LP post 3 Reflection

My interviewee’s name is Drew Ruben, he is a second year at Parsons so he’s twenty years old. Currently he has no job but hopes to find an internship in either styling or interior design this summer. I know the interviewee because we are roommates. Some of the themes that emerged during my dress practice interview were the desired style, occasion, role models and color palettes. For example, my roommate- Drew- wears lots of black, goes for a street style look typically wearing a cap and platform shoes and he dresses down on most school days saving his better outfits for the weekends. He talked about how his grandmother and celebrities like Bella Hadid are roles models to him for various reasons. On page 32 in the end of the first paragraph in Why Women Wear What They Wear by Sophie Woodward, Woodward writes “fashion is experienced by the individual as a source of anxiety.” She goes on, “In choosing what to wear, they are faced with man possibilities, which may range from being chic, sexy, or funky,… with the women’s position in life…” (Woodward, 32). The author opinion on the topic of choosing fashion says that the choice is based on anxieties and positioning in one’s life. I saw a connection between this statement and my roommate’s choice to only wear platformed shoes. As a male, most would prefer to be taller than he is so as a way of clearing his anxiety he wears taller shoes.  I saw my roommates style often so it wasn’t his style choices that surprised but how he organizes his closet. He organizes his closet by a suit/set section, random pieces of clothing, shoes on mini racks, cologne/ accessories on the top shelf of his closet with open space in the middle of the closet. And we also share a clothing rack for our winter jackets that is in our living area. I  find it interesting he keeps an area of openness with no clothes hanging on it in his closet then uses my rack to store some of his jackets in our living room. It shows how he likes things to be extra neat and not mix’n’match. Our sales are extremely different; in a way both of us are edgy but in different ways. I prefer a traditional, classic, preppy, edgy look and prefers a black street style. In our dress practice, I would say our routines are similar as I also dress comfier for school and fashionable on the weekends. But I definitely have a different form of organization, mine is by sweaters then dresses and a shoe rack in my closet with piles of sweatshirts on the top shelf. And everything in my closet is color coded, including the shoes. I believe theirs definite, strong connections between clothing and the body, we use clothing/accessories to improve the body. For example, Drew uses platform sneakers to improve his height. Me, I lean towards more fitted and revealing clothing like leggings, crop tops/ sweaters and dress to show off my legs and arms because I like those parts of my body. I feel as if this assignment has helped understand the relationship of body and clothing. We use clothing as a form in a mask in so many different ways such as hiding insecurities or displaying our strengths.