Before I jump into this rant of a post I just wanted to thank everyone that came out to my show last week and supported me. It means the world to me to know that I have such amazing people behind me and the night was a great success because of it.
"Fashion is one of the purest, most honest forms of art. It’s an art you do -consciously or unconsciously- every day. Every single day."
I recently read this quote from The Dilly Chic after she had read my post on how Fashion is Art and it struck me very deeply. With the influx of technology and Ron Howard claiming everyone can be an artist and instagram giving everyone the ability to become a photo journalist of their own lives, it has made the art of being an artist a very questionable one. After reading this quote and in the course of working on my thesis work I find myself strongly agree with it.
As I am constantly faced with the statement from my art faculty of why should they care about the way that I dress myself I have found myself at a loss. Why should they care? I mean I clearly care, I have spent my whole life caring and caring about people who care, but why should other people care and how can I explain it to them? This statement is it. You should care because, well, we all do it. We all have to get dressed whether we care to or not and it matters. It says something and it is something that I am surprised has not been brought up in the fine art world sooner. Yes, there is a multi-billion dollar industry that cares about it but why has it ostracized itself from the fine art world?
When you go to any fine art school in the world you will most likely find a fashion or fiber art based department within it. So why is it that the fashion interest students have removed themselves from the fine art community almost completely? 1) It is unbelievably difficult to sell a dress in a gallery. 2) Fashion, or to be more specific personal style is not considered a "fine art". I have spent months making comparison lists of what the differences and similarities are between fashion and art and as I make them I find myself discovering an overwhelming grouping of similarities more so than differences.
With that in mind I revert back to my original quote of inspiration: "Fashion is one of the purest, most honest forms of art. It’s an art you do -consciously or unconsciously- every day." Shouldn't the way we dress ourselves be something to take observation to? Something to study and try to figure out what it means about ourselves, about what we are or aren't trying to express to the world about ourselves? The issue that lies at hand is that everyone has to dress themselves but not everyone cares or thinks about it, they just "do it". But they don't just "do it". They had to go to the stores and buy those clothes, choose to pick them out in the morning, put them on their backs and walk out the door and that matters. It tells us as the viewer so much more about them than they may even know they are saying. That is not to say that we are all shallow, materialistic beings, but that we live in a society where we have such a large variety of clothing to choose from and don't need large amounts of money to get it. As a result we can be much more expressive about ourselves through our clothing choices.
We are all partaking in art every single day of our lives. Whether your a fashion maniac like me or your just someone that needs something to put on so people won't judge you for walking outside naked; you are making a statement about yourself to the whole world and that's kind of amazing. That we have that sort of power in our day to day life without saying a single word. We can express so many things about ourselves from where we've been or where we want to go, what we're interested in, the people that have influenced us, the types of things that we aspire to, or how we are feeling without even opening our mouths; how can that not be an art?
All of the photos featured here are from the course of several months through the eyes of my webcam and are not something I set up for this post specifically. With that said I highly recommend you read Carol Edgarian's article for W Magazine on The Origins of Personal Style. Everyone that is interested in fashion (assuming that you are if your reading this blog) and even those that aren't, what is your opinion of fashion as an art, or is it a lack thereof?
