Christopher Breward’s reading Learning Portfolio Post #1

“Fashion moves in space and time. It shares in the complexity of physics and mathematics, making patterns and networks, forming mazes and constellations. Through its forms we have an opportunity to re-unite are and science and to heal the rift of the two cultures,” and “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.” These are two of the many aphorisms written by Lidewij Edelkort, who is a most well-known proponent of trend forecasting. In order to respond to these two aphorisms, I will give my respond and also re-interpret it use my own words in the following two paragraphs. 

I strongly agree with the first aphorism. Fashion tells us about places and times, and it also tells us about the past and present. For examples, as we learned about anti-culture and subculture in the 70s, people were going against what was “in-the- know” fashion. For the present times, with the mass shooting happened and also a series of environmental pollutions, we now focus on more clear and sustainable clothing. Fashion is like an encapsulation of the decade itself, and it has the ability to make you go back in time and get a feel for what it was like.  The term ‘Fashion’ is also a reflection of the culture of different societies and it informs a lot about the people who wear the fashions. One example I can think of is the wedding dresses in China and America. In China, we have the tradition of wearing red garment on a wedding day, it represents happiness and lucky, on the contrary, people in America always wear white. Again, because clothes last,  they can be physical artifact that reflect accurate records of the time, and because it is very much different, it can tell us a huge amount of information about people and society. 

I also agree with the second aphorism that Fashion is intensely personal. Even though it will be affect by society as a whole, still, fashion itself is different to each of us. I remember reading the book “the worn stories”, it was formed by different short articles, and each of the article was telling a story behind an object, such as clothing, painting, perfumes and shoes, etc. In these articles, some of the objects were a way to remembering an old friend; some of the objects were a reminder of what happened in the past; some of the objects were simply used by the owners and it brought them joy. Again, the term ‘fashion’ does not have a standard interpretation, because to each of us, it represents different things. Every piece of garment and object comes from different places at different time. From the moment when we became their owners, we are creating memories and stories with these objects, therefore, it is intensely personal.