Monday, 4 May 2009
Sunday, 19 April 2009
Friday, 10 April 2009
Incorrect Petridis
I’m aware that The Guardian’s Saturday magazine isn’t the place to turn for advanced critical thinking; nevertheless, one contributor in particular, as I glance through the supplement, never fails to get my goat. – What frustrates me about Alexis Petridis’s weekly column in The Guardian Weekend Alexis Petridis on fashion, isn’t so much that he takes easy shots at men’s fashion, but that in doing so he reveals assumptions which are manifestly heterosexist, gender-normative and conventional.
Petridis’s critique of currently fashionable short-shorts (the sort worn by a male athletes in the 1970s) is indicative of the intellectual laziness of his articles. Any garment which reveals the male figure, and in particular, any garment which is highly fitted or exposes flesh is instantly targeted by Petridis. On the one hand it’s easy to see why leggings or cowl necks might be difficult to pull off and might seem potentially silly in menswear. But the subtext to these critiques, it strikes me, is that while the expression of sexuality and of the physicality of the body in women’s fashion is proper and authentic, in men’s attire it is inappropriate.
For me, fashion, as well as having the potential for formal and aesthetic innovation, is about constructing identities and communicating ideas about oneself. While the narrow and proscribed nature of menswear may appear to be relatively minor issue in the wider battle for gender equality, it is indicative of the way in which men’s gender continues to be policed. In this way, the suppression of authentic, self-expressive modes of male dress is symptomatic of attempts to maintain and enforce a limited, conformist and increasingly irrelevant model of masculinity.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/apr/04/alexis-petridis-fashion
Petridis’s critique of currently fashionable short-shorts (the sort worn by a male athletes in the 1970s) is indicative of the intellectual laziness of his articles. Any garment which reveals the male figure, and in particular, any garment which is highly fitted or exposes flesh is instantly targeted by Petridis. On the one hand it’s easy to see why leggings or cowl necks might be difficult to pull off and might seem potentially silly in menswear. But the subtext to these critiques, it strikes me, is that while the expression of sexuality and of the physicality of the body in women’s fashion is proper and authentic, in men’s attire it is inappropriate.
For me, fashion, as well as having the potential for formal and aesthetic innovation, is about constructing identities and communicating ideas about oneself. While the narrow and proscribed nature of menswear may appear to be relatively minor issue in the wider battle for gender equality, it is indicative of the way in which men’s gender continues to be policed. In this way, the suppression of authentic, self-expressive modes of male dress is symptomatic of attempts to maintain and enforce a limited, conformist and increasingly irrelevant model of masculinity.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/apr/04/alexis-petridis-fashion
Monday, 16 March 2009
Teaching Fashion
As you may know I have recently started teaching on an Access to Art and Design HE course. What's so exciting and ineresting about teaching is the way that it encourages you to consider your subject from an objective standpoint; it isn't until you have to explain some of the skills of a designer, that you are forced to develop a "formalised" understanding of what they are. For example, many of the conventions of fashion drawing exist for quite understandable reasons, to quote some material that I prepared for the class...
Fashion designers often adopt a stylised, “graphic” approach to drawing using clean lines, and tracing figures from previous drawings. This is because designers need to be able to record and work through their ideas efficiently and to communicate these ideas clearly. It is important to understand that fashion drawings needn’t be illusionistic, academic drawings, but they do need to explain the detail and construction of garments, show an understanding of the human figure and evoke the mood of the collection being designed.
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