Post 2 images from your last assignment, the Dress Practice Log, and post a final overall reflection to your LP. Your final overall reflection should answer these questions:

• What themes emerged in your dress practice log?
• What did you notice about daily dress practice that you hadn’t noticed before?
• How did the dress practice log impact your understanding of the relationship between clothing and the body?

After completing the dress practice log, I found some themes that were almost in all of my outfits. For color, deep blue and black are my favorite. In the first picture, I am wearing a deep blue patterned dress. I also wear deep blue denim jacket and deep blue top in my other photos in the log. In the second picture, I am wearing all black. There are two more outfits where I wear all black in the log. Deep V neck is another theme that emerges. Almost all of my tops are deep V neck, because I think this neck line fits my body and aesthetics the best. I also occasionally wear ballet neck and crew neck clothes.

It’s the first time when I notice I prefer dark color. When I am designing, I usually prefers to make the collection colorful. However, when I look at my dress log, I realize I am wearing dark colored clothes almost every day. The brightest color I had worn is red and it only happened once in a skirt in the picture where I am playing the piano. I also surprisingly realize that I never wear more than two colors, unless the garment is patterned. I think that’s because two colors provide better unity and I prefer using different intensity of the same color to show variation.

The dress practice log lets me think more deeply about the relationship between clothing and body. In general, clothing serves our body. We use clothing to decorate our bodies and make them look better, to provide comfort, keep us warm and demonstrate our personality. Our purpose of putting on clothes is usually a mix of these. However, the emphasis changes. For example, when we are going out, we tend to focus more on the “looking nice in front of others” side; when we are with ourselves, we tend to focus more on the comfort and warmth side.

This 2007 Tom Ford advertising campaign for men’s cologne is a perfect example of the depiction of traditional gender stereotype. There is a woman’s chest with her hands holding her breasts and covering her nipples. The woman has a typical sexy body: big breasts, tanned and smooth skin, long fingers, red nails and her body is even covered in a layer of water or massage oil. I would name this ad as hyper female sexuality fantasy. The product is targeted to male customers, but only a female is shown in the advertisement and Tom Ford includes a lot of elements that are usually associated with woman and sex. The fragrance is featured in the cleavage in the center. Woman is clearly portrayed as hypersexual object. Since the face gets cropped out and only the sex organs–breasts are shown. Many people find it offensive and think it doesn’t show the respect to the woman. It seems like the woman’s personality (face) is hidden and only her sexual value is shown. This advertisement is suggesting that if the man gets the Tom Ford fragrance, he will be able to attract sexy woman and have sex with them. It significantly increased the sales and demonstrated the power of sex in marketing. According to Kaiser in Fashion and Cultural Studies, “Clearly, sex sells, and it is usually women’s bodies that are represented and ‘consumed’.” In my opinion, this advertisement is just an effective tool to attract people’s attention and boost sales. Despite of many feminist criticism and being a feminist myself, I actually like this advertisement. It aims to demonstrate the sexy aesthetics of Tom Ford rather than to purely objectify women. It is also a piece of striking and controversial modern art.