Club to Catwalk Assignment Brief.

Club to Catwalk

The From Club to Catwalk exhibition features styles from the 80s as they originated in the fashionable clubs of the era, and as they were eventually used by fashion designers in their subsequent 80s collections.

Your task is twofold:

Firstly, you must select either one style or one garment featured in the Club section of the exhibition and write 500 words on it per pair (or 250 words if you are writing on your own). You must perform semiotic analysis on the style or garment, and explore the messages that it communicated on the club floor. In other words, what did it mean to wear this style or garment on a night out in a particular club scene? How did the style develop and how did that message evolve? What were the influences/elements of that style?

Secondly, you must write another 500 words (or 250 if you are writing alone) on how your selected style or garment was adopted by a fashion designer and adapted for the catwalk and according to the label’s or the designer’s personal style. How was the style or garment altered, if at all? How did its meaning change, if it did? Was it used in its original form, altered beyond recognition, mixed with other items or styles, or watered down to become popular with the masses? What do you think it meant to wear this style or garment now? The same as to wear the original from the club, or is it now a significantly different story? In this section, you can refer to one or more designers.

HOW THE INTERNET AFFECTS FASHION

Both the Internet and Fashion are dominating factors of our society. These two factors can stand by themselves but when fused together, expand each other. Because of the fusion we now have:

• Online e-ccomerce  
• Online browsing of stores and products
• Becoming a part of the brand, having connections through e-mail
• Online promotion
• Opportunity for businesses

Most high street brands have an e-commerce site that allows consumers to browse and purchase. Also because of the fusion you have brands like Asos that are just online companies and thrive off online selling. 

Also having access to companies like youtube allow fashion brands to promote their campaigns through videos or videos of their catwalks around the world. This really enables you to connect to a brand on a different level. This kind of promotion works really well for high end brands like Chanel and Burberry that sell a lifestyle not just clothes and accessories. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6BLE3yNlic  - Burberry campaign

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NAF1aszQrs  - Chanel Catwalk Show

Social networking sites like twitter and instagram and Facebook allow us to communicate anywhere, we can share links that tag brands that promotes both ourselves and them.  

This also connects us to celebrities that have a lot of power over influence in the fashion world. People like Rihanna and Beyonce promote brands through themselves. Once we see them wearing it on a social network site we buy into that lifestyle. 

These social network sites allow small fashion businesses to excel. Instagram specifically means that you normally tag the brands your wearing if its something that you want people to know; these tags then lead onto the brands page. Ive learnt about loads of new brands simply from clicking on a tag from a picture. 

It also allows brands to establish their personality, as every brand wants to be different, so their online stores need to all be different. The technology behind the internet allows these brands to experiment with every little aspect of their website; making it their own. It also enables you to install features that allow consumers to customise products to make them unique. Here are some I think are really popular and very well known from their website design. 

 You can change every part of the shoe to a colour or design of your choice. 

Same with the iconic Burberry trench coat that you can now personalise completely. 

http://uk.burberry.com/bespoke/create-trench-coat/#/?de=WW&le=101&st=WSH&co=CS41000&fa=CS&ce=DBLP&ov=MNK&ha=MSMK&be=BKDB&fo=S&fc=T&em=ASW

I also really enjoy some websites. They work if they make me want to look at it more than twice in a week, just so i can see whats changed. Brands like Stories (owed by H&M) have a great website that is very easy to navigate and fun to explore.

http://www.stories.com

I also really like Zara's website and they don't just show you the item of clothing but it from most angels so you really get to see it through movement. 

All one item shown at different angles. A clean cut website thats easy to navigate. 

Ebay is an amazing website that allows you to buy and sell products of your own. It works very well for fashion. Vintage clothing is thriving at the moment its a great way to sell things you don't want and make money.

Statistics oh how many people shop online. This refers to America only.

http://visual.ly/online-shopping-statistics

These diagrams shows UKs habits of buying online, but this is not just fashion; food, music and holidays.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9054400/Britons-are-biggest-online-shoppers-in-developed-world.html

To conclude the internet combined with any form of selling, most prominently fashion creates a whole new means of browsing, selling and most of all buying. 

FASHION ADVERTS

United Colours of Benetton 

The first image is merely just another to back up a campaign of a multiracial company, and are trying to  promote unity between cultures. 

These adverts stood out to me because there are giving of mixed emotions. They capture my attention as being racist (especially with the colours on the hearts), but then there trying to convey quite the opposite. When we showed this in class the first reaction was that the word "yellow" is inappropriately used for asian people. But they've used 'black' and 'white' to describe European and African people, so when thinking of a colour for Asians it would be yellow. So that message was on that stood out to us all. 

Dolce & Gabbana 

This brand always seem to create derogatory imagery. This image is both degrading toward women yet it can evoke the thought of power. It doesn't immediately look like she is the one in control but if you analyse the image she dominates the men towering over her. 

The same with this, I like this one because its all men and its promoting being gay and proud (which I believe in), but its a very sexual image that combines lust power and mystery. 

The process of elimination.

At the National Gallery we looked at all of the sections divided by time periods. Most of the paintings were very biblical and the gender depiction was obvious to me. It took us a while to find a painting that we both found interesting imagery wise and gender wise. We found Mr and Mrs edwin Edwards by Ignace-Henri-Théodore Fantin-Latour towards the end of the museum section 4. Once we read the description of the painting we new this was the one that we wanted to work on. The image itself is confusing as the female dominates the power in the picture. Also in the text it states that Mr Edwards left his career of legalities to become an artist by her demand. This immediately identified a story behind the couple that allows the gender roles to switch. 

http://mydailyartdisplay.wordpress.com/2012/03/21/mr-and-mrs-edwin-edwards-by-henri-fantin-latour/

This website gave me good information about the life of the couple in the painting. It enabled us to present more of a detailed analysis of the imagery and of the gender relations behind it. 

The painting we chose from The National Gallery. 

Mr and Mrs Edwin Edwards. 1875 by Ignace-Henri-Théodore Fantin-Latour. 

We referred to this website for the general information of the painting.

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/ignace-henri-theodore-fantin-latour-mr-and-mrs-edwin-edwards

This was a website that we extracted our information from about the gender ideologies in the 19th Century.

http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/g/gender-ideology-and-separate-spheres-19th-century/

This was another that we gathered information on about gender in the 19th century.

http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/i/gender-health-medicine-and-sexuality-in-victorian-england/

Assignment Brief

Gender representation in the arts 

Paintings of the male and female form are a feature of the permanent exhibition at the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. In this assignment, you are required to write a 1000 word essay per two students, working as a pair in collaboration, that explores representations of the male and female form in art.

You must examine the representation of the male and female sex and gender in a particular chronological era, compare and juxtapose them, and discuss the similarities and differences. How does the female ideal compare with the male? How have the ideals of femininity, fertility, and female sexuality compare to those of masculinity, virility, and male sexuality? Which elements of the female and male body are exaggerated and which are played down? What about the pose, the facial expression, the clothing (or lack thereof), the hair, make-up and accessories, the gaze, the scenery, and other symbolisms? What do they say about the person? What do they mean? What story do they tell?

Select one (or two) piece(s) of art featured in the exhibition that represent a female and a male form, either realistic or abstract, and of any age, and compare the two different representations. Use the two case studies to develop an argument on the similarities and differences between male and female representation in a specific era and possibly by the same or similar artists.