Part 1:
Theme: Class
3 images from online research:
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2 images from the “streets” of NYC:
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2 images from MoMA:
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Part2: Take one of the two images you found from the MoMA and try to deconstruct the process of the work’s creation (in 400-600 words).
1980s hooded sweatshirt Lent by Champion| Items: Is Fashion Modern?|MoMA exhibition
This item is an exhibit in a MoMA’s exhibition: Items: Is Fashion Modern? It is a 1980s hooded sweatshirt made of cotton and acrylic and lent by Champion. When in 1930s, the sportswear manufacturer Champion designed the hooded sweatshirt to keep athletes warm before and after training, the modern hoodie was born. After decades, due to the durableness and cheapness of the fabric, laborers adopted it as a practical winter layer, and it became a quintessential college wardrobe item in the 1950s. Beginning in the mid-1970s, hip-hop rappers pulled up their hoods as a form of armor while writing graffiti, skate-boarding, or breakdancing. It became a symbol of hip-hop culture. Hip-hop culture has been always seen as an underground culture which leaded by lower class people who demands to fight for their rights. The main trend culture is controlled by the wealthy, so hip-hop culture becomes the minorities’ expression of eagerness to speak for themselves. With the rebellious spirits of hip-hop culture reached out to the larger population, many young people view hip-hop culture as “cool” and “trendy” and begin to wear hip-hop culture clothes such as hoodie until now. I believe hoodie represents the theme class well as the product of visual culture, because it reveals the equality between classes: no matter what class you are in, if you buy a hoodie, you get it in the same quality. In the same position there is coke which also shows the equal side of classes. However, nowadays the situation seems a little bit different; there are a lot of skateboard(element of hip-hop culture) brands such as Supreme, Palace and Bape which sales a high price hoodie which has the same quality as a $40 one.
With the emerging of internet era, many companies established and succeed due to the innovated high technology. Their leaders are usually technical geniuses who don’t really pay attention to fashion, so hoodie becomes their first choice. In the last decade, worn by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, the hoodie has become a symbol of measured defiance of established business dress codes. In 2012, the hoodie became an incendiary political symbol when Floridian neighborhood-watch volunteer George Zimmerman killed black teenager Trayvon Martin, whim he had viewed with suspicion after seeing him walking the streets in a hoodie. Martin’s supporters organized several million hoodie marches, taking a political against race-based violence and injustice. I think hoodie is a perfect product when talks about class, because it has so many layers of meaning that involves all kinds of class. It shows the equality of classes, and speaks for the minority culture, and breaks the stereotype of dressing in business field, and with specific event, it can also represent a particular meaning that a group wants the society to know.
