Ritual Dress and Cultural Resistance: The Corporeal Language of Fashion by Alanna Morgan
Ritual dress is often understood as ceremonial clothing, tied to religion or folklore, but this definition overlooks the embodied ritual of getting dressed itself. Each morning, dressing is a performative act, a conscious and unconscious construction of self through fabric, fit, and gesture. Clothing does not simply adorn the body; it is a site where identity is negotiated, performed, and read. The work in Field Systems’ show KIT, exploring fashion and dress connected to folk ritual, looks to connect customs of the past with modern sensibilities and culture through familiar understandings of dress, asking what traditional ritual dress, or “Kit” can be in our fast-fashion, collapsed trend cycle, modern living. A particularly apposite embodiment of this intersection is presented in Lucy Wright’s Labubu-rry, a re-imagining of this summer’s viral trend for collectable talismans, but re-interpreted through a folk custom lens, emerging as a tiny Burry monster you can clip onto your handbag.
Fashion theory suggests that fashion and dress operate as a language, a system of signs. Roland Barthes, in The Fashion System, emphasised that clothes are semiotic objects, carrying meaning beyond their material form. One particular example, the St George’s Cross, is a pertinent example of the duality of meaning, reliant on context and culture to build meaning. The flag on an England shirt does not simply identify nationality; its meaning is historically charged, often associated with nationalism and exclusion. Women’s football, however, has re-signified this emblem. In this context, the same shirt symbolises inclusivity and progress, demonstrating Barthes’ point that garments are cultural texts whose meanings shift across time and context.
In parallel, the football shirt embodies modern ritual dress. Women’s football, long suppressed, is now reclaiming this garment, and through it, identity. A jersey is no longer a passive symbol; on the body, it becomes a site of solidarity. Theo Clincard’s work, included in this exhibition, embodies the idea of recontextualising clothing when reimagined from its original form, inviting us to rethink our relationship with the shell suit outside the context of so-called Lad Culture to something abstract, more akin to a costume to perform out rituals, whether in a field, or on the terraces.
Clothing’s power comes from its corporeal nature. Theorists have long argued that fashion is deeply embodied. Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s ideas surrounding phenomenology remind us that dress is not inert but integrated into our bodily experience: a “second skin” shaping posture, gesture, and perception. Costume changes how a performer moves through space; similarly, a football fan putting on a team shirt enters a collective ritual enacted as much through the body as through the mind. A football shirt is no different; it moulds the body into a supporter’s form, imbuing even a casual spectator with belonging. This corporeal dynamic is pronounced in women’s football. Once banned and sidelined, the women’s game is reclaiming ritual through a different aesthetic code. Attending a match now means donning a Lionesses shirt not solely as a signal of fandom—but of solidarity, pride, and resistance. The St George’s Cross on the chest becomes less a political flashpoint than a unifying banner—especially when worn in bodies historically excluded from the pitch. Similar themes emerge from The Man In The Woods’ work in the form of patches displayed in the exhibition, referencing awarded badges from childhood scout troops, and ephemera from national trust gift shops.
Boss Morris’s costumes similarly emphasise touch and movement, the corporeal logic of dress. They are wearable performances that shape how dancers engage with space and the audience. Their handmade aesthetic doesn’t reproduce historical templates; instead, it shapes bodies through cut, weight, and movement. The garment defines posture and gesture, performing identity through fabric. Here again, Merleau-Ponty’s idea of the “corporeal experience” applies: dress is lived, felt, and performed, not simply seen—an interface between self and culture
Both fashion and folklore gain power through their persistence during times of crisis. Historically, communities have turned to folk traditions as stabilising forces during economic or cultural upheaval. In uncertainty, traditional dress and football rituals anchor us. They persist because they aren’t just symbolic, they’re embodied. They recall that across centuries, humans have found belonging and community through crafted garments: hand-sewn, designed, worn into action.
Football, too, has served as a weekly ritual, its rhythms providing continuity. These practices endure not because they are quaint or decorative but because they are corporeally lived. Ritual dress is felt as much as it is seen; it shapes movement, dictates posture, and enables participation in collective identities. This burgeoning new culture in women’s football illustrates how ritual dress can unite communities. For well over a century, attending a Saturday match has offered belonging and escape, yet the rise of women’s football has further redefined the cultural codes of fandom. Fixtures are family-oriented, celebratory, and community-driven, challenging the tribalism historically tied to men’s football. Fashion collaborations, such as Arsenal’s drops with Aries and A-COLD-WALL*, reflect this redefinition, merging streetwear and sportswear to produce garments that are not only symbols of allegiance but also objects of aesthetic and cultural value.
Like football shirts, folk costumes hold layered meanings, often persisting even after their original symbolism is lost. Events in rural towns show how rituals survive through embodiment, with costumes acting as vessels of memory. Locally, Millbrook, Kingsand and Cawsand’s Black Prince Flower Boat Festival marks the end of the winter months and welcomes summer with a procession between the three places, featuring a detailed ship model, sailors from HMS Raleigh in formal uniform, as well as the presence of the traditional Cornish chough, causing mischief on the streets during the parade. Here, Barthes’ semiotic framework aligns with Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology: garments are both signs and experiences, texts and textures, symbols and sensations. These garments embody meaning subtly, needing to be worn and passed down through generations to connect us to the rituals of the past.
Boss Morris at the KIT exhibition, Field System 2025
Judith Butler’s theory of performativity offers further insight. Butler argues that gender is not a fixed identity but a performance, constructed through repeated acts. Clothing is one of the primary tools of this repetition: dresses, uniforms, and jerseys all stabilise identities through visible, embodied codes. Ritual dress, whether Morris kit or a football shirt, makes belonging legible by placing the wearer within a recognisable script. Yet these scripts are never neutral; they can be rewritten. Boss Morris’ costumes intentionally subvert folkloric expectations, reworking a masculine-coded tradition into a space of feminine joy and collective empowerment, just as the three lions on a shirt can be redefined as a symbol of community, tolerance and acceptance, away from the legacy of male English football culture that precedes the Lionesses' 2022 and 2025 Euros win. When Leah Williamson leads out her team, they redefine the identity of an England player and supporter, allowing us all to add multitudes to the collective identity denoted by the badge.
Field Systems Kit thus positions fashion as corporeal storytelling—ongoing, performative, and deeply political. Costume and jersey alike emerge as spaces in which the body communicates tradition, resistance, and futures shaped by collective memory.