"There is much to support the view that it is clothes that wear us, and not we, them; we may make them take the mould of arm or breast, but they mould our hearts, our brains, our tongues to their liking"
About this Quote
Woolf flips a banal truth of daily life into a quiet threat: clothing doesnt just signal who we are, it scripts who we become. The line starts with the modest concession of the body - yes, we tailor fabric to the arm or breast - then pivots to the real point, that the tailoring runs in the other direction. By the time Woolf gets to "hearts, brains, tongues", fashion has expanded from surface to psyche to speech. Its not just that people judge you; its that you start judging yourself in the language your clothes make available.
The intent is less anti-style than anti-innocence. Woolf is prying open the social machinery of appearance in a Britain where class and gender were policed through textiles, posture, and "proper" presentation. Clothes are a portable institution: they carry expectations about femininity and respectability, and they do it so efficiently you can mistake coercion for taste. "Tongues" is the clincher. Dress codes dont only discipline bodies; they shape what feels sayable, what kind of person can speak with authority, and who is expected to stay ornamental.
Underneath the aphorism is Woolfs larger modernist suspicion that the self is not a sealed interior but a product of pressures, rituals, and props. She makes fashion sound like an author: it has "their liking". The real sting is that we cooperate, calling it choice, while the costume rewrites the character.
The intent is less anti-style than anti-innocence. Woolf is prying open the social machinery of appearance in a Britain where class and gender were policed through textiles, posture, and "proper" presentation. Clothes are a portable institution: they carry expectations about femininity and respectability, and they do it so efficiently you can mistake coercion for taste. "Tongues" is the clincher. Dress codes dont only discipline bodies; they shape what feels sayable, what kind of person can speak with authority, and who is expected to stay ornamental.
Underneath the aphorism is Woolfs larger modernist suspicion that the self is not a sealed interior but a product of pressures, rituals, and props. She makes fashion sound like an author: it has "their liking". The real sting is that we cooperate, calling it choice, while the costume rewrites the character.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
|---|
More Quotes by Virginia
Add to List
