But it can also conceal identity, suggesting highwaymen, train robbers, revolutionaries, street artists, gangsters, and antifa – among others. It can be worn wet or dry and is suitable for use as a low-tech particle filtration device in dry and dusty climates and dirty conditions. It is protective gear for blue-collar workers and middle-class outdoor enthusiasts. Worn around the neck so that it can be quickly and easily pulled up around the mouth and nose, the bandana evokes cowboys, railroad engineers and miners. They are protective, decorative, hygienic and concealing as well as signifying. These bandanas, their colours and placement, left side or right, became the key material element in a system of coded messages signalling an individual’s sexual proclivities, tastes and kinks: the ‘hanky code.’īandanas are traditionally used as neckwear or as headwear. Simple squares of woven, printed, cotton cloth, bandanas (aka hankies) were worn wrapped around biceps or tucked into the back pockets of denim or leather pants and even occasionally tied around a boot. Courtesy of MoMA.ĪLL THE COLOURS OF the rainbow all the colours of the earth: years before Gilbert Baker designed the rainbow flag, the most recognised symbol of gender and sexual minorities, some were already flagging. Hal Fischer, Signifiers for a Male Response, from the series Gay Semiotics, 1977.
