The Before

Love it or hate it, fashion shapes our day to day lives in more ways than you can imagine. My practicum project is intended to investigate fashion as an art form. I am particularly interested in the design process and how it inadvertently reflects what we value.

Research is the best place to start with any investigation, so here’s a little of mine:

Fashionopolis

I actually picked up this book for fun over the summer, back when my practicum idea was still in the early stages. This book discusses how the fashion industry has changed over time and what the effects of fast fashion have on both the fashion industry and the world around us. Fast fashion is not the focus of my project, but I do believe it is worth discussing, especially since I think fast fashion is almost the antithesis of value based fashion and fashion as an art form.

The clothing industry has changed dramatically in many ways since the industrial revolution, increasing exponentially in both design, function, and output. While many of these changes appear beneficial from a consumer or financial perspective, the reality is that the way clothing production has developed is detrimental to the environment.

This book isn’t all doom and gloom though, Fashionopolis also discusses changes the fashion industry is currently working through to try and produce clothing locally and sustainably. Again, the important takeaway here is that as what people want changes, the fashion industry becomes willing to adapt.

While it isn’t immediately clear how this book applies to my project, it does indirectly explain how changes in what people value are reflected in the fashion industry. Fast fashion is a relatively recent concept (it’s only existed within the past few decades or so) and only came about due to a change in what people wanted fashion to be. Trends like this exist all over fashion history (think about the want for shorter skirts as women entered the workforce or the invention of jeans in the 1870s). In short, the fashion industry is pretty much always going to adapt to reflect what people want.

Nevertheless, She Wore It

Up until very recently, I thought women’s fashion was more interesting than men’s simply because it has evolved more over the years (more on how I’ve learned a little more since then in a bit). I was delighted to discover that my local library had an e-book version of this book as it’s been on my to-read list for a while. Nevertheless, She Wore It discusses and illustrates, quite beautifully I might add, some of the most revolutionary moments in women’s fashion. Believe it or not, everything from capris pants to the bikini was once a bold fashion statement in the world of fashion and watching these clothing items transition from out of the ordinary to the norm is a fascinating story.

So, where’s the value in the fashion elements discussed here? Well, many of the clothing items discussed in this book are associated with a period of change in history, like the introduction of bloomers in the early 1850s or the flapper dress in the 1920s. As women’s place in society changed, so did what they were wearing. These fashions ultimately wound up reflecting new freedoms and new possibilities for the women that wore them. In this way, fashion can act as a time capsule or a mirror, preserving and reflecting the ideas that we hold most dear.

Mood Fabrics: Why Fashion is Important

When I’m not working my way through school or doing things other college students do, you can probably in front of my sewing machine making something. I mostly make clothes and garments, and am very good at identifying and locating fabrics for me to use. I’ve purchased from Mood Fabrics before (I got some lightweight black scuba for a Halloween costume a while back) and another thing I love about them is the plethora of free sewing patterns they have available on their website. As such, I was super curious to see what they had to say about fashion and the design process.

This article starts by describing what fashion is and how an individual uses it. In this author’s words, fashion is a series of trends that can be used for self-expression. I really appreciate that this article describes fashion as “semi-permanent art” in that it’s easy to participate in fashion and change fashion to fit your specific wants and needs. This is an idea that I think will be of great importance as I go to make my final deliverable.

One of the things I like best about fashion, and that this article agrees with, is that fashion has many definitions, none of them right or wrong, because it means different things to different people. At the end of the day it is still just another way to express yourself through art and I think encouraging more people to view fashion this way would foster a better appreciation of what goes into garment construction.

Fashion Reflects Social Changes

Have you ever looked at what someone was wearing and instantly drawn a conclusion about them? (It’s okay, we’re all guilty of it). This article discusses how some more recent social trends have become rooted in clothing trends that are visible today. I’ve seen some of these trends on and around campus, particularly the eco friendly and body positivity trends described. The trends described here are rooted deeply in social change, so they are on the more extreme side of design, but they provide an excellent way of illustrating how social ideas become embedded in the clothes we wear.

This article is excellent for the purposes of my project because I ultimately plan on incorporating values and ideas from the Mines campus into a piece of clothing of my design. My project hinges on the way ideas are reflected through thoughtful design and I can’t wait to try this out for myself.

Fashionably Great: The Value of Fashion as an Art Form

To top this little research investigation off, I found this article written by another college student for their university’s newspaper. As I am also a college newspaper writer, I was instantly intrigued by this article. This author talks about her own experience with fashion, how she sees fashion around her, and how she also believes that at the end of the day, fashion is just another way of expressing yourself. I also particularly appreciated the author incorporating her own experiences into this article, especially because I hope to do exactly the same!

This article may feel a little out of place in my preliminary research, but I think it might be the most valuable of all because it nicely ties together some of my own ideas:

1. Fashion is an art form that can be used for self expression.

2. Fashion reflects both the physical and abstract world around us.

3. Fashion is supposed to mean different things to different people and how you use it truly is entirely up to you.

Alrighty, now it’s time for the exciting stuff…