clothing in the Potterverse

[Berit Jakobsen]

No: HPFGUIDX 90086

Jim wrote:
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!

Berit replies:

A Muggle football will work nicely at Hogwarts (though, if the other 
students are anything like Ron, they just think Muggle sports are 
weird; after all the soccer teams on the posters don't even MOVE!), 
but I doubt a walkman would work; according to Hermione electrical 
appliances go hay-wire because of all the magical protection... :-) I 
don't have canon evidence for this, but I suspect a walkman wouldn't 
work very well at a wizard's house/property either, because most 
wizarding families would use a lot of magic all the time, making 
Muggle appliances dysfunctional. Mrs Weasley, for intance, uses magic 
all the time to cook food, clean the dishes, you name it. The 
Weasleys has an old radio in the kitchen playing wizard music, but my 
guess is that a wizard radio works on magic and are not fitted with 
plugs or batteries. Mr Weasley would be delighted if they were 
though :-)

Also, even though wizard children seem to be more in tune with Muggle 
clothing than their parents, there is no canon evidence that they 
conform to other aspects of teenage Muggle culture like using walkmen 
and computers (Harry had to explain to Ron what a computer game was). 
Why, they've got magic! They don't need microwave ovens or television 
sets or walkmen or computers :-) So, clothing or not, the gap between 
the Muggle and wizard world seem to be rather significant...

I've read a few fan-fics, and especially the stories written by 
younger HP-readers tend to include a lot of Muggle artifacts like 
walkmen being played at Hogwarts (I understand why they'd want to do 
that, because that's the world they know and care about). But I must 
admit that irritates me a bit. It's not at all in tune with Rowling's 
magical world. I see no need of introducing more of the Muggle world 
to the magical world; it's perfectly charming and wonderful as it is! 
But I guess that makes me just like the "oldfashioned wizards" who 
scoff at Muggle stuff :-))

Berit
http://home.no.net/berjakob/snape.html