clothing in the Potterverse/coping with cosmic angst

[zesca]

No: HPFGUIDX 90071

madeyemood wrote:
> > I've always wondered how Harry acquired his muggle clothes. 

"Jim Ferer"  wrote:
> Impossible to explain, really. Watch out for the movie 
> contamination!  Just remember that the books aren't a windo into 
> Harry's world, they're a tiny peephole, and we see only a msll 
> portion of Harry's life. 

madeyemood:
While I realize that the above standard explanation will do, I guess
I just wanted to see if anyone else noticed this omission. One minute
ripped oversized khakis, the next, nice loose-fitting dockers and a
lovely crewneck.

For me this is kind of like the laundry question at Hogwarts. Who
does the invisible work of completing this sort of mundane task?
Perhaps house elves have the ability to whip up some fine tailoring (along
with the treacle tarts) for the sartorially challenged students.

"Jim Ferer"  wrote:
>IOW, there's plenty of off-page time for him to buy clothes, if he did.

madeyemood: 
Harry would need to have the muggle money and transportation to buy
clothes from a muggle store. It's not clear to me that he has these
resources. We only hear tell of him taking walks at night in his
neighborhood, which doesn't seem to be close to a GAP. And then
there's the problem of payment: I'm not sure that VISA processes wizard 
currency.

"Jim Ferer"  wrote:
> I guess that's just a bit of business on JKR's part, a little 
> contrived.  The Muggle world has to influence the wizard one in
> many ways.  
SNIP
> A lot of the feeling against the Muggle-born comes from that, I'll
 
>bet. Fudge doesn't like to see wizard kids in jeans and tank tops, or
>listening to U2 on
>the Walkmen their Muggle-born friends gave them for Christmas. It's
>a CULTURE WAR!

madeyemood:
interesting...perhaps one of the aspects of Potterverse that's so
refreshing for us meta-muggles is the opportunity to imagine an
environment where kids are less affected by wacky trends. Who needs Bono 
when you have the Weird Sisters? 

Even the fashion at Hogwarts seems more modest and sensible.
In general, the WW seem relatively wholesome --- archaic or odd
rather than modern scary decadent. Hags while grotesque could be seen as 
comparatively quaint/eccentric, whereas the language of fashion seems
so much more viscious, competitive, anorexic and hypersexualized in 
muggleworld.

"Jim Ferer"  wrote:
> Speaking of movie contamination, did you see _The Sixth Sense?_ 

madeyemood:
yes'm.
speaking of non-canon movies, I just saw _Thirteen_ about these
wretchedly dissipated girls: the piercings, the sex, the wanton
self-hatred and drug use. Potter's world does create a very nice
break from the rather frightening muggle social issues currently engaging the
collective adolescent psyche. We don't have to worry about Harry piercing his
tongue, or the nature of his relationship with the piercing dude.

Perhaps I have more in common with Fudge than I thought...It just
seems to be getting more and more impossible for your average muggle
young person to feel okay. 

HP expresses pretty extreme adolescent feelings, but he's reacting to 
genuinely nasty circs. He isn't bumming out that his parents won't
let him go to the movies; he's being persecuted by antagonistic
incontrovertably abusive relatives. He doesn't just think the world's unfair 
because his allowance isn't big enough to pay for whatever trinket of the 
moment; he's the target of an actual campaign promoted by the Ministry of 
Magic. Furthermore, he isn't using drugs, sex, food or any of the standard 
addictions teens cultivate for dealing with the ups and downs of adolescence. 

Harry's primary areas of excess seem to be quidditch and rage. Lucky
for him, when he's in the WW both of those things are regarded with
intelligence. So while he has numerous experiences of intense intolerability, 
wise people around him (Dumbledore, Minerva M, Hermione, the Weasleys, 
Sirius, Lupin) understand and support his perceptions and do their best to 
share their perspective in some pragmatic way that will help Harry find a
solution and bear this remarkable load.