Enclothed cognition and hidden meanings in important Ottoman textiles

Abstract

This paper illustrates how hidden details in garment design may reveal important clues about the motives of the wearer or designer that are of considerable cultural relevance. We suggest these hidden design features may reflect key psychological factors previously not considered. We illustrate this by doing a multilevel analysis of two important sixteenth century examples of Ottoman court clothing from the Topkapi Palace Museum. We show that these garments contain early examples of the use of “enclothed cognition” where the designs themselves are likely to have influenced the mind of the wearer. We suggest that the historical-social analysis of clothing may benefit from considering the concealed, as well as the explicit, psychologically relevant design features. We suggest that psychosocial interpretations of clothing may help further our understanding of textile and apparel design more generally, even within an historical context.

Keywords:

• enclothed cognition
• Ottoman
• Talisamic
• psychology
• Sufism
• rumi
• Islam

Acknowledgements

We thank Dr Husamettin Aksu, Dr Serkan Tekin, and Ramazan Bolukbasi, all from Istanbul, who assisted in the decoding of the Talismanic shirt. We also thank Hadiye Cangökçe for the photographs used in Figure 3.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mehlika Orakcioglu

Mehlika Orakçıoğlu is a lecturer in the Department of Fashion Design, School of Applied Sciences at Istanbul Bilgi University. Her PhD research is about explicit and implicit symbolism in Turkish design especially in talismanic and other early Ottoman textiles. She has a degree from the Department of Applied Art & Design at Gazi University, and took a Fashion Folio Foundation course at Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design, London in 1992-3.

Ismail Orakcioglu

Before becoming Director of the School of Applied Science at İstanbul Bilgi University, İsmail Orakçıoğlu was vice-president of a women's wear retail chain in the USA. He now researches and teaches in retail management and fashion. He has a postgraduate certificate in Economics from Birkbeck College, University of London, and a doctorate from City University Business School, London.

Ben (C) Fletcher

Ben (C) Fletcher is a professor of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire and also a Co-founder of Do Something Different Ltd., both in the UK. He was also - in parallel for 3 years ending in 2014 - a Professor in the Fashion Design Department at İstanbul Bilgi University. He did his first degree at Keele University and then a doctorate at Oxford University. He was made an Academician of the Academy of Social Sciences in 2007.

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