Playing Dress Up II : Fashion, Gender Play and the Politics of Embodiment | NYC Edition

Since 2012, the Graduate Student Initiative (GSI) of the Hemispheric Institute of Politics and Performance (Hemi) has joined together graduate students from throughout the Americas in a tri-lingual conference that explores areas of academia arguably excluded by dominant culture. That means, those areas of life that impact our social and political worlds which academic institutions, built on years of hegemonic structure, have neglected to take seriously- That's my interpretation of course. Read more here)

One of such subjects is the subject of fashion as it relates to politics and embodiment.

Thus in 2013, Drag King, drummer, adjunct faculty, and PhD candidate Kelly McKay and I joined together to create a space within the Hemispheric Institute's GSI to discuss fashion. For those of you who have been reading my blog, you are familiar with my stance on fashion being a vehicle for political discourse, awareness raising, and social change. For those who are new, I have since 2005 explored both the fashion collection and the fashion show as sites to galvanize attention around environmental and social issues in an imaginative way- ranging from creating a collection that embodies the perspective of animals affected by the 2010 Gulf Oil Spill to a collection inspired by an Anti-GMO artistic action that sought to intervene in GMO-crop distributor, Monsanto, partnering with the Mexican government in taking over organic corn. Peruse the site to get to know my work.

Our “Playing Dress Up” workshop returned for a second year to the Hemispheric Institute’s Graduate Student Initiative. This year, we had participants from the US, Colombia, Chile, and Mexico, who presented their work on various themes, from pandrogeny- or living beyond the binary confines of masculine-feminine, to kikis, camaraderie, and ways that fashion can create community for those alienated by dominant culture. 

This year, we had the honor of being joined by Elisa and Lily Mandelbaum, founders of style site and style-aficionado safe haven, StyleLikeU. 

 

StyleLikeU is a site that showcases people who know themselves- people with such a clarity of mind and spirit that it inspires you, as the viewer, to know yourself.

Many of their earlier videos showcased the closets of these self actualized individuals. but recently, they have launched a new project, “The What’s Underneath Project,” which showcases the unraveling of that person. And yet, through their undressing and revealing of painful parts of their past, the individual is shown all the more majestically.

In many ways the What’s Underneath Project showcases those who have reconciled their past and are able to stand boldly in their present, knowing themselves, knowing where they’ve come from and inspiring us to do the same.

Elisa and Lily joined our group of PhD students, fashion artists, musicians and scholars in doing a “What’s Underneath” workshop, but with a special twist for the GSI’s theme “Bodies in Transit.”

Instead of merely removing clothing as questions are being asks, the subject had the opportunity to take off, exchange garments, or remain sartorially the same.

Prior to this workshop, we had the opportunity to share with one another our “Fashion Manifestos.” a statement that would go on to describe how we would dress if our bodies were an active resistance against the oppressions we faced.

 

From that, working group participants either dressed accordingly, or brought an entire to change into. 

Many of the themes discussed included:

• Rape culture and rape / dressing to deter the objectifying male gaze / dressing in a way to surpass gendered boundaries;
• Dressing to appear “older”- when ageism makes those smaller than the body type of dominant culture belittled;
• Cultural appropriation vs. cultural appreciation;
• Dressing beyond gender normative confines;
• Dressing to highlight brownness and femmness.

The second day of our working group consisted of group presentations, where everyone presented current PhD theses, video projects, alter ego projects, and other interests.

(Photos by ReciclaGEM)

(Photo by Manu Mojito)

The third day entailed a closing discussion at Brooklyn based, hemispherically American, fair trade fashion boutique, Carolina K, where we all viewed the video of Melanie Gaydos, discussed beauty and discussed our own objectifying gaze that we may bestow upon ourselves and those we other.

In future blog entries, you shall hear about the fascinating work of our 10 work group participants, the evolution of the What’s Underneath Project, and further discussions on dressing in ways that challenge and engage notions of appropriation, dominant culture, gender binaries and normativities, ageism, and the many provocative themes that emerged from this conference.

Special thanks to Leticia, Kerry, Olga and the entire Hemi GSI team for organizing a space for us, for this, and for elevating discussions of embodiment. You have sparked some amazing collaborations that will continue to platform these questions and, we hope, inspire consciousness-expanding around fashion and positive social change.

Fashion, Gender Play, and Embodiment,
T*

Playing Dress-Up! Fashion, Gender Play, and the Politics of Embodiment: Workshop One

Bom Dia!

Last weekend, ReciclaGEM in partnership with the oh-so-fabulous, PhD candidate and gender play aficianado, Kelly McKay, facilitated our first fashion-think tank at UCLA. As part of the Hemispheric Institute's Graduate Student  Initiative's Convergence (GSI), we facilitated a set of digital and in-person dialogic spaces, where we engaged in discussion, academic presentations, dress-up, and conversation on the ways in which our garments facilitate political, social, and hegemonic spaces.


Lots of big fancy academic words, right?


Well, let me break it down this way.

We fly into the city of Los Angeles, California, USA, the home of Hollywood, the city of bright lights, big dreams, and gendered spaces. We, alongside hundreds of other PhD students, performance artists, professors, activists, and anti-imperialist visionaries from throughout the Americas, entered a series of audoritorum spaces where presenters discussed everything from Guahan's (Guam's) fight for sovreignty from the U.S. imperialism to artists serving as witnesses to the social climate of their times, and to ways that we can shake down the hegemonic walls of academia to create truly democratic, just, experimental spaces for thinking. Revisit some of these spaces here.

(Screenshot of panel "(T)racing the Archive" at USC. Full video here)

In between all of these panels, performances, and presentations, Kelly and I gathered a limited selection but nonetheless experimental set of highly gendered garments on a table with pieces of paper, and asked our brilliant four participants (who you shall here about in future posts very soon) and two wonderful faculty mentors to respond with their initial reactions.

Before participants were given any prior information on the garments, simply asked to respond viscerally, emotionally, intellectually, from the gut, these were some of the reactions.

Garment: Six 8,  iridescent sequined pants finished with elastic at waist and hem
Reaction: Looks like it belongs in a drag queen's wardrobe closet. The falling sequins and roughly sewn elastic are reminiscent of well-loved use.

Garment: Recycled button down shirt with train of ruffles
Reaction: "There were so many shades of white that I began to forget what 'white' looked like"

Garment: "Safe Darfur" Black and green message t-shirt
Reaction: Message t-shirts are offensive. The reportrayal of the women and children by the tree is a common trope of poverty porn. Message t-shirts only serve to brand the ideals of the person wearing.

The conversation, which traversed discussion on colorism, memory, and the classicism, among others, provided an effective icebreaker for participants to talk about their research. Without revealing too much of their evolving research, some of the topics, artists, and images discussed, shown and reacted to were the following:

(Zanele Muholi, "Miss Divine," 2007)

(Tommy Ton, Style.com"Street Style" Photographer, Spring 2014 Season)

(Chilean designer, Juana Diaz, Collection: Potencial Pandemia)

(1880 vs. 2012. How much has changed?)

*What are all of these images saying about gender, race, class, and the politics of embodiment?

 Feel free to comment below.*

Much of the discussion was open ended as an effort to following the guidelines of the conference's theme, "Experimental Collectivities."

The goal was not necessarily to assert a certain knowledge claim over fashion, gender play, and the politics of embodiment, but rather to introduce unseen or niche but highly provocative images, subjects, and garments to elicit the reactions that will create the connections of how garments work to create political, social and gendered spaces.

While our time in Los Angeles was brief, the conversation will continue in our ever-evolving digital workbook in preparation for the second workshop, set to take place October 2014 in New York City.

Join us in this experimental collectivity of bodies and minds invested in de-mechanizing the political, social, gendered, racial, classist, colorist nuances of our garments so that we can build new, balance, and just worlds.

Peace, love, and image activism,

T*

Rick Owens Spring 2014 RTW Presentation: A Few (re)Considerations

Boa noite my readers,

Let me preface this post by saying that I appreciate the incredible charm, poise and grace with which Rick Owens operates in his interviews, the gregariousness and kind-heartedness he seems to display in his interactions with people at his shows, and the openness with which he speaks about his career. He has a calm voice soothing to the ear. Great.

However, as Rick Owens said himself in a April 2013 interview with Sofia Tchkonia, "Criticism is valuable," so let's have a gentle critique of his almost universally praised Spring 2014 Paris Fashion Week presentation. We'll talk about the leather and the fur use in a different post.

As many of you may know, Rick Owens, a U.S. American designer now currently based in Paris, decided to present his collection on bodies that he has never used before. As avid fans of fashion, you may have reviewed his previous collections on Style.com and observed the majority of the bodies that Rick Owens uses for his fashion presentation. (The screen shots only included the first 8 models; however, feel free to click on the link to view the approximately 40 images per collection).

As this newly proclaimed leader and innovator of diversity, never before has Owens as a designer seemed to have taken an interest in having brown bodies or bodies that weren't model-thin, represent his clothes on the runway. Even in his interview with Sofia Tchkonia, he says, "I kind of resented fashion shows because I did not like the idea of fashion shows presenting something that they considered a fantasy. I didn't like that you saw stuff on the runway that wouldn't even be in the stores, that it was all there for the effect of impressing you. That irritated me so when I did shows, one of my promises was that I'm never gonna show anything that I'm not going to sell. As time has gone on, I feel that I have been able to create the mood that I want and maintain the integrity of presenting things that I fully intend people to wear."

Tell me how pieces that disintegrate on the runway are pieces that will attract buyers? Tell me how pieces that disintegrate on the runway are pieces that are meant to be worn? How is this further perpetuating the stereotypes embedded within the minds of casting directors and designers who avoid women who look like me and look like the women in this presentation when the clothes are literally destroyed by their interaction with them? (The puff ball skirt begins falling apart around 8:24)

Additionally, Style.com, the reference point for all the major collections, ALWAYS publishes the names of the models next to their images. Want to know the name of any one of the models from this show? On Style.com, you can't. Highly visualized, highly mediatized, unnamed bodies-I smell a double standard....

Lastly, even with the NY Times to Jezebel.com (Jezebel, honestly, I was shocked), unanimously praising this show as a beacon of diversity, what are mediatized images and captions like this, that nonetheless do not match the content of the article, doing to reinforce the subtle institutionalized racism that makes these women in Paris Fashion Week so "shocking" and avant-garde in the first place?

(Click on the article so you can read it. And then tell me what the title of this article and images are doing /not doing to reinforce the words. Come on, NY Times!)



The purpose of this post is not to attack Rick Owens or rain on the parades that these women who must have felt amazing having had the opportunity to perform their love and craft on the runway of Paris Fashion Week. The point rather is to ensure that the conversation of "diversity in fashion" doesn't become conflated, diluted, or distorted with the extended legacy of profitable cultural appropriation in fashion, the use of brown bodies as vouyeristic subjects of entertainment and the perpetuation of stereotypes of the "angry black women" that fashion leaders such as Naomi Campbell even allude to that institutionally prevent women who look like the women on Rick Owen's runways from ever claiming the authority to function in the space of Paris Fashion Week as editor, buyer, or even fellow showcasing designer.

(In case the video doesn't work, click here)

The dire need for more diversity in fashion, particularly in the context of Paris Fashion Week, has led to the creation of institutions such as Black Fashion Week, created because of the dire need for representation beyond the white Eurocentric standard for fashion. According to Adama Paris, in response to continued questions of why a "Black Fashion Week," the production's founder responded, " “I would say fine, create a White Fashion Week,” she told the French press earlier this week “But guess what, the fashion world is already white.” She further continues, " “This is not a fashion show by black people, for black people,” she says. “It’s part of a movement, like “black music” and “black art”, and it is inclusive of all the people that are drawn to it.” (France24).

So, Rick Owens, designer from California, the U.S. state that gave birth to the Black Panther Party, bred with the cultural awareness of racial identity politics by default, with your fascination with stepping, the verbally unvoiced but visually declared newfound fascination with black bodies and black movement forms, what movement of racial inclusivity are you building beyond your brand? Are you building or supporting movements beyond your brand?

The lack of critical depth that the majority of blogs and even major editorials have taken in holistically representing this show has been shocking and necessitates looking at. Because, in the name of ethical fashion that considers not simply ethical materials and fair trade, but unethical institutions of institutionalized racism, imperialism, and cultural hegemony, we must re-evaluate the forms of representation that we, in the culture of trend waves, so immediately co-sign.

Again, this is not an attack on anyone but rather a plea, a CRY, that we challenge the colonial mind that has dominated the fashion industry for centuries. I'd like to continue my work in fashion as blogger, as designer, even as scholar, without being reminded that my complexion, my ethnic background, my locs are in any way a fetish or an abnormality that requires validation by someone else who doesn't have to deal with those thangs.... Let us create a fashion world of true diversity so that none of us have to.

In the name of Bethann Hardison, the pioneer of the diversity campaign that so many previous blogs have mis-referenced, "Please don't give me an all black show," Hardison said. "This is about diversity -- all nationalities, races, colors and skin tones being equally represented." 

Rick Owens, Philipp Plein, all those who work for you, all those who fund you, and all the editors who are invited to your shows, this is about DIVERSITY AND EQUAL OPPORTUNITY. So look amongst each other, look at images of your Spring 2014 models, look at the faces of the attendees, look at the faces of those in your design studios, look at the editorial masthead of the publications who support you, look at your funders, and tell me how you are going to ensure that you are truly advocating for, fighting for, the diversity that you have been ordained the leader of? What sort of diversity do you believe in and does it include me?

Peace, love, accountability, diversity, and beauty that no longer has to be qualified,
-T*

P.s. Robin Givhan, why are these women representative of a "Rejection of Conventional Beauty"? What conventions are you reinforcing?

P.p.s. Let's have a book club with Melissa Harris-Perry. Robin, you are welcomed to join. Would love to see you and Rick and Philipp, and everyone there :)