FashionFashion

What is Fashion?

In small groups of 2-3 come up with and write down an explanation for these three questions: (5 minutes)1. What is fashion? 2. Why is it important?3. How is fashion related to our study of media?

Your group will now join another group from the other side of the room and discuss/compare your explanations. (5 minutes)

What is Fashion?

Is the expression of feelings and attitudes through appearances. - individuals

Self-expression,

Style

Trends

Cultural Diversity

Why is it important?

• makes you feel unique

• express yourself

• individuality

• look good, feel good

• labels people in a good way – helps people identify people

• communicates a message

How does it relate to media?

• communicates a message – visually and sometimes olfactory (smell)

• helps us understand advertisements

• who we are

• how we interact

• what we value

• what a culture is like

What is Fashion?

For centuries individuals or societies have used clothes and other body adornment as a form of nonverbal communication to indicate occupation, rank, gender, sexual availability, locality, class, wealth and group affiliation. Fashion is a form of free speech. It not only embraces clothing, but also accessories, jewellery, hairstyles, beauty and body art. What we wear, how and when we wear it, provides others with a short story to subtly read the surface of a social situation.

Fashion as a Sign SystemFashion is a language of signs, symbols and iconography that non-verbally communicate meanings about individuals and groups. Fashion in all its forms from a tattooed and pierced navel, to the newest hairstyle, is the best form of iconography we have to express individual identity. It enables us to make ourselves understood with rapid comprehension by the onlooker.

The Need for Tribal Belonging

Group affiliation is one of our primary concerns with regard to fashion. Humans want and need to belong. Similarities in fashion help establish and reinforce that sense of belonging or tribal connection.

The Need for Individuality

Humans by birth are guaranteed uniqueness and fashion is one way to express our individuality. In mass society, fashion is another way to express the freedom of the individual.

Status and Purpose of Clothing

Those with high status jobs wear the clothes they think others expect them to wear. It’s from the clothes that people wear that we get our first impression of personality. They provide mental cues to a person’s status and occupational role. Clothes also act as an aid to modesty or immodesty as the wearer so desires. The state of a person’s clothes is a sign of respectability.

Evolutions of new styles

New generations strive to differentiate themselves from old ones. They try to find their own group identity that give them cohesion as a generation and distinguish them from the mainstream. (music style, clothing style, speech) To assure that the new style becomes a real signal of identity, young people create a set of rules that are incompatible with the values of the style they are rejecting. This causes the style they want to differentiate from, to play an essential role in the shaping of the new style.

Evolutions of new styles

To shape a successful new style, the new generation needs to find one or more important characteristics of the mainstream style and develop a signal that is incompatible with these values. This assures that mainstreamers find new styles unacceptable/ incomprehensible. For this reason most new styles are born as a reaction of the old styles.

Punk Style for Example

The punk movement was born as a reaction against the rigidity of British society. Punkers reject the social formalism as a whole, reject the social structures and become anarchistic, reject the musical virtuosity of progressive rock and instead play music that is as dirty and unacademic as possible. Punks find that their attitudes will not be understood and followed by the mainstream, and thus they adapt them as elements of their own identity

PUNK

Mainstream Response

One proof of mainstream’s disapproval of new styles is “moral panic.” This kind of reaction shows that the set of values and attitudes of the alternative style is incompatible with some those of the mainstream. This will reaffirm the alternative group’s identity in opposition to the mainstream identity.

Gaining this rejection of mainstream culture helps the

new style to attract young people who are looking for a group with whom to identity. The rejection assures that their values are not going to be assimilated by the main style, making the alternative style a safe paradigm to find their group’s identity.

Process of Becoming Mainstream

• If a new style reflects the concern and interests of a new generation, more and more members of the society will adapt it. When the adapters of the style reach some critical point, the style is brought to the attention of the general public. In this way, the style is not an alternative signal anymore; now is part of the mainstream culture.

Cont.

At the beginning, the non-mainstreamers create a new style as a reaction to the mainstream, and proudly see their style evolve and become more rich and complex. New style is very effective in communicating new set of values against the mainstream. This gets the attention of many early adaptors who understand the values and the attitudes of the new style. The early adaptors learn the secret code that allows them to understand and follow the fashion changes proposed by the pioneers. Then more and more people adapt the new style, and unfortunately not all of them fully understand its underlying principles but nevertheless follow the external changes in the fashion. Thus, the new style has become mainstreamed. The pioneers get frustrated because their style does not serve as a differentiation signal anymore.

And Round n Round we Go!

Fashion:Influence on Behaviour?

Does fashion influence behaviour?

or

Does fashion merely reflect the personality of an individual?

Deconstruct Your Fashion StyleWhat does what you are wearing tell about you?

Take each fashion accessory that you are wearing today (clothes, jewellery, make-up, tattoos, hair style, glasses) and answer the following for each:

1. Where was my ________ made? By whom? For whom?

2. How does my ________ reflect my values and beliefs?

3. What message does my ________ say to myself? to others?

4. What do I like/dislike about __________?

Item Shirt

Made Thailand

For Whom? North America

By Whom Tommy Hilfiger

Reflect Values Trendy, well made

Message to myself..

Look good, feel good

…message to Others

Non-thinking imperialist

Like/ dislike Can’t use the dryer

Find yourself two partners and get them to write down what message they feel your fashion portrays. Take their comment sheet and attach it to your sheets so you can hand them in together. This activity requires some seriousness, maturity and establishing a little distance from the situation. The goal is to examine your own views on your fashion sense and how they are actually interpreted by others.

Homework: Due on Thursday or Sooner Fashion survey• Find 5 people you do not know well (introduce yourself to

someone from a different grade) and try to find the answer to at least these questions.

• Are you concerned about being fashionable or in style?• What is the biggest concern when you buy clothes? (price,

style, comfort, brand)• Do you think fashion affects people’s behaviour or is fashion

just an expression of people’s personality?• Do your friends wear similar clothes?

Prepare a report on your results. In your report you should include the age and gender of the people you interview (I don’t want names) and the results (what you found out) and your own opinion for each question.