No.1: Fashion is not necessarily spectacular (though it often conforms to the theory of the society of the spectacle), it can also be demotic, ordinary, mundane, routine and humble. It is the stuff of the ethnographer and the anthropologist.
When we approach fashion, especially from the non-academic point of view, we are constrained in the sense that we focus mostly on the glamorous and overly embellished side of fashion. Yet, with deeper thought it is apparent that everyday people on the streets of New York, Milan, Sydney, Bangkok and Istanbul do not look like the models walking down the runway but fresh hair and make-up and beautiful clothes. We see those people in jeans and t-shirts and tank tops and shirts and skirts, most of which are just plain clothes that wouldn’t be on the runway or the windows in Saks Fifth Avenue. I think there is something incredibly remarkable about the clothing of everyday people, we can see a great variance in human behavior, mostly related to practicality and functionality rather than being fashionable. For instance, a mom getting dressed for her kid’s soccer practice would involve many aspects like the weather, the terrain, being able to drive easily and walk easily and so on yet the interesting part is that we are not concerned about how she gets dressed, though we should be.
No.2: Fashion is so all-encompassing and encyclopedic in its terrain that it seems tailor-made for the era of big-data. The old antiquarians used it to map national customs and habits. We have the tools to put to service of as yet unimagined projects, of even greater scope and impact.
As a student of the New School, I am very interested in the issue of sustainability and also very concerned with the future of our planet and I believe, like the many progressive designers from this school that art and design, eventually fashion will become quintessential tools in the way to change how we think, how we live and how we can improve. And in this aphorism, I think the role of fashion as a tool for expression and as a tool for change is underscored by referencing the new generation of technology by big data. Additionally, this aphorism also talks about the unimagined horizons that fashion can reach and as a design tool it will become the medium of change.
