The Punctum

I was looking through some old photographs the other day, and this one popped up. I want to show it to the world for two very different reasons.

Take a look. What do you see?

Yours truly, with my two lovely (short) sisters. (It’s an odd one, as I’m tall, but not that much taller than either of them. I must have been standing on a box.) It dates from the very late seventies or early eighties, so I was probably seventeen or eighteen, and still young enough not to have thought this through, like I have been thinking this kind of stuff through pretty much ever since. Apart from the tiny person striking a pose on our shed roof, it’s the sweatshirt that bothers me. But why?

The sodding label. That was my Wrangler sweatshirt. I bloody loved it. I don’t recall ever having anything else from a brand, other than St Micheal, and nobody every wore a Marks and Spencer sweatshirt with the company name plastered across the front. Did they? Today, I simply cannot fathom why anyone would want to wear a shirt with the maker’s name on display. By today’s standards, the word Wrangler on this example was rather discreet, but look anywhere today and you will see a plethora of human billboards. Yes, I get that you might be a fan of a particular rock band, or brand of motorcycle, or a Disney character, or whatever, but my specific issue is with clothing featuring the name of the clothing brand itself as the design and decoration. Think GAP, think Superdry, think Abercrombie and Fitch, Under Armour, Nike, Adidas. Other brands are available. My dad will tell you that when he first saw someone wearing a ‘label’ on a shirt, he assumed that it was a freebie. Yes, at a push, I’d wear something given to me by the maker. I’d reluctantly advertise their wares in return, but why in the name of all that is Holy would you pay top dollar to wear a T-shirt with Gucci or Armani or Burberry or George (Asda) or Primark emblazoned across your chest? It’s madness. Somebody, please explain it to me. The older, wiser, me. Not the spotty gangly youth you see above.

Now, I can’t ignore it, so I should explain the punctum. For those of you who failed to pay attention in the Roland Barthes class, in a photograph the punctum is the particular object or element that stands out. Here, we have the tiny person. We used to keep him in a flower pot behind the shed and would let him out on weekends. The pot was slightly too small, which is why his head is bent to the right. We called him Mr Bigglesworth.

There you have it. A mundane photograph with everything you need to make the world a better place.