Thursday 19 November 2015

Politics of Looking seminar with Gill


-   Cruise collection sits in between the couture collections
-   Couture collections run twice a year in February and September
-   You see something in the runway in February, but you can only buy it in September
-   6-12 weeks wait for ready-to-wear collections
-   Nowadays we have around 12 drops (addition to a collection) a year, instead of the original 2 (a/w and s/s)
-   September is the January of fashion
-   November is when the cruise collection hits
-   Inside Fashion “The cruise the limit”
-   Designing for cruise is just as important as haute couture, generally it is lighter weight
-   Gucci collection, new director Alexander Mikeal


-   Cognitive – looking is not just physical but cognitive
-   I see but I do not observe
-   What you see and what you can understand can give depth to a collection
-   Black trousers – you see a school child wearing them you would observe and recognise that it is uniform
-   Our eyes have not changed, but the culture has changed which makes us think and observe differently
-   Gaze – Lacan – pleasure, curiousity, envy, desire
-   Relationship between fashion and gaze – important for your essay
-   Male Gaze – Laura Mulvey – Narrative on visual pleasures (in cinema) She viewed the male gaze as something sexual. Make the woman subservient because that is what men do (sexism)
-   Self Identity – Subjectivity – vulnerable and can cause anxiety. Acknowledgment that this can happen
-   Alexander McQueen – his collections were all about his lack of confident and he put it onto others.
-   Aesthetics – seeing and knowing – visually pleasing and visually affective
-   Ambivalent
-   Looking with a different pair of eyes. Your culture, how you’ve been brought up can affect how you view things
-   Your philosophy evolves as..
-   “Panopticon” – Was a prison. The idea behind was so you can see all the sides, the prisoners know they’re being watching and was incentive to behave better
-   Self conscious and self awareness – About how other people make you feel. Good or bad by the response from peoples faces
-   1 camera for every 11 people
-   Think of fashion designers who use their collections as a voice

Voice of fashion/textiles
-   Rik Owens “backpackers” – environment, people as accessories
-   Alexander McQueen “highland rape” – political, heritage
-   Moschino – political comment about fashion industry
-   Vivienne Westwood – environmental and political
-   Alexander McQueen “spray paint dress” Fordism culture
-   Vivienne Westwood “punk” – rebellious
-   Sonia Delauney
-   Italy – Glamour, style, high quality, pope, catholic, gay, etc. Dolce and Gabanna take inspiration from the wealth and church
-   Viktor and Rolf “the Russian doll” Always do a collection on a concept “no” collection – saying no to the fashion industry
-   Who uses technology to have a voice in collections? Hussein Chalayan – conceptual

The fashion industry is around 60%-70% influenced by women
But mainly run by men.

20s era, flappers, rebellious and freedom, loose fitting dresses.
Hippies, peace love, freedom
Punks rebelled against the establishment and politics
Hip Hop
Mods and rockers:
Mods, Italian type style trousers, parkers -  Beatles
Rockers – leather, big greasey hair – Elvis, any rock and roll
Rastafarian – Jamaica, hence the colours.

Egalitarian – similar to equality but in a society where things are all equal – non specific.
Models and race – cultural differences between womens body types

Garments activated by voice – Ya..

Hussein Chalayan – dissolvable fashion

The Politics of Looking by Matt Bowman Notes


    - Philosophical matters need to be dealt with

-   - Immanuel Kant 1781 critique of pure reason

-   - Duck/rabbit picture – cant see at the same time, mentally switch

-   - Jasper Johns – white flag

-   - Cultural seeing

-   - James Turrell – Afrum I, looks like a cube but actually just       light.

-   - Illusions

-   - At 6 months old a child will recognise their mirrors reflection as themselves. The baby identifies with its reflection and will begin to develop its selfhood – self identity, what makes things you

-   - Capturing gazes

-   - Alfred Hitchcock’s poster for Rear Window – lady in the window, barely in the movie

-   - Psycho – The Bates. Peep hole. When she’s murdered – see her still open eye, we see the eye but the eye no longer sees.

-   - Sherman’s photographs are portraits of the self as it emerges in the field of the other - in types presented in the media as women. In her work we see that to express a self is largely to replicate a model – Hal foster the expressive fallacy.

-   - Photos taken as if someone is looking at her

-   - Your gaze hits the side of my face 1982

-   - Execution of Robert-Francois Damiens

-   - Panopticon prison – sense of being watch would change how we act fundamentally

-   - More than ever are we being watched – internet and cameras


-   - In 2015 there is 1 camera to every 11 people