CONSTELLATION: Session 7: Harajuku Street Style
Posted: March 7, 2014 Filed under: Constellation | Tags: bricolage, changing meanings, Fashion, groom, harajuku, harajuku girl, hebdige, polhemus, post modern theory, resignification of objects, street style, style, style in quotation marks, subcultural theory, subculture, Subcultures, supermarket of style Leave a commentIn this session, we summarised Groom’s (2009) perspective on Harajuku street style.
What are the style statements/influences and how can this be termed post modern style?
The style is self constructed, hyper-real, post modern, eccentric. excessive and exaggerated. The is a “superficiality of posed identity” within Harajuku style. They are not being themselves and are deliberately making it obvious that Harajuku is a role that they are performing. There is no sense of a “real me” an image of the people who wear this street style is projected as they want to be seen, for this to be true, they must be aware of the rules of posing. There is nothing natural about this street style, and fakery is a massive part of Harajuku. The image is adopted “through quotation marks”, just like words are borrowed when they are in quotation marks, so are the parts of this style, this is known as Bricolage, (Hebdige) bringing lots of different objects together and giving them new meanings. They know the original function of the items and change the meaning of them for example – using western childrens toys as fashion items. The style is highly exaggerated and is almost like fancy dress, something you put on and take off. There is no “ideological commitment” in Harajuku, it’s a style, not a message. You don’t buy this look on the highstreet, you make it yourself, “DIY Practice” and are not influenced by whats in fashion at the time. Harajuku is marked by Fusions and Fluidity. It is a fushion of then and now and a fusion of the east and the west. It fits in with Post modern theory as there is a blurring of subcultures and a “supermarket of style” (polhemus). They have taken many different parts from varied places and thrown them all together to make a style. The key to post modern style is that its been deliberately selected and put together.
What is suggested about social and cultural contexts regarding this subculture?
The Birmingham school says that subcultures arise out of a wider condition such as race or gender. Hebdige says that is where the statement lies and forms a reaction against something. Social and cultural contexts are really important, our societies affect the way we think. Groom suggests that formalities exist within japanese culture and the youth have to conform to these formalities when they are in the house by taking their shoes off etc. but when they are not they adopt Harajuku to rebel against these formalities and it is only enacted on the streets or in public spaces. According to Groom, Harajuku is a reaction against the rigid formalities of being at home. However, the youth still live at home so that they have a disposable income to afford fashions and music etc. You still have all the benefits of being young and Harajuku is all about keeping the Childhood alive. The street is a need for escape to get away from parents.
We then went on to analyse to images of Harajuku style in preparation to analyse our own imagery and formulate a case study.
We found characteristics within the image, thought about possible meanings and applied subcultural theory. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to locate the same images that were analysed to I have included similar to show the vast range of style that comes under Harajuku.
Image 1
Pink – Girly, Gender coded. Pastel Pink associated with young girls. Western connotations in this style.
Ribbons in hair, Knee High socks with Lace trim – femininity, western school uniform, girly, childish.
Fabric Polka dot skirt – Minnie mouse connotations
Cheap mass-produced plastic jewellery – excessive, objects that relate to being a little girl – cute rabbit hairslides. Bricolage is occurring here, some of the rules of little girlishness have been selected but elements have been added that do not belong to the style and the meanings have been changed. The hair slides are in the front of the hair whereas their original function is to hold the hair back, changed. The hair slides are excessive and there is a knowingness of this exaggeration which fits in with post modern theory. Grooms theory of “style in quotation marks” comes in here with parts of a certain style being borrowed and paired with new style connotations. Hair – Pink is little girl, but dyed hair is not little girl. This has come from a punk sensibility, there is a fusion of things that don’t belong – Groom, bricolage is again clear. The harajuku in the image given to us was also wearing converse trainers not cute shoes, which again takes away the little girl authenticity. A leopard print back pack was on her back, leopard print is associated with adults and a sexual print. Prostitutes wore it in the 30s and 40s. There is post modern theory evident, a definite “resignification of objects” and a “supermarket of style” (Polhemus).
Image 2
The second image we analysed was a harajuku girl who had adopted much more of a punk sensibility and less little girlyness and so creating another signature look. There are different styles within Harajuku, it is far more diverse than the punks or the mods or the teds, its more post modern.
Ripped clothing, safety pins – not holding things together, meanings being changed, more retro and evidence of a British punk sensibility.
Brothel Creepers – teds used to wear them. In the 80s the punks and the teds combined together to form psychobillies, there is a psychobillie sensibility here, a “supermarket of style” (polhemus). She is not trying to look like a 1970s punk, she has adopted certain elements from the look. Within the Birmingham School, Hebdige claimed that subculture was rebellion – “resistance through ritual”. Groom says that there is possibly a resistance to rebelling against the formality of japanese Culture and may be why a punk sensibility is adopted by Harajuku.
I had never really looked at the Harajuku street style before this lecture and found it incredibly interesting and quite chaotic as a subculture, I found that there are no strict rules as to what you wear or how you act and it is visually very interesting. I was drawn to the idea that Harajuku girls are hiding the real them and performing and it is definitely apparent, as it is in many subcultures that this style is an escapism, from Japans formalities, but it is like a fancy dress, just for the streets and public spaces and not to be worn at home.
CONSTELLATION: PUNK STYLE: Re-signification of Objects and Dress: Session 5 Cath Davies
Posted: February 20, 2014 Filed under: Constellation | Tags: 1970s, 1970s punk, against society, anti-establishment, antiestablishment, Art, Art and Design, bondage, breaking the riles of society, bricolage, cat woman, coloured hair, Constellation, cut up aesthetic, dadaism, Dick Hebdige, fanzine, Fashion, god save the queen, homology, masculine, meanings, mohican, nonconformist, politics, punk, punk culture, punk style, punks, pvc, rebel, rebellious, resignification of objects, ripped clothing, safety pin, semeotic guerilla warfare, sex pistols, sex pistols groupie, shock factor, sniffing glue, spikey hair, street style, style statements, subcultural style, subculture, swastika, threat, threatening make up Leave a commentRECAP: Subculture is based around material artifacts, values and territorial spaces and is defined by the active organisation of objects that they employ. Subcultures inflect “given” meanings by combining things borrowed from different contexts and giving them a different code. Subcultures Intensify, exaggerate or isolate through the modification of objects. New meanings are achieved by the re-signification of objects. Subcultures combine forms according to a “secret language or code, to which only members of the group possess the key.
“Punk”
Dick Hebdige was the first person to write about Punk, and the first person that thought punk was worthy of being analysed as a subculture. He refers to three main subcultural theories within his work – Subcultural Bricoleur or Bricolage, Semiotic Guerilla Warfare and Style as Homology.
Below I have outlined my understanding of these theories:
Subcultural Bricoleur: Refers to Subcultures like the punks, gathering objects, signs and artefacts and combining them to generate new meanings out of them, different from their existing ones. It considers how subcultures use objects to respond to their environment and explain how they see the world. Bricolage is all about the visual, the aesthetics and all the items that styles incorporate to portray a message.
Semiotic Guerilla Warfare: Refers to the use of offensive language and poor attitude being displayed by punk culture which portrayed their rebellion against society. Offensive T-shirts that the punks wore were known as Guerilla outfits. The punks were waging a war on society and breaking societies rules. They adopted anti-establishment values via objects, music, style etc.
Style as Homology: Whereas Bricolage is about the visual within subculture, Homology refers to the values that go with the subculture, for example the anti-establishment punk statement that is being made through appearance and acts. A subculture looks like chaos, but in fact there’s entire structures and specific rules to follow if you want to be part of that culture.
Characteristics of Punk Style:
Ripped Clothes were not accepted in society. The punks either left their t shirts ripped or put zips in the rips. This is changing the meaning of an object to create a new meaning, zips are used to hold to bits of material together but this is not their function here. This also refers to the safety pins that the punks adored themselves with, their original function is also to hold material together but they used them in their cheeks and lips as a piece of jewellery, therefore creating another new meaning. The punks understood the accepted rules of society and because of this knowledge could rebel against them. Piercings are acceptable today because of punk.
On the subject of jewellery, the punks also wore lavatory chains, razor blades, television components, tampons and clothes pegs as necklaces or earrings etc. The punks wanted to shock society so they wore anything that was not accepted as jewellery. Shock is socially constructed. The breaking of societies rules is shocking and this is exactly what the punks did. Society changes over time and whats considered shocking changes with it.
Cheap, trashy fabrics made up the punk look. They purposefully chose fabrics that were not considered classy like PVC. They took bondage wear out of its original context and wore it on the streets. This was considered socially unacceptable. It had a shock factor and was seen to be threatening because of the fact that they were associated with underground society. They took anything “seedy” and wore it out in the mainstream.
Brightly coloured Dyed hair signified punk style. Hair dyes original function was to change the colour of your hair but so that it still looked natural or to cover up grey hairs. Hair dye is accepted in society if it looks as natural as possible. The punks are rebelling against societies rules again here because bright green or red or pink is never going to look natural. Punk was meant to look constructed. They deliberately advertised themselves as fake because societies beauty treatments are pushed as being natural. It is the same when considering make up – in society girls wear make up, so the male punks wore it too, make up is supposed to look natural and more beautiful, so the punks over did it, broke rules and wore make up to make them look unattractive and threatening. Part of Re-signification of Objects and Dress is to exaggerate.
The punks deliberately wrecked school uniform. School uniform suggests conformity so the punks slashed and put graffiti on it. The punks were very Nialistic and trashed everything Britain stood for. They claimed the symbol of the swastika and changed its meaning because of its shock factor. It was particularly shocking to the people of society who had lived through the war.
Music played a major part in punk subculture. Bands such as the sex pistols appealed to the punks. The music was angry and suggested that there was no future and no place for young people in society. At gigs, bands would spit on the audience and the audience would spit back. The lyrics of the music favoured by punks was deliberately shocking and antagonistic.
Above, is an image of cat woman, a groupie of the Sex Pistols. Her punk look is characterised by lots of eyeliner, masculine hair, black nails and nontraditional jewellery. The shaven short hair is making a statement here. In society it is known that hair should make women more desirable. The punks didn’t conform to this and it was threatening to society that women were doing more masculine things.
Punks invented the Mohican hair style. In fights, the punk would use the large, hard points in their hair to harm the other and hair literally became a weapon.
Homology implies the set of rules and shared values that go with subculture. For example, you couldn’t have been a punk and voted for Margaret Thatcher. A punks sensibility would be that you don’t vote for a political party but you go to vote and trash the voting paper to make a statement- anti-politics. It is implied, that subculture always has an anti establishment attitude, but we can challenge this. Today, items can be isolated from their meanings, for example, you could have a mohican and a safety pin through your nose and still vote for David Cameron. Punk is now merely a style. This poses the question: Can things now just be a style with no meaning? You are not making a statement about punk values when you go to a fancy dress party dressed like a punk, you are merely wearing a style.
Subcultural meanings do not just have to relate to clothes, hair and make-up…
Above is an image of the album cover of “God save the Queen” by the Sex Pistols, designed by Jamie Reed. The song “God save the Queen” was banned in the 1970s and no radio was allowed to play it. It was not allowed to be advertised as number one and has a strong punk sensibility.
The Flag within the image stands for establishment and Britishness and Patriotism. Jamie Reed has used an official photo of the queen within this cover, he hasn’t drawn here as he wanted her to be instantly recognisable to all. Both the queen and the flag are linked in this image. She is the figure head of Britain and both imagery stands for establishment. The punk meaning comes into this image through what Jamie Reed has done to existing imagery. Dadaism was a huge influence on punk style. Dadaism mastered the art of collage and showed how new meanings could be generated from combining and altering existing imagery. The Punks adopted this “cut-up technique”.
There are meanings within the image due to where the words are placed. The eyes and mouth of the queen have been ripped off. Ripped is a key motif in punk and here a damaged face implies violence and threat. This illustrates the semiotic violence towards everything the queen stands for by the punks. The punks are making a statement here saying that they are not patriotic and trash the establishment. The typography within the image displays a ransom note look and therefore implies a crime. A crime is being committed against the queen. This is strongly linked to Dadaism where things look deliberately put together but were not originally. Everything about the punks cup up aesthetic looks amateur. This is clearly visible in a page from the punk fanzine, “Sniffin Glue” below.
The cover of this sex pistols album fits in with Bricolage because traditional symbols of Britain have been taken and changed to have a new meaning. The punks changed these patriotic images to be rebellious and to shock society. It also demonstrated semiotic guerilla warfare because it is the epitome of an anti-establishment statement and they are waging a war against typical Britain. Homology is highly apparent, as within this image there is a Re-signification of Objects portraying the values of the subculture.
In his text, Hebdige makes the point that “the cycle leading from opposition to diffusion, from resistance to incorporation encloses each successive subculture”. He means that eventually, anything alternative becomes mainstream over time. Subcultures are only shocking at a particular time.
In conclusion, Punk as a subculture was incredibly shocking in the 70s and broke all the rules of society. They went against conforming to anything accepted into society and were all about being anti-establishment. Punk style demonstrates all three of Hebdiges subcultural theories and includes examples of bricolage, semiotic guerilla warfare and homology.
CONSTELLATION: Case Study: The Zoot Suit, The Teds: Cath Davies: Session 3
Posted: February 15, 2014 Filed under: Constellation | Tags: 1950s, 1980s, Art, behaviour, Black Power, class, Constellation, cultural biography, culture, dress, Edwardian, fabric, Fashion, fighting the rules of society, hip hop, identity, old time fashion, psychobillies, Race, Racial tension, Rebellion, street style, style, subcultural, subculture, symbolic marking, Teddy Boys, The Teds, upper class, working class, Zoot Suit, zoot suits Leave a commentTHE ZOOT SUIT
The Zoot Suit was a cultural statement. Its characteristics included baggy trousers with tight ankles, shoulder pads which over emphasised the physique, a wide-brimmed hat and they were usually brightly coloured. The suits were very over proportioned and exaggerated. There was an excessive use of fabric accompanied with Dutch type shoes and conked hair straightened into a point. The straightening of the hair was considered no difference to whitening your skin. It portrayed the idea of claiming a common white person suit and changing it for the Black man.
The Zoot Suit protested against racial tension, it broke rules. Particular the rule of Blacks not being as valued as the whites in 1940s wartime. The use of excessive fabric in a time of war-time rationing was a statement being made in itself. The Blacks wearing the Zoot suit were basically putting two fingers up to the governments rules. The Zoot Suit was highly related to the breaking of rules and became associated with criminal activity and therefore creating a sense of panic and anxiety about people’s looks to do with hip hop culture. A few years ago, the wearing of the Hoodie had a criminal meaning, it was no different to the wearing of the Zoot suit. The way the wearers of the suit walked and presented themselves enhanced the meanings behind the suit. This is showing us that style is not just about clothing, it is about mannerisms, us and them. The way people speak can sometimes come into subculture – not knowing the language or slang of a subculture could make you not part of it.
Everything the Zoot Suits stood for was then revisited in the Hip Hop movement in the 1980s. There were many statements and meanings relating to racial identity hidden within the wearing of the Zoot Suit.
The Mens Fashion Reader – THE TEDS
The Subculture “The Teds” was characterised by reinvention of the suit. They took an Edwardian look of the past and replicated it. Characteristics of this street style included expensive waistcoats and Edwardian style suits a dress that would have been worn by the Edwardian upper class gentleman in its originally incarnation. Expensive fabrics in the Edwardian times spoke of your wealth, power and class. The Teds wore these Edwardian suits as best as they could get them, it wasn’t the fashion of the day and the suit was not offered in shops. It was a street style marked by a style from the past, a very vintage look. In terms of difference, they wanted to disassociate themselves from what people were wearing from the high street. It is interesting to think that an old-time fashion was resurrected in the 1950s within a subculture.
Teds is a slang name for Edwardian. The Teds were the wrong class wearing the wrong suit in the wrong period. It was a working class sub-culture wearing suits that once belonged to the upper classes. The Teds were making a statement saying they could claim the objects that the upper class thought were theirs. The wearing of this suit was a statement purely about class. They modified the suit, new meanings emerged in the Edwardian suit because of change, it was modified and a new group of people wore it.
The “Teddy Boys”, “Teds” were revived in the earlier 1970s. In comparison, both the 50s and 70s Teds wore velvet waistcoats and ties but there were more modifications to the Edwardian ensemble in the 70s. The drainpipe trousers were thinner and the jackets became longer, the shoes were crepe soled and blue suede shoes came about by Rock and Roll. The 1950s Teds influenced the Psychobillies wearing of the creeper shoes. Here, a different meaning and usage has been created from one pair of shoes. This is an example of an item having a cultural biography.
WHAT HAS LINKED THE OLD SKOOL B-BOYS, THE TEDS AND THE ZOOT SUIT?
The answer is simply Rebellion. Fighting the power and Fighting the rules of society and Fighting it through Style. The Symbolic marking, in other words style, is the place that you can challenge how societies think you should dress and behave.
CONSTELLATION: Key Concepts: Sub-cultural Style: Cath Davies Session 2
Posted: February 15, 2014 Filed under: Constellation | Tags: 80s, adidas, analysis, Art, branding, brands, Constellation, Fashion, hip hop, identity, meanings within style, objects being claimed, old skool b boy, street style, style, stylisation, sub culture, subcultural, Subcultures, symbolic marking, us and them, Visual Arts, visual expression, volkswagen Leave a commentStyle is all about making a statement. Embedded within style is a knowledge of historical usage. As an art student, I have to have an understanding of the past to produce a meaning in the future. Its the same style, in order to revive or modify or create a new style, you have to gain a knowledge of previous looks.
Subcultures are crowds of people deliberately changing the meaning of objects. Subculture is simply an academic name for street style and explores how we can express ourselves through dress. Street style becomes a sub culture when you have a group of people doing the same together. For example, acting the same, dressing the same and listening to a particular genre of music. Subcultures are predominantly defined by look. A sub-culture having a name like goth or punk suggests many people with similar attributes, features and characteristics.
In this session, we discussed the fact that when analysing subcultures we are analysing the characteristics of a street style. It is not enough just to describe the look within a street style. We must analyse the meanings within the look. Why were the items worn? What were the statements being made?
KEY CONCEPT 1
We were given documentation to read and make notes on relating to sub culture and the analysis of street style. Below are the notes made on the subjects and key ideas within the text given to me.
Woodward suggests that all identity statements, who we are, are often expressed visually. She maintains Identity is marked by difference. By choosing a look, you’re saying you’re not like everyone else. This got me thinking about how differences are shown between people. Visually we are always enacting according to social systems. There are social rules we adopt. For example, There were men in the room in this session, but none of them were wearing dresses, we don’t even think about adopting these rules. We just follow the rules of being a man and being a woman. Look goes somewhat to distinguishing sex. The dress is stereo typically tied to being a woman and a suit and facial hair, a man. We don’t questions this, it’s just adopted. We talked about noticing the fact that when someone breaks that rule, it becomes a cause for concern. Most of art and design is about questioning and exposing rules. Exposing the things that we just take for granted. What is considered normal and what happens if you challenge the norm, is something art and design practitioners question all the time. Rules are given to us, we either fit them or we don’t.
Symbolic Marking (woodward 2002) marks difference through visual language. Its a visual language ans set of meanings that differentiate or suggest difference, Who is included and who is excluded. You get a sense of us and them from symbolic marking. It is at the heart of racism, sexism, homophobia etc. If you are judging someone, you are making a statement that says you are not like me. It is also to do with lifestyle, music etc. Not only visual. There are examples of where bands for example have contributed to street style.
We talked about how this related to analysing street style. We will consider how difference is manifested visually. We will look at how identities are constructed. Identities are made, not natural. We will look at identities in relation to what they are not. Everyone makes decisions on their look, like how to wear your hair and dress. As an art and design student, we always expose construction, how was it made, how was it put together? why? Construction occurs in Binary Opposition – you make a decision and you discard another. I am going to dress like a punk not a mod.
The Old Skool B-Boy is a hip hop look characterised by a music genre and lifestyle. Considering the notion that if you went out dressed as an old skool B-Boy in 1985 you are saying that you’re into hip hop.
The Characteristics of the look include a Run DMC t-shirt, adidas trainers with the laces taken out and a Goose down jacket. A visual statement is being made and therefore there is evidence of symbolic marking. There are rules embedded in the street style Old skool B-Boy and every style. If you weren’t part of this Hip Hop look then you wouldn’t know the rules.
Sports wear – Particular Brand – ADIDAS. Subculture is all about “cool” what’s in and what isn’t in. Here, you have to wear adidas to be part of the hip hop crew. Old Skool B-Boys claimed this brand. Meanings are inherent in Branding. Brands have trends according to age groups and are often influenced by celebrity style and fashion.
Gold Jewellery – Thick chains and Bling. Hip Hop artists coined the name Bling. Detail is highly important in sub cultural style, how you do up laces is making a statement for example. Hip Hop old Skool B-Boys wore no laces in their adidas trainers. Here there is a conversation going on within the style. They have taken sportswear out of its sporting context. This is a huge statement, they are wearing the trainers to look cool. “i’m not going running in these trainers like everyone else” – marking difference. The laces are taken out because they are not being used for their original function.
Another thing Old Skool B-Boys did in 1985 was wear Volkswagen logos around their neck as necklaces. These would have been stolen off of cars. Again, a statement, the badge shows the brand of the car, wearing this brand as a necklace changes the function of it. Stealing the badges was a statement about what they couldn’t afford. Listing characteristics, looking at original meanings and variations of this style would help me analyse it. I would need more than one image to prove this look if I was writing a case study on it.
This encouraged me to think about how the function of items changes and how influences from old looks return. The Mid 80s Hip Hop look is coming back now, we are in an 80s rebirth currently and there are many examples of this. There is an idea of then and now in terms of sub cultures. Looks that started on the street end up on the high street.
KEY CONCEPT 2
Sub cultures must exhibit a distinctive enough shape and structure to make them distinctive enough. They must be different from the parent culture, different from mainstream fashion. My work at the end of these sessions should prove there are different values and uses of material artifacts within looks. Where the sub culture hang out and where the subculture was born is all valuable to analysis. The hip hop subculture is inherently Black and grew up in the black communities of New York. Songs are about urban deprivation and race themes emerge within this genre. Disadvantaged black youth in an America that favours white people. You cannot analyse Hip Hop without analysing race. An example of this is the fact that Grunge is inherently white as a sub culture. When looking at sub culture, we are looking at what statements are being made about the people. The Hip Hop B-Boys wanted to make a statement about the fact that they shouldn’t be singled out from the whites for being Black. Within this look, there are meanings relating to race and they consciously chose a brand (adidas) that was traditionally worn by white people.
KEY CONCEPT 3
Possession of Objects. What makes a style is the activity of stylisation and the active organisation of objects. (Hau Clance Jefferson 1975). The active organisation of objects is the notion of construction that I mentioned previously. Through this construction, new meanings emerge. Things are being brought together in new and distinctive ways and ensemble. Within style, people are changing the meanings of things.
In conclusion, the three key concepts that I will have to look at when analysing and producing my case study are: symbolic marking, the differences of a subculture from the mainstream and having a distinctive enough shape, and the stylisation within the street style and how they have actively organised objects within their look.
Smells like Teen Spirit – Cath Davies Session 1 “All the Young Dudes”
Posted: January 30, 2014 Filed under: Constellation | Tags: Art, cone bra, Constellation, corset, cultural biography, Fashion, femininity, feminism, gender, hidden meanings of objects, Jean paul Gautier, Madonna, masculinity, meanings, stereotype, subculture, suit Leave a commentIn this constellation session, We talked about the analysis of imagery and The importance of style conveying meaning. The meanings can change. In terms of sub culture and style, the connotations of an item of clothing can change in relation to what it is worn with. All objects have a cultural biography.
We looked at an image of Jean Paul Gautier’s Cone corset Garment he produced for Madonna’s Blonde Ambition tour and analysed it in terms of meanings, what could be trying to be conveyed and possible connotations.
We started by looking at the image and analysing the meaning of things within it:
Suit: Masculine, professional, formal, colour, black shows the formality, would be completely different if it was pink etc. Corset: Lingerie, underwear, Typically worn under clothes, feminine, modifies the body and emphasises the waist. Bra: Doesn’t look like traditional Bra/corset, looks like weaponry, breasts being shown as weapons, armour. Silver: makes the corset look like armour, sense of masculinity, shows strength, sense of battle, cold, protection, Spikes and a material that makes men not want to touch.
Gautier is trying to present a very different image of the corset, from a seductive item into an aggressive one. He is playing with gender expectations. Madonna adopts masculine qualities and feminine ones here, however the typical feminine stereotype is changed.
In terms of researching this image, I would look at Gender, there is a clear gender statement here and stereotypical items of men and women are included within it. I would look at female oppression and definitely research Jean Paul Gautier. Post feminism must be considered, women taking responsibility, showing they are not just objects. In relation to Madonna, she is highly post feminist and uses her sexuality to show this. Researching Madonna would be a valuable use of my time to find out about strength and power in women. It may be interesting to look at Gautier’s opinions and meanings of his own work.
In this session, we then considered how we could build an argument if we decided to write an essay or compose a case study to do with this image. The route to go down could be something to do with the suit, different connotations of the suit, how designers modify the image of the suit. Punks reworked suits, maybe many different types of suits could be compared. Same with the corset, we could look at how different designers have used the corset and maybe contrast that with how Madonna wears them. The importance of cultural biography within contemporary within contemporary design, Gautier broke rules, had to know about the traditional corset first before embarking on producing his own. Gender and stereotyping is a possibility, femininity in relation to masculinity.
This was a highly interesting lecture, and got me thinking about the hidden meanings behind imagery and how interesting deciphering those meanings is. I’m not sure what I am going to research but analysing imagery and feeding ideas from researching connotations within that is a great way to start.
Constellation Lecture: Cultural Approaches to the Dr. Marten Boot – Cath Davies
Posted: November 9, 2013 Filed under: Constellation | Tags: Art, Boot, Britpop, cultural biography, culture, customising, Design, Doc Marten, docs, Dr Martens, Fashion, Goth, Marten, Skinhead Leave a commentThe “meaning of an object refers to investigating the artifact in relation to culture, looking at it from a cultural aspect. This lecture was focussed on the cultural meaning of the Dr.Marten Boot.
Every object has cultural markers, the objects status within different periods of time and it is interesting to consider how objects relate to identity statements. Kopytoff’s concept of this is that “there is a cultural biography of things – the objects have culturally specific meanings and therefore an identity”.
The meaning of the Dr. Marten Boot has changed greatly over time. Dr. Marten boots are now very fashionable and fit in with current trends and styles. If we retrace trends we can find out the development of the item. Dr. Martens were initially designed as work wear for postal workers and police officers. When they first came out elderly women were wearing them for comfort. It is interesting that Docs were originally made for workers but are now a fashion item. So how did the boots come to be fashionable?
Unintentionally to Doc Marten, subcultures adopted and reclaimed the boots. The reclaiming of the boots meant new connotations were ready to be made. How people wear the Dr.marten boots changes their meaning. Also, the boots in relation to what else the person is wearing can change their meaning. Youth street style from the 1960s until how have adopted the boot. In the 60s, the Skinheads and Mods claimed Docs because they were not mainstream fashion. In the 70s it was the punk revival that claimed the boots. In the 80s the Goths and Psychobillies and in the 90s it was Grunge and Britpop wearing Docs. The Dr. martens did not change at all, but how they were worn did!
There are many examples of the refashioning and remodelling of Docs and many instants where docs were being used as a symbol of masculinity. The punks refashioning Docs happened beyond the company. Dr. Martens were being associated with looks and images that the company never intended. The Skinheads wore the brown leather or ox blood boots and antiqued them with black polish. They were always over sized and the laces were passed through the heel tog and tied around the leg. Docs were aggressive and connoted weaponry when worn by the skins.
Youth tribes have traditionally mutated and customised the eight eye boot to paint their own personality. The boot then claimed a personality itself. We interact with material objects to create meaning and the way people modified their docs was telling us how that person wanted to be seen, Identity is malleable. We can construct our own identity through the customisation of objects such as Docs.
I contrast to the company’s feeling in the 60s, Dr Martens now want people to know that the docs are a blank canvas and use this factor as a selling point. People are now visiting styles from the past. Borrowing parts of the old styles to create new ones. They go through a selection process to create a fusion of the past. People have customised Dr.Marthens of their own accord in the past but now the company promotes customizing your product. We are making the product, refashioning it, which gives us a sense of authenticity and originality.
In the 70s, headmasters of schools thought that if you wore Dr.Martens to school, you were going to cause trouble. They were in fact banned in many schools and considered a rebellious anti-fashion statement. People used to feel safe wearing Docs, they were also used as weaponry and referred to as “a boxing glove for the foot”.
Today, Docs are becoming more feminine, they are seen with ribbons instead of laces. “Meaning” can be carried by advertising as well as the Design Process. absorbing the Ideas and values associated with the design in the culturally constituted world. Art history is always important when creating something new. For people to find new ways of customizing Docs, they would have to look to the past. Doc Martens still stand for alternative, individuality and originality. The company is continually channeling the past of the Docs and have seized the idea of street cultures from the past. We are now sold the idea of personalizing the boots. We are also sold the idea that you buy a bit of the story of them when you buy a pair. Stories and objects have a relationship and visual culture is the place for that relationship.
What do objects say to us? Do objects now have social lives? How do objects speak about gender, race, class,sexual identity, and social and historical context?
Cultural contexts generate meanings.
GemmaSchiebeFineArt 
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