What is Fashion?

My definition of Fashion is “outward appearance”. Fashion can be in any shape, silhouette, color, texture or material. It is how one looks whether it is true to their appearance or fabricated. As such is the case, Fashion can morph into anything and everything, and however one defines or sees Fashion can be true and real. Thus, whilst in the past, there was a strict guideline as to what Fashion was and what it could be, now we know that there is no real right or wrong in Fashion. It can practically be anything that lays over our body, simply acting like a second skin that we want to see ourselves in or show others.

The exaggerated red cape, reminiscent of the cape from the Little Red Ridding Hood covers the entire body both silhouette wise and surface wise. As the look so directly implies the imagery of the Little Red Ridding Hood, the viewers may assume that the designer’s intention was to create a child like depiction by hiding all the curves of a grown adult and the silhouette via the large pleat-like seams using still fabric treated with a plastic overlay. Using an identically oversized and hood using puffer that starts over the shoulders and covers the wearer’s face completely, the designer once again hides the wearer’s gender, age, identity, to embed the childlike image only through the dominant red oversized cape.

“[P]erhaps the most obvious and important of all the variations of fashion is that which concerns the part of the body that is most accentuated. Fashion, in its more exuberant moments is seldom content with the silhouette that Nature has provided, but usually seeks to lay particular stress upon some single part or feature, which is then treated as a special centre of erotic charm. ” (Excerpt From: Susan B. Kaiser. “Fashion and Cultural Studies.”)

Like the excerpt from our reading implies, the silhouette is one of the most dominant ways of exposing one’s identity in terms of gender, age and style. Thus, like mentioned in the quote above, some features of the body are accentuated to create erotic charm. This idea of enhancing a silhouette is less visible in children’s wear, and thus children can be classified more into the gender neutral area than the solid men or women region, therefore, possibly be more naive towards the idea of sexuality. The oversized pattern of the cape and the stiff fabric treated with plastic therefore seemed like the designers intention to cover the wearer’s silhouette and sexuality and create a naive girl like impression just like the girl from the Little Red Ridding Hood.

The purpose and meaning behind this look may be different to what I felt but the above description was the impression I felt when viewing and examining this Comme Des Garcons runway look.

The themes that emerged from my dress practice interview was the organization of the wardrobe, the types and the weight of the external influences (culture, age, environment, event, gender, etc) my interviewee received when buying garments and dressing up. I noticed that she has so much more garments than what she wears (more of her wardrobe was inactive). I also found garments in the style that she normally would not wear which was interesting because these garments contrasted with her style completely. Her dress practice is similar in that we both have a vague idea of what we would wear the day before but we decide on the garments the next day depending on the weather, the activities of the day, the type of people we would meet. Also, the way we dress around different people are very different depending on the culture, class, age and gender of the people.

“How does one represent the formation of national, as well as transnational, subjectivities? Let’s consider a rather extreme example. Before being crowned as Miss Universe in 2010, Miss Mexico (Ximena Navarrete) explains the significance of her choice of a red gown for the evening gown competition: “I chose red to represent the 200th anniversary of Mexico.” (The year 1810 marked the beginning of Mexico’s war for independence from Spanish colonial rule.) For the Best National Costume competition, Miss Mexico wore an elaborate gown and headdress that celebrates the Kukulcán Pyramids of Yucután (see Figure 3.1). In these two garment choices, Navarrete not only consciously represents her national subject position; she also expresses her subjectivity through a link between her own body and the larger “body politic” (Parkins 2002). After she is crowned, she says in an interview that she wants “the whole world to know about my country and my people.”

Kaiser, Susan B. Fashion and Cultural Studies. London: Berg Publisher, 2012.

The interview confirmed my understanding of the relationship between clothing and the body in that people wear different clothings depending on the 5Ws (Who, what, where, when, why), and whilst comfort plays a factor in the way we dress, the fit and the overall look is so much more important than ultimate comfort in general.

Femininity in this advertisement for Dior’s signature Lady Dior bag is expressed as seductive and powerful. I personally do not believe there is such thing as “traditional gender norms” because the role and the idealistic image or representation of women has always been different within time and culture. “In a later analysis, fashion/performance studies scholar Tania Hammidi and I suggested that beauty has often been theorized as a singular image, system, or narrative.”(Excerpt From: Susan B. Kaiser. “Fashion and Cultural Studies.”). Therefore, to answer the question “Does the advertisement reinforce traditional gender norms?, the answer would be: the ad does reflect and reinforce one of the generalized idealistic image of a women. The women conveys Independence, seductiveness and power through her gesture, pose and facial expression. Her right arm on her hip reflects the feminine curves whilst the straight left arm on an angled platform reflects independence and power. Her facial expression, especially her gazing down emphasizes the seductive element along with the red and purple colored lighting shining from her right.

The two aphorisms I chose from Christopher Breward’s list are “Fashion can be about confirmation,  of self and others. But it is also about anxiety, ambiguity and worry. As an aid to understanding psychological complexities it is unsurpassed.” And “Fashion does not define. It is instead a term that demands definition.”

My interpretation of the first aphorism I chose is that fashion, when taken into the aspect of garments and items worn on body, has a meaning or purpose beyond covering or exposing the wearer’s body. It is used as an identifier that can show or hide the wearer’s identity depending on how the wearer wants to be portrayed publicly, and ultimately create a real or false sense of belonging that the wearer potentially desires from the viewer. It is a visual method of classification that includes people who wear a similar type of clothing and exclude those who dress differently. Like the quote identifies fashion as a great tool to understand the psychological complexities, I believe that every small or large aspect of fashion can be meaningful and purposeful both intentionally and unconsciously.

The second aphorism I chose to my interpretation, means that because fashion lies in such varied spectrum within the field of studies from social sciences, economics, arts, mathematics, politics, only to name a few, the meaning is so metamorphic that any meaning given to the term is a generalization of the whole that it lacks clarity. Therefore, Fashion it is a term that needs further research in order to have a proper definition that fulfills every aspect of its character.