You only had women performers in your study.Was that because male musicians are less worried about fashion?I think a lot of the men are very much influenced by fashion,but in social terms the choices they have are more limitedthey'd really upset audiences if they strayed away from quite narrow boundaries.Now, popular music has quite different expectations.Did you read Mike Frost's article about the dress of women performers in popular music?No.He points out that a lot of female singers and musicians in popular music tend to dress down in performances,and wear less feminine clothes, like jeans instead of skirts,and he suggests this is because otherwise they'd just be discounted as trivial.But you could argue they're just wearing what's practical...I mean, a pop-music concert is usually a pretty energetic affair.Yes, he doesn't make that point, but I think you're probably right.I was interested by the effect of the audience at a musical performance when it came to the choice of dress.The subjects I interviewed felt this was really important.It's all to do with what we understand by performance as a public event.They believed the audience had certain expectationsand it was up to them as performers to fulfil these expectations to show a kind of esteem.They weren't afraid of looking as if they'd made an effort to look good.I think in the past the audience would have had those expectations of one another too,
