Part of what made my Dress Practice Interview successful was that my interview subject is a close friend of mine. This made the interview process flow nicely and evenly, and he was already very comfortable being around me. This differs from Sophie Woodward in that she had to build a relationship that made the subject comfortable enough with her that they would allow her access to their most personal space, their bedroom.
“…one of my primary concerns was being able to get the ethnographic depth that I needed, and therefore I required women who would be willing to spend significant time amounts of time with me. Given the intimate nature of my enquiries, taking place initially within the bedroom, the issue of access was particularly pertinent” (WOODWARD, Sophie. Why Women Wear What They Wear, Pg 34. Berg, 2007.)
During the interview I noticed the main themes of Massimo’s dress practice are wearing vintage clothes and wearing clothes that express the feminine side of his identity. What I learned about his dress practice that I didn’t know before was mostly about his multiple Moschino pieces. I had known that he had them before, but during the interview was the first time I really noticed them all together. What I learned about the relationship of clothes to the body was that a persons dress is subconsciously curated to represent the individual identity of the wearer, which goes beyond just subject positions. For example I was thinking about the music Massimo likes and how so much of it is from the 60’s and 70’s (Nancy Sinatra, The Shangri-Las, David Bowie, Donna Summer, Kate Bush, etc.) and how that sense of “nostalgia” is represented through his methods of dress.
