Musings On

Virginia Woolf’s Orlando:

The
Significance of Clothing in Gender Identity
©Duckler 2019

From the first moment of our introduction to Orlando, we are given a glimpse that clothing will
provide a defining element to the character. In the very first sentence, we learn that “the
fashion of the time did something to disguise” [his sex]. A reference to the frilly man-fashion of
the day, but also to the changeable fashion which in one age defines masculinity, but in another
can represent the opposite.

Later, during Orlando’s early transitional period as she is accepting her physical womanhood in
Turkey, she wore loose-fitting pants which rendered her almost genderless.

It was on the boat back to England, her transitional journey into full womanhood, that she
begins to adopt the very confining feminine fashion of the day. She discovers both the allure
and the drawbacks of the feminine wardrobe. So many angles to Orlando’s changing character,
and so many forays into fashion and its meaning cause the reader to ask:

What is the significance of clothing in Virginia Woolf’s Orlando?

One possibility is that clothing is the most outer expression of a human, the first to be seen and
judged by others, yet also the most changeable. Woolf wraps her characters in gender-defining
fabric, only to play with those fashions like a child changing clothing on a paper doll. And those
“gender definitions” are only defined by culture, specifically by the culture of the precise time
and place.

When Orlando first sees Sasha, he falls immediately in love with her, despite not knowing her
gender. Both the reader and Orlando first see her only as a heap of clothing, skating alluringly
forward. “…a figure, which, whether a boy’s or woman’s, for the loose tunic and trousers of the
Russian fashion served to disguise the sex, filled him with the highest curiosity. …”. We then
have a description of the clothing, followed by “But these details were obscured by the
extraordinary seductiveness which issued from the whole person.” (p. 37)

Later, Orlando’s own changing gender is wrapped in various fashions. We learn something
about Woolf’s feelings toward gender identity through her comments on the fashions
themselves.

Some of the most interesting comments on gender and fashion occur on the boat to England,
where Orlando is adjusting to her new identity and readying herself to enter English society as a
woman. She comments simultaneously on the annoying lack of freedom the clothing gives her
and the loveliness of the fabric (p. 154). She also wonders about the power of an ankle
revealed: how distracting to a sailor that it might cost him his life and therefore she must stay
completely covered up!

Later, in England, Orlando seems to be frumping at the prospect of her womanhood “… dragged
down by the weight of the crinoline which she had submissively adopted. It was heavier and
more drab than any dress she had yet worn. None had ever so impeded her movements. No
longer could she stride through the garden with her dogs, or run lightly to the high mound and
fling herself beneath the oak tree. …” (p. 244 – 245) She continues to complain about how her
clothing restricts her freedoms and her enjoyment of life.

The relationship with clothing is portrayed as more complicated for a woman than for a man.
On page 188, the biographer helps us to understand the differences between genders by
describing the (lack of) freedoms of clothing: “The man has his hand free to seize his sword; the
woman must use hers to keep the satins from slipping from her shoulders. … Had they both
worn the same clothes, it is possible that their outlook might have been the same too.”

Woolf comments many times, in many different ways on clothing. With Orlando, she shows us
how what one wears can be both defining and restricting. She also shows us that clothing is the
first, but not necessarily the most accurate cue to a person’s gender. She shows us that we
have the power to change our clothing and therefore the impression we create as we move
through the world. She also acknowledges that we may be culturally bound to limit our own
abilities by the wraps we (women) are expected to don.