22–3, 134–7 picture books  159–67, 161 n. 6, 173–9 See also specific books Pietà  182 Pinochet, Augusto  8, 12, 102 n. 3, 104, 112 n. 17, 121–2, 123 n. 20, 125, 127 anti-LBGTQ+ stance of  102 assassination attempt against  110 n. 11, 114–15, 124 dictatorship of  103–5, 108, 109–14, 112 n. 17, 115–16, 116 n. 19, 123–4 n. 20, 123–5 gender roles under  125 n. 22 place sewing and  8–9, 10 See also rootedness politics  138, 148–9 pollution  29–30 See also environmental devastation popular culture, sewing and  181–2 Portugal  11, 21, 59 Portuguese language, fashion and  11 postmodernity  19–20 post-nationalism  45 prisons  182, 182 n. 3 private sphere  1, 2, 4, 6, 7 n. 13, 55–63 productos chinos  35 prostitution  2–4, 2 n. 3, 7, 43, 98, 102–3, 104, 115–17 public sphere  1, 4, 6, 28, 66, 110–11 n. 12, 128 Puche, Serra  27 Puerto Rico  103 n. 4, 160 Puig, Manuel  112 quality, concerns about  20, 21–2 Quechua women  34

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INDEX

race  112 racial nationalism  139 See also Nazism Radio Cooperativa  110–11 Rafaela García, Laura  158 Rana Plaza Building, collapse of  29 Realism  84–5 Reber, Diedra  74, 80 Recife, Brazil  134, 141, 143 recycling  32–3, 45, 60–1 See also used clothing Rede Globo  129 reflection, genre of  10, 17 refugees  136 See also migration regional borders  1–2 regional styles  33–4, 136 See also cultural appropriation Reimer, Karen  41 Ribeiro, Aileen  1, 107 n. 9 Richard, Nelly  31, 104, 105, 114 Ringeling, Juanita  23–4 Riva Palacio, Vicente, “La máquina de coser”  4 Rivoli, Pietra  25, 28–30, 28 n. 26 Robles, Victor  102 n. 3, 105–6 n. 8 Rodríguez Marcos, Javier  75 Root, Regina  25, 33–4, 38, 42, 65 n. 6 rootedness  9–10, 46–52 ropavejeros  31 Rosen, Ellen Israel  29 n. 28 roto figure  103 Russian literature, seamstresses in  3 n. 5 Russo, Mary  103–4 Rwanda  30–1 safety  25 Sánchez Robles, María Guadalupe  4, 4 n. 8 San Diego, California  26 Santiago, Chile  2–3, 102 n. 3, 104–7, 110–12, 111 n. 11 Santini, Antonio, Mala mala  103 n. 4 Sarmiento, Domingo Faustino  80, 80 n. 5 The Sartorialist  22 Saunders, Stephanie  107 Schofield-Tomschin, Sherry  2 n. 1 seamstresses  9 n. 15, 11, 43, 47, 62, 69 in American literature  6–7 “dangerous” feminine identity of  3–4

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depictions of  3–4 in England  6–7, 6–7 n. 12, 6 n. 11, 6 n. 12 in English literature  6–7 as gendered stereotype and stereotype breaker  80 gendered stereotypes and  80–4 inner landscape of  9–10 in Latin America  2, 2 n. 3 literary criticism and  6–7 in private sphere  7 n. 13 as profession  76 representations of  1–3, 9 n. 15 in Russian literature  3 n. 5 shift from private to public sphere  4, 6 silenced power of  3 n. 4 in Spain  2, 5 n. 9 working conditions and  2–3, 5 n. 9, 6–7, 142 Seamstress Union  2 Sección Femenina  44 Second World War  11, 48, 61, 62–70, 67 n. 7 secondhand clothing See used clothing Secretaría Nacional de la Mujer  115, 125 n. 22 self-expression  7 n. 13, 10, 18–19, 133–4, 181 self-realization  84–5, 91, 165, 183 self-reflection  9, 13, 68–9, 93–4, 97–8, 174 self-reflexivity  77–80 self-reliance  57 Sepúlveda, Luis  79 Patagonia Express  79 Sergio Campos  111 “Seven Easy Pieces”  36 sewing  1, 4–5, 41, 183 in American literature  9 as artistic expression  7, 7 n. 13, 10 (see also self-expression; textile arts) art of  10, 20 benefits of  9 as consumer agency  39–42 language of  131 as means of survival  5–6 mobility and  13 sewing (continued) place and  8–9, 10

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206 INDEX popular culture and  181–2 in prison  182, 182 n. 3 as profession  4 n. 8, 5–6, 10, 11, 141–6 revival of thematic trope of  41 as skill  7–8, 7 n. 13, 10, 168–9, 181 space and  5 n. 10 as survival skill  168–9, 181 textile arts and  184 as visual language  184 youth and  184 See also embroidery; needlework; seamstresses Sewing Bee  181 sewing labor  182 See also factory labor; maquiladoras sewing machines  2 n. 1, 4–5 clothing preferences and  36 n. 38 invention of  4 marketing and  183–4 necessity of  184 sex/sexuality  2, 12, 112, 112 n. 17, 116, 117, 121, 122, 132 See also heteronormativity; homosexuality Sickles, Dan  103 n. 4 Mala mala  103 n. 4 Siegle, Lucy  24, 25, 29, 35, 37, 39, 41 n. 42 simulacra  35, 35–6 n. 37 Singer Sewing Company  184 Singer Teen-Age Sewing Course  184 Sinués de Marco, María del Pilar, El ángel del hogar  5 slavery  25 See also forced labor slow clothing movement  39–41, 40 n. 41 slow fashion  40, 181 slow food movement  39–40 Smuga, Łukasz  105 n. 7 social change  167–71 social consciousness, heightening through clothing  107 social mobility  141–6 class and  46–52 social movements  178, 178–9 n. 11 Sommer, Doris  102 Soria López, Mar  5 Sosa de Newton, Lily  65 n. 6 Southern Cone children’s literature  158 South Sudan  31 Soysal, Yasemin  45

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space  5 n. 10, 9–10 Spain  11, 21, 34, 38, 55, 63, 158 n. 2 colonization of northern Africa  45 coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in  184 dressmaking in  43–72 eco-fashion in  38 emigration from  46 European Union and  44–5, 46 fashion in  11, 20–1, 20 n. 12, 20 n. 13 Francoist-era  45, 46 Germany and  55–8, 62–70, 63 Great Spanish Depression (2009) in  46 migratory crisis in  46 nineteenth-century  5 seamstresses in  2, 5 n. 9 Spanish Civil War  11, 47–8, 51, 55, 61, 182 n. 3 Spanish culture  45 Spanish language  11 Spanish literature  3, 6 children’s literature  13–14 Realism in  43 See also specific works spatial theory  9–10 Special Operations Executive (SOE)  63 spectacle, femininity and  103–4 spectral theory  45 Spillane McKenna, Maureen  93–4 n. 17 Sri Lanka  28 Steele, Valerie  18, 20 n. 12, 20 n. 13 Stone, Elizabeth  6, 6 n. 11 style, class and  19 Surrealism  73–100 survival, politics of  52–5 sustainability  34–8, 34 n. 34 Sutherland, Juan Pablo  103 n. 5 Svendsen, Lars  15–18, 16–17 n. 5, 16 n. 3, 16 n. 4, 18 n. 8, 60 sweatshops  28, 182 tailoring  39–41, 40 n. 41 take-back programs  32 Talca, Chile  104 Tangier, Morocco  51–2, 53 n. 4 Tanzania  30–1, 31 n. 30 technology, clothing preferences and  36 n. 38 temporal distancing  10 Tentori, Natalí  13

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Arroz con leche  13, 173–9 Tetouan, Morocco  11, 53, 53 n. 4, 55–65 textile artists  182–3, 182 n. 4 textile arts  7, 7 n. 13, 13, 148, 176–9, 182 n. 4 in Chile  8 depictions of  1 deprecation of  3 in Latin America  7–8, 182–3, 182 n. 4 oral tradition and  176 sewing and  184 tradition and  176–7 transformative nature of  176–7 women in  1–3 Tijuana, Mexico  26 tourism  35–6, 35–6 n. 37, 80 tradition  34, 36 n. 38 transformation  89–95, 96–7 transgender individuals  102–5, 103 n. 4, 103 n. 5 “transuming”  37–9, 184 transvestitism See cross-dressing travel  78–80, 93–5 See also displacement, physical; migration; travel literature travel literature  78–9, 84–5, 92–3, 98–9 Tune and Fruits  22 Turkey  21 Uganda  31 United Kingdom  27, 33 See also England United States  31 n. 30, 31 n. 31, 46, 102 upcycling  38–9, 41, 107, 184 used clothing  30–1, 31 n. 30, 32 n. 32, 37–9, 184 commercialization of  31–2 democratization of fashion and  32 n. 32 sociocultural borrowing and  32 upcycling  38–9 Valdés de Díaz, Ester  2 Valentina Bonne  8 Valle de la Luna  73 Valmont, Blanca  5 n. 9 Varela, Cecilia  13, 161, 161 n. 6 El corazón del sastre  13, 161–5 variation, excess of  37

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Velvet  181–2 Velvet Colleción  181–2 Venezuela  31, 102 Venkatesh, Vinodh  10 n. 16, 108, 122, 124, 127 n. 24 Vicariate of Solidarity  8 Vicuña, Cecilia  182 n. 4 Vietnam  21 violence, gender-based  3 Viste  23 n. 20 Viste la calle  22–3, 23 n. 20 Wallenberg, Louise  1, 183 war effort  67, 67 n. 7 Waterbury, Ronald  35 webseries  23–4 wedding dresses  96, 98 Mexican  35 symbolism of  94–5 Westernization  35 Whitfield, Ester  84, 84 n. 7 women in Chile  125 n. 22 in textile arts  1–3 victimization of  2 See also seamstresses women’s fashion  19 women’s handicraft movements  115 women’s rights  144–6 Wood, Andrés  158 n. 3 Woolf, Virginia  57 Woolfenzon, Carolyn  10 working conditions  2–3, 5 n. 9, 6–7 factory labor and  25, 28 seamstresses and  2–3, 5 n. 9, 6–7, 142 World Trade Organization  26 “Yeguas del Apocalipsis”  105–6 n. 8, 105–7 youth, clothing and  183–4 YouTubers  37 Zambia  30 Zara  20–1, 20–1 n. 15, 22, 33 Zaramella, Juan Pablo, Viaje a Marte  73–4 Zarate, Andrea  182 Zarzuri, Raúl  32 Zerán, Faride  107–8, 112, 114

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