Costumes Or Uniforms?: UniformMarketNews.Com

Recently, I saw the 2009 Carnival in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil—a yearly event that is presented to the public.  In just two days, over 120,000 performers filled the streets for this fabulous presentation.  There were huge varieties of apparel, but with hundreds of individuals at a time wearing the exact same thing—legions of people moving to the rhythm of the music.  They adorned floats, the streets, and the city, in an unprecedented salute to the samba.  Yet, aside from the bright colors and the incredibly varied fabrications, it was no different than a military parade.  I thought to myself, are these uniforms or costumes?  What’s the difference between the two?  Is it the material, the quantity, the purpose, the design?  Is it that one is worn by choice and another by assignment?  Perhaps it is the length of time that an outfit is worn.  What makes one a costume and the other a uniform?

At Disneyland—the closest the Americans could come to the Brazilian pageant—there are both costumes and uniforms.  The special characters such as the Goofies or the Snow Whites (yes, there are many of each, as it’s a big park and different people wear the ensembles on various days at rotating times and in different sizes) are made in the Costume Shop—marvelous creations with or without giant feathers (Big Birds) or shapes (the Seven Dwarfs) and masks (Captain Hooks).  The colorful and uniquely designed shirts and pants for the waiters and waitresses of Tomorrow Land, or Epcot, or the dresses worn by the Dance Hall girls in the saloon at Frontier Land, are kept in the Costume Warehouse—decorative items by the bushel, especially designed with fabrics solely woven and dyed for Disney.  But these are referred to as uniforms, not costumes.  Is it the quantity?  Is it that costumes are saved for the proper nouns, such as the Prince Charmings or Belles, but uniforms are reserved for this usher or that waitress, worn by the hundreds?

The Rose Bowl Parade: What about the fabulous western wear that is sported by the equestrian groups, and the ornately attired marching bands?  Today’s band uniform is as much about Spandex and Star Trek as it is about trumpets and John Philip Sousa: slick 21^st century abstract multi-colored designs, metallics, winged shoulders, and gauntlets.  Are these not costumes?  Are the cowboy shirts uniforms and not costumes—hand made, hand braided with cording, embroidered with magnificent all-over designs, and hundreds of hand set rhinestones per shirt?  Is it about fancy vs. plain or ultimate purpose?   Regarding complexity of creation, one ornate cowboy shirt can easily out-cost and out challenge the manufacture of any band uniform by as much as two or three to one. 

Does the military only have to be about uniforms?  There’s nothing like a man in uniform, they always say.  Is it that a uniform is more masculine and a costume has more of a frou-frou aspect to it?  No, there are scores and scores of women in the military.  Is it that a uniform is more tailored than a costume?  Straight lines rather than ruffles or curves or colors?  The French and many other countries have had wonderful uniforms.  Laces, gold buttons, fold-back reveres, velvets, even braid made of 24 karat gold bullion.   Did you ever see a Cossack?  Czar Nicholas?  George Washington?  General Patton or the Marine Corps Honor Guard?  How about the Chinese warriors or the Samurai?  Uniforms or costumes?

Religion is a funny thing.  You have the Amish, the Pennsylvania Dutch, Mennonites, and the Chasidic Jews, who all look alike.  Black hats, long beards, black suit or frock coats, and pants.  The ladies wear somber head coverings and long skirts or dresses in very neutral, dark colors.  Go figure.  Costumes or uniforms?

Ever been to the country club where all the mavens are dolled up in sequins with red nails, or Stepford wives with matching haute couture Chanel suits; a school where all the kids look alike depending on geography and demographics for the neighborhood; an area where folks do similar kinds of work?  It could be a law office, a hospital, an auto garage, a restaurant.  What makes a dress shirt and pair of pleated pants more uniform than multiples of young men who run around with their pants hanging below their hips, and t-shirts that ride well above them?  Costumes or uniforms?  Is it numbers?  Is it fashion?  Can a uniform be fashionable, or once it’s a part of street wear, does it lose its separateness as a uniform?  Does uniform mean separate from everybody else?   Or does it mean being the same? 

Actually, uniform means “one shape.”  Uni = one; form = shape. It’s an adjective that morphed into a noun and ultimately became identifiable with clothing.  But if that’s the case, does this mean that everyone who is dressed in white tie and tails is wearing a uniform?  Are ballet and ballroom dancers in uniform?  What about ice-skaters, and skiers?  Uniforms?  Or costumes?  What if it’s a team?  Does a football team have uniforms because there are several of them, but golfers wear costumes because each is one at a time?

It’s all very strange.

The dictionary really does define them separately.  It refers to costumes as native folk dress, for instance, implying longevity and tradition—the hula skirt and lei from Hawaii, the Scottish kilt in Tartan plaid, the sari from India, and so on.  It also defines costume as dress—Mrs. Obama’s choice of outfit for this occasion or that.  And, from a designer’s point of view, costume becomes a verb; one is costumed.  But one is never uniformed.   

Interestingly, costume is derived from the word custom.  Here’s the trick:   Custom can mean unique as in specially designed and customized; or it can mean quite the opposite as in being accustomed to, a habit, or that which is quite ordinary.  Costumes have a wide berth when it comes to definition.  This includes Halloween, Thanksgiving Pilgrims, and Santa Claus suits, as well as cobbler aprons for the cleaning crew, polo shirts for the tennis team, and etons for the caterers:  Costumes for the customs.

I think the difference between a costume and a uniform is about assignment.  If a person gets to choose what to wear, and it further defines him, I say it’s a costume.  There’s an innovation to it—self-expression and a furthering of the inner being.  It’s a statement of individual definition, and he comes first.  I think if someone is told what to wear, then it becomes a uniform.  Here, it’s an assignment from without, and one becomes secondary to the garment filled.  Yes, that would imply that the exact same garment could be worn by one and be a costume, and by another and be thought of as a uniform.