Sometime's I find it depressingly difficult to have a serious conversation with someone about clothing or fashion without it revolving around superficiality. I understand that not everyone is into fashion to the extent that I may be, or better yet clothing, but it always surprises me when I approach people about the subject beyond the actual material used to make it and they seem shocked and confused. I guess what I'm really trying to say is that I feel like not enough people are embracing the art of dress because they don't think of it as an art but rather a way to stay "up to date" and nothing more. I try to use this space as a way to embrace the depth in fashion but sometimes I feel like I am constantly trying to break down this barrier where people can't see beyond the exterior. But I also get frustrated at people that look down on fashion movements because they only have their exterior and then stand up on their pedistool's and say that this is frivolous and there couldn't possibly be anything deeper going on when in fact the materialistic movement could be the subconscious act of making a statement, which I guess is what my shit is really all about, making a statement through clothing. The collage below was made in response to all of these thoughts and from my most recent approach to getting dressed.
The idea of Dada-ist's and fashion first popped in my mind a few weeks ago when I began to notice how the way that I was choosing clothing was similar to the way that I collage (which always brings me back to the Dada's). I would pick random pieces that at first glance wouldn't be put together and then I would try to create an elegant poem or aggressive fracturing with them depending on the day and mood. The moment that I started to approach layering clothes with collage-ing my interest peaked and since then my outfits are geared towards mixing patterns, clashing jewelry, strange shapes; an organized chaos one might say. I love the idea of mixing things that don't belong together and creating a new message with it. Like jogging suits and stilettos with excessive jewelry (think J-Lo early 2000). The clash can be exciting and strange and make you stop too think twice, something that I have personally always attributed to the Dada-ist's collage's. I take things from different era's, different cultures and pair them in ways that are used to express my interests and create my identity (i.e. the new message) but essentially they are all worn ironically because I come from neither the era nor the culture.
As I have laid claim many a times my outfits are my means of expression and thus my art so when it was brought up that my discussion of modern hipsters was being purely superficial I completely agree. It was purely superficial because 1) they have no doctrine or social platform that they stand on so there is no way to analyze them through that context and 2) if I am posting on here daily stating that the way that we dress may be superficial but has deeper meaning to it than isn't it my job to be trying to find the deeper meaning in these superficial groups? Can fashion be deep or is it really all just face value and vacant underneath? Since I am looking at this argument subjectively I'm going to have to say that there is more to it than face value. There is psychology, the expression of the subconscious, sociology, history, religion, socio-economics, racial divides, fetishism's, rebellion and the list only goes on. Sometimes I wonder though and when I have to argue my case and only have my own relationship and understanding of clothing to prove my point I am forced to dig deep and re-analyze the situation and damn, sometimes it's really hard to not be subjective.