By Camille LeFevre

"Dress is not just clothing the body, but modifying the body," she continued, and those modifications can range from the temporary--like donning a corset or high heels--to the permanent--like getting a tattoo or tummy tuck. "A person can be dressed with beads, with tattoos, and actually not have any clothes on, but they're still dressed. Getting dressed is a cultural decision. And dress is a term that allows you to make an objective assessment of how people modify and supplement their bodies."

An internationally renowned researcher and scholar on the cultural aspects of dress, Eicher delivered the Ada Comstock Distinguished Women Scholars Lecture November 13 at the Hubert H. Humphrey Center. Sponsored by the Office for University Women, her presentation was "Beyond the F Word: Fashion, Dress, and Cultural Meaning." Eicher recounted her adventures in Nigeria, West Africa, and Asia as she built a body of work that includes more than 200 books, articles, and other publications, numerous honors and awards, and decades of teaching. The Ada Comstock award is extremely competitive, said Tasoulla Hadjiyanni, assistant professor of interior design and a member of the committee that selects the honorees. Nominees must be regents professors, distinguished McKnight professors, or members of academies to even be considered.

Fabric made by a Kalabari family by removing threads from imported Indian madras.

"A strong mentor," is how Barbara Heinemann described her former instructor, under whom she earned a doctorate at the University of Minnesota. "Joanne is inclusive in how she approaches everything. She's always open to new ideas and I've never seen her be judgmental about anything or anyone." As an adviser of honor students in the College of Design, Heinemann said Eicher's openness has been an invaluable lesson "in how to look at things from a variety of perspectives."

"Joanne is also interdisciplinarity personified," Heinemann added. "Her background is in anthropology, sociology, and textiles. She crosses all kinds of borders, and that's also an important lesson as we prepare future design professionals to work in a global marketplace."

Eicher began developing her global perspectives on dress while teaching at her alma mater, Michigan State University, in what was the Department of Human Environment and Design. When her then-husband, an agricultural economist, was recruited to develop a university in Nigeria, Eicher went along. For the next three years, she undertook several independent research projects on Nigerian dress and textiles.

The couple returned to Michigan, and Eicher began teaching her students what she'd learned, in addition to lecturing and writing on the topic. Many more trips to Nigeria followed, and Eicher began extensive research on a handwoven Indian textile called madras, which a Kalabari family had given to her. What particularly intrigued Eicher were the Kalabaris' modifications to the fabric: They would pull out particular threads to create their own patterns and designs.

At the same time, because of the madras, Eicher also became intrigued with the history of the India-to-Africa textile trade. Today, because of her decades of research and experience, she's editor-in-chief of the 10-volume Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion and the editor of Berg Publishers' Dress, Body, Culture series.

"How we dress is a complex, serious topic, because it's nonverbal communication at the highest level of abstraction," Eicher said.

"How we dress communicates identity and values. We avoid people because of how they're dressed. We make judgments based on how people are dressed. Businesses create manuals on how employees should dress. So it's much more than clothing. It's what you do to make an appearance in the world."

And to those who resolutely declare they don't care how they look, Eicher says nonsense. "Each one of us makes decisions about how to dress, whether by design or default. In other words, if you say you don't care what you look like, you're still making the decision about not caring. And to those around you, the decision is also clear."

Joanne Bubolz Eicher Endowment Fund

To ensure that her extensive cultural experience remains a vital and well-integrated aspect of the College of Design's curriculum, Eicher established the Joanne Bubolz Eicher Endowment Fund in 2005 before stepping down from her full-time faculty position. Once fully endowed, the fund will be used to support the study of cultural aspects in retail merchandising and clothing design.

"This fund will be an asset to the whole college," Eicher explained. "There's a cultural base to all three departments--architecture; landscape architecture; and design, housing, and apparel--and this fund allows for a research and teaching dimension across those disciplines that highlights cultural variations."

Eicher's commitment to philanthropy has been passed on to Barbara Heinemann, Eicher's former graduate student and the current honors program coordinator and upper division honors adviser in student services. Heinemann participated last academic year in the Buckman Fellowship for Leadership in Philanthropy program, a College of Design initiative for the study and practice of philanthropy, leadership, and personal and community improvement. Her project focused on strengthening the Eicher endowment by increasing University awareness of the importance of global cultural understanding in the curriculum.

Individuals interested in supporting the Eicher endowment may contact Jan Sickbert, director of development, at 612-624-3283 or sickb001@umn.edu.