Interview with a student on an article of clothing

Me: Hi! Ramia, How are you doing today?

Ramia: I’m good .And you?

Me: I’m good too, so,which clothes did you take to share with us today?

Ramia: Is a sweater that I have three years now, and I wear a lot to paint.

Me: How often do you wear it?

Ramia: I wear it a lot when I do arts or sometimes I wear it to class if I’m tired, so maybe once or twice a week.

Me: Do you wear it in public or private?

Ramia: Both.

Me: How do you feel of the construction to your body? The sweater is too tight or too loose?

Ramia: Is really loose, is very comfortable.

Me: How do you feel of it?

Ramia: I really like it, I love the material, is really soft, and its like very comforting, it’s not too heavy or too light,so it’s good for different weather.

Me: what is your social motivation for wearing it? Do you want to fit into a specific group of people?

Ramia: well,um..i would say definitely not. It differentiates me  from everybody else, because firstly, I used to wear it to my old school as part of an uniform, I was the only one with paint all over my sweater because sometimes I would have to take it to art class and but I kept wearing it. It made me different from every body else and I definitely did not fit in a group.

Me: Great! So what is your psychological motivation for wearing this?

Ramia: well, I will say the first motivation is I need it to be paint, instead of getting all paint overall my other clothes, also I will say it’s a statement and carry lots of story of history,beause I wear it for a long time and some of pieces I have done most proud of I’m done when I wearing it, it reminds me lots of people that supported me.

Me: So dose this garment make you feel comfortable?

Ramia: Yes, it does.

Me: Do you have any history of this type of garment you can share with us?

Ramia:I got it when I first moved to Dubai. 2 , almost 3 years ago for high school. It was part of the uniform. over time wearing it so much and getting paint on it make it different from everyone else. In the beginning moving there was very hard for me. Overtime as I got used to living there and kept wearing it so I guess i associate it with progress. I wouldn’t say the garment itself help, but the things that I went through, I went through them wearing it.

Me: That’s all the question I want to ask you today, thank you for sharing.

Ramia: You’re welcome.

 

 

 

Reflection on the interview: it’s a very comfortable interview overall. Riamia is my friend at Parsons and the sweater she talked about contained a lots of memories of her. Compare to the idea of “the dressed body”, Riamia’s emotion towards the sweater touched me more. The sweater is not just a tool she wore for painting but more like a partner. She was not influenced by the social ideas about garments and clothes. It’s a pleasure to interview Riamia and I had a really good time.

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