Lauren Chan, Gary Dakin, and Iskra Lawrence: Body Diversity
This talk focused specifically on the body and body positivity within the fashion world and the social media age that we live in. Something that was helpful to hear was when Iskra Lawrence was kind of reminding everyone that you have the ability to reclaim the space you spend so much time on (aka your phone) and full ability to control the content that you see. It was really motivational and just important to be reminded of in this type of digital world that we’re living in. Another important piece of advice that i took was that when you have a mind full of gratitude towards yourself and the world in general, you don’t have time to think degenerative thoughts about yourself. A lot of what was being said about appreciating your body and simply being with your current state really connected with a piece of writing I was working with in my Seminar class talking about “The Fat Body” and in particular Beth Ditto. The article talks about how the “fat” body in today’s society almost never gets to be present because it always looks at as “a fat body in the process of becoming skinnier” so you can’t just be. These speakers were giving a lot of advice on just being present and loving yourself and this is especially critical to focus on in the new frontier of fashion.
Joan Entwistle: Models and Model Diversity
I was so so excited to see Joan Entwistle speak since I took a lot from her reading assigned in class. She talked about model diversity in three different stages: professional industries that reproduce the “skinny aesthetic”, how social media is shifting this, and if social media will end up mimicking the fashion industry’s standards. She dove into what creates the skinny aesthetic and why it continues to be such a staple of the fashion world. This comes from many facets and the aesthetic is reproduced by every area of the industry because each area thinks its what another area wants to see. Designer samples are created around a live in house skeleton and so model castings follow as so and then we see it on the runways and our magazines. It’s an image making machine of skinny where the fashion photographers think the public wants to see “skinny street style” and the editors think the designers want this and so on. She explored our subconscious pre-dispositions to taste. Something that surprised me was that she dove into the concept of the instagram mom blogger. She talked about how this specific subsection of instagram is really bold and powerful because these moms have a huge following and they also are carefree in how they showcase their real bodies, play with fashion and outfits in their own control, and are now beginning to be exploited by brands because of this following. This is a group of instagram that I hadn’t given much thought too but I understand that theres all these little crevices that are emerging on social media as creative hubs that the fashion industry then jumps on. Entwistle explained subculture theory which related heavily to our class and referred to the instagram moms as a sort of subculture where you can still find a level of authenticity.
Aimee Mullins, Lucy Jones, Grace Jun: Inclusive Design
This lecture was about inclusive design and we heard from Aimee Mullins who is an actress and model who uses two prosthetic legs, and Grace Jun who works with style lab at Parsons. There were really interesting and different perspectives that contributed to a super productive conversation. Mullins talked about questioning why prosthetics can’t go even beyond what typical human limbs look like and are capable of, this is what brought her to create running legs modeled after a cheetah’s hind leg. She’s challenging the idea that prosthetics have to only have this heavy representation of loss instead of something new, creative, and beautiful. I had never thought about it like that before and thats and incredible way to think about innovative design. Grace Jun explained the ethos of style lab and that at their core they try to work to give greater mobility, greater independence, and also style because they believe that style can leverage your confidence and motivation. This reminded me a lot about “The Dressed Body” again and the way that fashion can function as a barrier, if style and trends aren’t offered to you as an option you are being excluded from a system of social cues and fashion. Aimee Mullins also brought up how alterations of prosthetics really shouldn’t be so shocking in today’s world with rampant plastic surgery because in a way everyone’s remaking themselves and this connected to our reading of “Failed Bodies” and how plastic surgery increasingly exists as a norm in our society.
Lauren Downing Peters: “Dressing Smart, Looking Slender: Stout wear and the discourse of fitting in”
Lauren Downing Peters presented about stoutwear and the destructive way that clothing was advertised to larger women early on in fashion. She touched on the dehumanization of fat women being photographed with their heads cropped out and labeled solely as a medical case instead of a person. I was aware of how removed fat people were from society during this time but something interesting that I hadn’t thought about was when Peters said that fat women in the olden days were literally depicted as our of rhythm with architecture and setting of life. This education about how aggressively larger people have been rejected from society not only today but historically needs to be taken seriously in our scope of the fashion world and what needs to be corrected.
