For your last LP Post of the semester, I would like you to reflect on the definition of fashion you were asked to offer at the start of the semester. How has this definition of fashion shifted since the beginning of the semester? How will you apply this definition and these ideas to your future work (coursework, design work, or general thought process)? Describe one or two specific examples as part of your answer. Your example(s) can come from anywhere, but support them with at least one quote from a class reading.
To refresh your memory, here is what I originally asked in Week 1:
Imagine that all physical and digital data that exists is somehow lost, and you have been asked to write an encyclopedia entry for the word “fashion.” Your definition is the only one people will see when they look up this word, now and forever. How will you explain this concept and everything it encompasses?
To recall when I wrote down the definition of fashion at the very beginning of the semester, I wasn’t feeling sure of what I was writing down. All I remembered that I wanted to express was that fashion is about personal expression and it is an art form. My definition of fashion of today has changed to a broader perspective. Each individual’s definition of fashion could be influenced by their own subject positions of personal dress practice, cultural background, age, class, gender, ability/ disability, religion, education, occupation, ethnicity, nationality, place… and the list continues. By acknowledging this, I am appreciating and respecting more than before about what other people put on themselves. And the definition that I would use to define fashion is that fashion is a part of the humanity of human culture, it is personal to own but public yet shareable to whoever sees it. At the very beginning of dress practice, we put on fabrics to cover and to protect. As technology improves and advances, we put on fabrics not only to cover and protect but at the same time, we use it to express what is most important to us. Fashion is a language that is silent. The word fashion does not only speak to fancy designs and the industry, moreover, but it also speaks to everyone’s dress practice.
My new definition of fashion is giving me more inspiration for my future work. Quoting from Kaiser, “Fashion is more than a white, bourgeois (upper-middle class), heterosexual female affair. Yet the stories that get told and retold reinforce the myth that fashion is only western or white or female.” In an effort of being more transnationally and gender-friendly to break the stereotype of the definition of fashion, I will be more conscious about these topics when I work on my future topics.
