Class #2, 23/07/09

Clothing a person, 23/07/09

Today's class activity involved getting a piece of paper and
1. Clothing a person
2. Clothing something in the studio
With these kinds of exercises I sometimes forget what the intention is when I'm doing it. Editing the images that I'd taken made me think more about what the definition of clothing is. The first exercises I was thinking about two things, covering and decorating. If you look at what I created it was really just about covering my model (the beautiful Minna). I started to rip holes and weave the paper, but in the end I wasn't achieving much. Looking at everyone else's interpretation of the activity it seemed to be the same kind of thought process (from what I could tell). Some of the readings we were given this week related back to this tension between clothing and fashion. Yuniya Kawamura's Fashion-ology is a reading we were set.
"...dress attempts to balance two contradictory aims: it focuses our attractions and at the same time protects our modesty." Y.Kawamura,pp.6, 2005

Reading this line seemed to connect with what I had created in class, I was trying to cover but at the same time draw attention to a part of the 'garment'. When I had to clothe the door handle I was essentially doing the same thing, highlighting the shape of the handle, but hiding the rest of the door.

Clothing something in the studio, 23/07/09

This activity was simply about clothing, NOT fashion. Perhaps if it was about fashion, I would have photographed it in a particular way. Ricarda brought up an interesting concept which I hadn't thought much about. I'm an addict to blogs, particularly fashion and design blogs, also I'm an eBay addict. When your searching through the listings on eBay it's interesting to see the ways in which people sell their clothes through fashion. The blogger/ebayer fashiontoast is a good example of this. The blog consists of street styled photographs, with the blogger in her latest purchases. The blog is a huge success and is linked to an ebay site, which sells the vintage clothes that are photographed in a similar style to the blogs images.
As the blog has become more popular, I'm sure that the ebay store would have increased it's business, because people want to buy into the 'fashion' that is uploaded to the site. If you can buy a vintage 90's leather mini backpack from the ebay site then maybe your buying into the style that the seller has fashioned?

Also describing the item your selling is important. I know myself when I was selling my old clothes on eBay, when it comes to describing your item, you want to make it sound as exclusive as you can. 'Completley sold out in stores, a must have for winter..yaada yaada yaada.

This person had the right idea to, finding an image of a celebrity wearing the item. It may not be the same size or colour but it's a selling tool that is used all over ebay.

Looking at the example of ebay you could say fashion is simply the marketing of clothes. But is it more than that? Is there something else that contributes to our need for fashion, not clothes???
Till next blog...