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Journal of Material Culture
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A Garment in the Dock; or, How the FBI Illuminated the Prehistory of A Pair of Denim Jeans (Winner of the Journal of Material Culture Alfred Gell essay competition 2004)

Kitty Hauser

Clare Hall, University of Cambridge, UK

This article looks at research carried out at the FBI Laboratory’s Special Photographic Unit in the identification of denim trousers from bank surveillance film. This research, which was published in 1998, showed that despite the ubiquity of jeans, each pair has individual identifying characteristics caused by the manufacturing process and by wear, and that these might be used as evidence in the identification of criminal suspects. What the FBI research also inadvertently illuminated was an otherwise hidden relationship between garment, maker and wearer, in an effective - if accidental - reversal of commodity fetishism.

Key Words: CCTV • clothing • commodity fetishism • criminalistics • denim • individuation • jeans • wear

Journal of Material Culture, Vol. 9, No. 3, 293-313 (2004)
DOI: 10.1177/1359183504046895
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[Abstract] [PDF]