Christopher Breward’s aphorisms from his foreword to Fashion Studies
“Fashion is intensely personal, in the same way that poetry is intensely personal. It is a medium through which personal stories can be told, memories re-lived and futures foretold.”
In Christopher Breward’s Foreword to fashion studies, he mentioned that fashion is a tool of self-expression which can explain who the person is, what that person wants to tell and become, through the own way. I strongly agree with this statement. I believe that fashion is a method that every human being can express in their own different way, which cannot be discussed by the right or wrong. It is a very subjective form of aesthetic and a person can show their characteristic, what he or she is interested in or taking care about and even how they feel.
“Fashion can be about confirmation, of self and others. But it is also about anxiety, ambiguity and worry. As an aid to understanding psychological complexities it is unsurpassed.
In this second aphorism I chose, it points out that fashion enables the verification about ourselves or of other people. Meanwhile, it also creates a feeling of nervousness and confusedness greater than any other thing. We feel the conformity via fashion and one good example for that is that people wear a uniform to make a sense of belonging. It can also be called as politics of body/body politics, by restricting the free will of clothing, the integration and unity generated by the similar looking of people in the same society. This is how we distinguish the different culture or race in the real world as well. It facilitates more than anything to make people feel the kinship by using clothes as a method of confirmation about the same in-group. Some might feel themselves or treat other people outsider due to the different outlook. In that sense, I extremely agree with the above aphorism.
