LP WK 5/ Submission and Reflection Theme Map

1.  Post your finished Theme Map.

2.  Reflect on the experience of making your Theme Map.  What new connections and ideas surfaced as you sorted the images?  What sub-themes are most interesting to you? Why?

  • New connections that I’ve seen are designers and people who recreate fashion to say something political or social about a certain issue. In fact, a few designers like Junya Watanabe that I admire make mistakes that may or may not have been consciously in his mind: for example, using Africa inspired themes but using a 100% white model population for his show. The sub themes that are most interesting towards me are how marginalized communities are not well represented in the fashion industry. Again, going with brand, it seems that H&M represents marginalized communities the most – and considering that this is not a high-end brand, I believe people look up to an ideal of wealth and richness, associating it with skinniness and “model-like”ness.

3.  What research questions have you drafted in seminar? List possible questions. Use the following three-part formula to articulate your research problem (from The Craft of Research text):

  • How does the body affect the brand/face of a company?
  • How does society fetishize the “ideal” female model body and its current aesthetics?
  • How is the female body sexualized in the fashion industry?
  • How is the female body fetishized in fashion advertisements and in high fashion?
  • How do fashion brands use the female body to create their brand?

1. Topic: I am studying how the brand uses the body, and how it affects diversity
2. Question: because I want to find out what/why/how the fashion industry is still being specific to face and branding, ignoring the social and justice related issues that come after.
3. Significance: in order to help my reader understand that diversity is important, as it becomes something that people look up to or have ideals of when it comes to the embodiment of something daily – their clothes.

Questions after:

  1. How is diversity at stake due to branding/marketing in the fashion industry?
  2. How is the body not used as a model, but used as a branding in the fashion industry?
  3. How do fashion companies generalize the body and its diversity in contemporary culture?
  4. Diversity is important when considering it as a model for the fashion industry and for those who are a part of it. Why is diversity and representing marginalized communities important?

ELP: https://portfolio.newschool.edu/seju/

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