I feel like I'm having the hardest time ever right now. At this moment. I thought if I write about it, everything clears up a little bit. I have to send a preliminary version of my article today for the advisor and I miss a good conclusion. It's the point where you have so little left, the last efforts to put, and you are most willing to give up, to leave it as it is. Of course - I won't do that, but it's just that right now I have time to change everything better, the question is if I can come out of this black hole, from the point where everything seems ready, but it's just not.

Welcome to The Fashionscape

With clop of your hand clapping and popping champagne bottle caps, let me entertain you with headlines from my absolutely fabulous piece of science!

"Welcome to Fashionscape: Consumers' Interpretations and Use of Fashion, Clothes and Shopping"

About the author

The author of the article holds a Bachelor degree (BA) in Journalism and Public Relations from Tartu University, Estonia, and a Master diploma in Media and Communication from Stockholm University, Sweden. She is currently striving towards a degree (MA) in Communication Managent from Tartu University. The author of this article is interested in consumer society, material culture and visual communication, particularly in how fashion is used as a way of communication.

Abstract
This is an interdisciplinary study of fashion as a material culture and spatial practice. With this article I propose for the use of new interdisciplinary concept within fashion, media and consumer research – the "Fashionscape" that helps to explore fashion and clothing as an overwhelming social and spatial practice in relation to media and consumption. First part of the article underpins "Fashionscape" theoretically and opens up through individual logic in the second part with the empirical analysis of fashion landscape and fashion as a social practice. Eight in-depth interviews with eleven respondents from Sweden, Germany, France, Lithuania and Estonia were carried through to highlight consumer behavior within „Fashionscapes“ and answer the stated research questions. Consumer interpretations on the essence of clothing and fashion as a way of communication show how the practice of "Fashionscape" is unavoidable in the urban context. The nodes of clothing, fashion, media and consumption from the consumer point of view make this study a fresh approach to the ever-attracting world of fashion.

Keywords: Fashionscape, urban space, mediaspace, fashion, shopping

"Living in the city, going out and meeting many people makes you to think and care about your image - how you look like and what people think about you… you always think or are aware of how people see you. The way you want to appear to others via fashion is part of this social interaction and social game." (Mathias, 24)

Introduction

Historical, Consumer and Media Research On Fashion, Dress And Consumption

1. CONCEPTUALIZING "FASHIONSCAPE" IN THEORY: Space - Mediaspace - Scapes - Fashionscape
1.1. From Fashion to "Fashionscape"

Methodology and Sampling
Respondent Profiles

2. INDIVIDUAL LOGIC WITHIN "FASHIONSCAPE"
2.1. How Consumers Understand and See Fashion System?
2.2. What Language Does Fashion Speak? Individual, Social, Geographical, Media- and Consumer capitalist

3. SOCIAL PRACTICE OF FASHION & SHOPPING
3.1. Fashion as A Hobby: Desire For The New
3.2. Understandings of Fashion in Relation to Shopping Practices

Conclusion

Notes

References

I'm surprised that these three hours that were meant for me and my advisor to meet in person, have gone so quickly. Three hours divided into one hour sessions last three weeks. It wasn't supposed to be like that, but it happened that every week I spent an hour in her office. It's been great and useful to get some (rather positive) feedback. Though today was the first time she didn't say only great fabulous fantastic things, but also some constructive critisism, which is good because otherwise I would have felt like this guy, that a friend told me about, that his advisor never ever says anything negative about his still-on-process-work - but this within the process of writing a scientific paper is very unlikely. How should one improve when he or she never gets another points of view? In the scientific world it is very improbable that everyone who reads your work will agree, no, the opposite they will likely annihilate your theory. I'm saying all that because for the first time I didn't freak out for someone's critisism as I normally have used to - I actually gained ideas and great advise. Yet I'm totally freaked out because tomorrow I will start to write that very final thing and ten tremendously busy and difficult days are ahead. Ten days.

It's such a pity that I only have two research questions (lol). Sitting here with all my enormously interesting information, dozens of pages of analyzed material, conclusions, highlights and summaries and I wish I could put it all into my research. But I can't I have to reduce and sort out the most most important things because there is the limited number of pages I can use when later writing the article, but oh, I wish I could write a book about that, it is just so interesting and multi-sided.

Process

It is weird that people are so impatient. For example, I can't wait the end of analyzing the empirical material, it seems there is no progress when just reading, coding, categorizing, drawing the parallels and just making summaries and in-between conclusions. It takes time, but in the same time I also know that in the end, or couple of days before the end, I see the results - although I might have not seen them during all these weeks I have just worked with the material without any definite conclusion. That's how it is, though it is very interesting and maybe it will even be a bit harsh to say final words when it's time - then there is no space for philosophy or progress, then it is done. Said and done.

It seems like I have reached to the hardest part of my research - the analysis of collected emprical material, i.e. eight in-depth focused interviews. I have transcribed over 8 hours of audio recordings on approximately hundred and fifty pages and now forced to do something with all that very interesting but huge amount of text.

Of course I have read several methodology books that guide you quite well how to do qualitative research, that is in my case the focused interviews and how to analyze them further, but it still seems so hard to begin.

I wish I had all of the interviews in my head and the only thing I have to do is to grasp some elements and put them together for the discussion. But that's not how the world works.

Theoretical background to "Fashionscape"

In my thesis I hope to explain how fashion today is a medium itself. It is mediated anyway, used for mediatization (a very rough example would be big slogans on T-shirts and all the well-known T-Shirt communication-campaigns, aka "We love you Kate" etc.) and fashioning all the system, as I see it.

Just today found myself wondering, what is the very core question that I'm haunting after. And I discovered it is the question of manipulation - are people manipulated or are people manipulating the system, and by system I don't only mean the system of fashion. Yes, that is the thing always somewhere back in my head. I have for so long now been speaking about my adoration to Michel de Certeau's work and his idea of everyday cunningness, that people are not manipulative and use their own tactics to rebel against the provided solutions. It's quite a positivist idea, it seems to me, and I have started to doubt in it, but not given up believing in people. Still, when listening to almost all my interviewees, I have catched the manipulated-ideas, as I call them. The one-dimensional message they have approved by media and society without really thinking why or where it comes from and what does it do. There is a lot of literature about one-way communication, for instance the Henri Marcuse's 'one dimensional man' from Frankfurt Scool, Jürgen Habermas' ideal situation of speech and many more. In a wide sense it's the critique of contemporary capitalism.

And right now I feel every now and then I reach to the capitalist critique myself, and I do, which still doesn't mean I'd prefer something else. No, I'm not even that capable to discuss which political system should rule the world, but during these days it seems that where's there's the ruling idea, there's the critique to it. And maybe that is good, because it keeps the power under control. We have seen what happens when power goes uncontrolled.

In my work, theoretically I start with Henri Lefebvre's triad of space. He describes the layers of spatial practices that divide space into several levels and concepts of using the space as such. There are representations of space (mediatized space: streets with media and mediums), spacial practices (e.g. people's behaviour, the real action going on in all the physical space(s)), representational space (media, mediums; e.g. movies, meaning that media carries on certain images and descriptions of the "real" space, it is the space that is created by and through media, as we see it when being surrounded by media images and texts). Representaions of space and representaional space for me are a bit overlapping - or I have misunderstood their content and I'm afraid I might use them wrong, so with these two terms I have to work a bit further.

So these three spheres or layers of space create a social space that is not there, but constructed by humans. Moreover, time is a social construction.

Moving on I describe the mediaspace, defined by various communication-geography scholars, whereas I have chosen Nick Couldry's and Anna McCarthy's (2004) definition of mediaspace. They see mediaspace similar to social space, I would say a sub-unit of it, also in a triad consisting of mediations of space (that is presence of media in everyday life, physical mediums), mediatizations of space (that is wireless access and usage of it, screens in malls, streets, shops..., advertisements, billboards everywhere in the urban space), and mediatized sense of space (that is TV shows, movies, series, texts, images etc.). As we see both triads have something to do with each other. Actually the idea of them is quite alike - when to cover the triangles with each other, we can see together representations of space and mediations of space, spacial practices and mediatizations of space, and representaional space together with mediatized sense of space. This is also the way, one of our lectures put it in JMK.

From there on I somehow discovered the term scape. I was long time confused with that because I thought Lefebvre and Couldry & McCarty all speak about scapes, but I was wrong. Probably I heard the term scape, when Terhi Rantanen talked about her study about media and globalization and the follow up work of Arjun Appadurai and his five scapes. Rantanen added two and got a very inspirational new method to study media's role within globalization among international people. Appadurai talked about ethnoscape, mediascape, technoscape, financescape and idioscape and Rantanen adds up languagescape and timescape. So now I guess this is where I got the scape idea. And now I can even remember Terhi Rantanen's suggestion that if someone discovers a new scape, could contact her:) Never thought I would do that, but here I am with my "Fashionscape".

I'm afraid I might sound a bit sectional, or how should I say... jumping from one term to another hoping this clears the water to other people what I mean by "Fashionscape".

Fashionscape in consequence is the landscape of fashion - the set of ideas, images, texts, behaviour, interpretation, action, effects... a space filled with fashion knowledge. It is like there actually is a cityscape, TV-scape (firs I saw Andy Warhol using it and really appreciated him for that giving me a certain security that I go in the right direction) and another thing I in the future would like to discover, the brandscape. Fashionscape embraces the influence of media, the concept of clothing, theories and practice of fashion and consumer culture.

In the end I would like to provide more stabile definition to the term, but this is a good start I hope.

And the question about manipulation I mentioned above - I remembered a friend's saying:

You can fool some people sometimes, but not all the people all the time.

I guess this is maybe one of the best answers to my general question at all, but gives me a good inspiration to do my master thesis. Let's see how people think!

Japanese Designers in Paris

Lecture notes from February 21, 2008
Yuniya Kawamura, Ph. D. Fashion Institute of Technology/State University of New York

The air is tight of tension. The FD is full of proud and brightness. Even professor McNeil is a bit nervous when giving the opening speech.

"Fashion-ology" is a provocative output of fahion as sociology, anthropology etc. Today's lecture is about her specifiziation on Japanese designers in Paris. Who are they? Why are they in Paris?

Kenzo Takada (Kenzo): Complete Assimilation into Fashion System of France
Born in 1939, went to Paris in 1965. Was the very first Asian/Japanese designer in Paris. Sold his brand and retired in 1999. Paved the way for other Japanese designers in Paris. Kenzo has his very own fashion-style; flowers, bright colors, stripes... He is sometimes described as more Parisian than Japanese designer.

Construction of the Japanese Avant-Garde Fashion

Issey Miyake (first show in Paris in 1973); Yohji Yamamoto (in 1981); Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Carcons (1981) - these three created this Japanese avant-garde fashion style. In the 1980's Japanese had kind of "chock"-effect on European fashion design, they had something that Europeans didn't have before.

Fashion Movement as Avant-Garde redefines sartorial conventions. New tools and techniques were/are used. It also redefines the nature of fashion and the concept of beauty. Avant-Garde denies mass consumption, mainstream, streetstyle, working-class. Diana Crane (American sociologist) states that art movement might be considered avant-garde if it redefines artistic conventions, if it utilises new artifistic tools, ..., these 3 Japanese respond to this classification. For example one sweater might have two neck-holes instead of one or four sleeves in order to give the wearer freedom to decide which one to use.

Issey Miyake
Born in Hiroshima in 1939, went to Paris in 1965, first show in Paris 1973. Considered the founding father of avant-garde fashion. Retired in 1999. According to Miyake we can self decide which holes to use when puttin on - made clothes with many different neck- and sleeve-holes. Unisex-clothing. Straight lines. Their view was to oppose to conventional WEstern fashion, not to support the driving ideas of WEstern fashion. Lack of Western heritage was turned into his advantage, to go forward, to create new universal contemporay fashion. Gender neutral dress. Clothing constructs and deconstructs gender differences. These three Japanese designers challenged the construction of gender. Men's fashion is more simple, no decorations on their clothes, women like it, but didn't buy that in the first place. Now they do. Miyake also retired with Kenzo in 1999.

Yohji Yamamoto
He says: "Perfect symmetry is ugly." He wants to question the notion of perfection, beauty. Western perfection. Japanese perfection. Set up his company in 1973.

Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garcons
Born in Tokyo in 1943, worked as a stylist after school, started her company in 1969. Was convinced by Yohji Yamamoto to do a show with him in Paris in 1981. She was never designed as a fashion designer, graduated in Japan in philosophy. Therefore she's been critizied in her methods. One designer in Comme des Garcons - Rei Kawakubo. She f.ex says "ultimate simplicity" and then her assistants - garment makers - produce the ideas. The she starts to choose between, throw away ideas of her assistants. That method - giving out an idea - is a method of Kawakubo, that is her concept of creativity. How do we define creativity at all? Rei Kawakubo has this "special gaze" to give out an idea. Kawamura is annoyed by the fact that one can become as famous as Kawakubo in Paris in fashion design - what's the point of going school then? She herself teaches in a school that schools future fashion designers. She has trained in fashion design and thinks one should know how to construct patterns and so on. Kawakubo says: "I oppose trends, so I want them to exist." - so she could oppose them.

To break the Western aestethics of fashion - some French designers took that as an attack. Japanese designers created new style. To look things differently, to do what is not being done before. Kawakubo opposes the Western concept of body - clothes are not to shape the body, but to help a person to become or be what it wants to be. They like large clothes, large clothes as attractive. They reconstruced the whole concept of fashioned body. They don't like body being exposed too much. Why to follow this mainstream elegance? - let's dress down not up. Let's have fun, useless sprit. They love black, unisex, a-symmetry, but also neutral colors (grey, black, white), unstructedness. They don't like to use canvases, usually straped on the body. Trying even redefine womens' body. They also ridicule somethings - f.ex make-up.

They all started as pret-a-porter designers, in the opposition of Hanae Mori.

Hanae Mori: Couturier
Born in Shimane in 1926. Retired 2004. Started as costume designer for movies, became the official member of the couture organization in 1977. Her style is far from avant-garde. Attainment of the ultimate designer status. Produces haute couture. Conducting skilled experts. Her intention was not to challenge, but the legitimation, by the French establishment. She didn't break the concpet of aesthetics or Western clothing. She brought the ultimate Japanese high fashion into West.

The Second, Third and Fourth Generation Japanese Designers in Paris:
Atsuro Tyama - worked with Yohji Yamamoto in the beginning, label AT
Junya Watanabe - very very popular in Paris, recycling concept, well trained in tailoring and doing a dress
Jun Takahashi of Undercover - used to be a street-fashion designer, but then went to Paris and was popular among kids in Japan, then he changed in Paris and kids in Japan became disappointed because he became so mainstream because of being famous and in Paris, so some Japanese "kids" search for something more marginal.
Keita Maruyama - Kawamura's classmate, was very ambitious during studies when they studied together. His style is kind of girlie-cute; flowers, dresses. Japanese public likes girlie-cute outfits. He's like a 5th generation.

During Paris Fashion Week out of 100-150 designers showing their collections 20-30 fashion designers are Japanese.

Conclusion
Marginality used to be their asset - no longer marginal when going to Paris
Marginality leading to Mainstream???
Do they still need Paris?
Does Paris need them?

Once you have the legitimation it leads to financial success in fashion industry. Status of insider, fashion gate-keepers. The line between the outsider and insider. Insiders are privileged, legitimized. fashion insiders welcome designers who push the boundaries, this is creativity. Prestigue, image, name, brain, financial resources. Struggle to achieve and maintain all it. For 1st generation their ethnic heritage was the asset, but it is not the asset any more, because there are so many Japanese designers in Paris, so it is more difficult. But they still go there. They don't go to NY. Why? Looks like they need Paris and the issue to debate is does Paris really needs them?

- Fashion-season

The Global Network of Fashion Systems

Lecture notes from February 20, 2008
Yuniya Kawamura, Ph. D. Fashion Institute of Technology/
State University of New York

Yuniya Kawamura is the author of "Fashionology" - the book of fashion sociology, as she herself explains. She conducted over 60 personal interviews to get her research done and to construct this amazing system of networking in Paris Fashion System. Kawamura started her academic studies in English literature, then got a degree in fashion design, worked as a journalist and got her major graduate degree in Sociology. "I wanted to write about fashion," she says. Her dissertation (Ph. D.) was about fashion systems with the example of Japanese designers.

First, she provided the division of clothing versus fashion:

CLOTHING: A material production; Tangible/concrete; A necessity; Found in any society where people cover themselves
FASHION: A symbolic production; Intangible/ abstract; An excess; It has to be institutionally constructed and culturally diffused

To wear clothes and to wear fashion are totally different concepts, they are not interchangeable. Imagine someone saying to you "Oh, you wear clothes," versus "Oh, you wear fashion".

Fashion is full of symbols. A symbol always represents something. No-one would die without fashion, because fashion is not a natural phenomenon. Fashion professionals in Paris work very, very hard to construct the image of Paris as a fashion capital. They have to sustain the idea that fashion begins in Paris and therefore fashion in Paris is very institutionalized. This is her perspective on fashion. When you want to come up with your own definition of fashion, you must be able to explain that definition.

Read: Elizabeth Rouse "Understanding Fashion" (1989).
Clothes have to go through certain process to become fashion, someone must wear them and then the certain clothing must be acknowledged as fashion. Added-values make clothes fashion.

Read: Howard Becker "Art Worlds" (1982); Harrison and Cynthia White "Canvas and Careers: Institutional Change in the French Painting World" (1965/1993)
Becker and many other sociologists deny the concept of geniuses. Even being a "genius" is a social construction: you're not born a genius, you become one. You need the network, the work done for you to become a genius. You need a team, other people. You don't become a genius alone. Especially in fashion. Therefore, art (fashion) dealers and critics introduced this new system of spreading art (fashion). They were the ones who said: "these are great pieces". This was the beginning of marketization in art. Both of the books take the social constructionist point of view in art. Fashion also is a collective activity.

Even Dior, Miyake, Chanel are not geniuses. They have just become through the process of legitimization. And this is what "Fashionology" is about - the sociology of fashion.

The theoretical framework of fashion-ology consists of:
- structrural functionalism (macro-level)... manifest and latent functions. Each component of society has a function. Apply that theory to fashion culture. There are institutional networks
- symbolic interactionism (micro-level)... smaller scale individuals and how they interact; personal networks
- how do macro and micro intersect?

Read: Janet Wolff "The Social Production of Art" (1993) and you might find how macro and micro intersect

Fashion System
- different institutions, groups, organizations, events, practices etc. (fashion shows for instance)
- individuals; designers, publicists, journalists - involved in producing fashion culture (not clothing)
- how these two influence each other? - to study that one should interview those who are involved in that system! That is what Kawamura did, interviewed the people in Paris fashion system. Most people are interconnected to each other, in fashion system your friends are also in the same field.

The Federation - The French Federation of Courure... is an institutional network in the French Fashion System that connects couture/designers/houses with PR-companies with publishing companies and ministry of Culture (ANDAM). An important notion is that when there is no media people in the fashion system involved, there is no point to throw a fashion show.

YK stressed many times that to be in the system, to be legitimized by the system you must know people. As also mentioned above, French is the only country where government supports fashion; in the ministry of Culture they have Fashion Department.

1868 was the year when The Federation begun in Paris. In these times, in about 1911, there were over 1000 couturier' in Paris, today in The Federation the number is 11 (yes, eleven). To become a couturier is the biggest appreciation for a fashion designer; to be one is a very exclusive opportunity, this whole federation and couturier-thing is like a sub-system within the French fashion system. To the production (creation) of haute couture there are strict preceptions - one must have a collection of at least 75 outfits, all fabrics must be custom-made by at least 25 full-time working French national tailors. A piece of haute couture can cost around the price of a house in New York. And this is why there are only eleven couturiers left - it is so exclusive and expensive. To become a couturier, as I mentioned, is a biggest honour. Anyhow the industry is loosing its credit and couturiers are retireing therefore even the couture syndicate must relax their rules a bit.

Since 1973 there is also a pret-a-porter syndicate in Paris, to maintain the status of Paris as a fashion capital.

Members of La Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne (as of Jan 2008):
Official members: Adeline André, Anne Valerie Hash, Chanel, Dior, Lacroix, Dominique Sirop, Emanuel Ungaro, Franck Sorbier, Givenchy, Jean Paul Gaultier, Maurizio Galante.

Correspondent members: Elie Saab, Giorgio Armani (wants to become an official member), Maison Martin Margiela, Valentino

+ a number of guest members.

Japanese desingers in Paris Fashion system
Since 1970 - Kenzo Takada (Kenzo)
1973 - Issey Miyake
1981 - Yohji Yamamoto
1981 - Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons

1977 - Hanae Mori

YK was interested in how non-Westerners got into this system in Paris. For now they all are legitimated, but how did they do that, she questioned? Fashion in general is a Western phenomenon (at least it was in the 1970's).

Kenzo is known for mixing garments. He is like a god for other Japanese designers in Paris. Miyake, Yamamoto and Kawakubo are kind of similar, but different cuts than Western designers. Hanae Mori in turn is very traditional. Now about 20 per cent of Paris' designers are Japanese - they still don't go to New York or Milan, they go to Paris. There is even the network of Japanese designers in Paris that is based on different relationships - school, friendship etc. You just go to Paris, to spread your name globally.

Fashion Culture
Fashion culture is supported by fashion system with individuals and organizations involved. The fashion systems in West consist of New York, London, Milan and of course, Paris. They all have similar systems as in Paris. In these cities fashion companies have to launch two woman and two men's collections per year, in Paris the total number is six because of the couture collections.

Why a fashion show? - one aspect is to introduce the collection to the world, to media, to make clients buy. But there is another invisible aim - four or six times a year the fashion 'gatekeepers' the fashion 'insiders' mobilize, come together and sustain the system. In Paris they sustain the image of Paris as a fashion capital. Everyone goes to Paris for fashion - it's a city of fashion. There is this consensus within fashion-cities that Paris is the capital and they have rules to sustain the systems. Without the system no-one is gonna be there.

Fashion systems in Asia
Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing - all trying to create a similar system, to produce fashion culture, but it's still weak, they are not that structuralized.

The sign of power of fashion culture is how many fashion shows are thrown in a fashion week. For example, Tokyo is structrurally weak, as well Seoul and Beijing. But in Paris there are over 100 shows during a fashion week, sometimes running simultaneously. Therefore, so what fashion can be produced in China, they don't have the culture of fashion. Moreover, fashion production as we see is nothing to do with fashion culture.

The Global Network of Fashion Systems?
- is it possible?
- is fashion going global?
- are the fashion systems around the world becoming global?
OR
- is there a different kind of fashion system?
OR
- street fashion as an independent system?

Street fashion versus Haute couture
She brings an example of a Japanese designer who lost its credit after entering the Paris' system - he became mainstream instead of remaining marginal and that is bad in street fashion.

STREET FASHION: Breakdown of occupational categories; Cheaper than high fashion; Used as symbolic/ethnic identity; Emerges out of street subcultures; Limited disseminations; Street fashion magazines (Elle, Marie Claire…); Trickle-up/across-theory
HIGH FASHION: Clear occupational categories; Expensive; Emerges out of professional designers; Used as status symbol; Disseminated through the French System;
Conventional fashion magazines (Vogue); Trickle-down theory

You don't have to be trained to work in street fashion - you must have taste and eye to catch what other kids want. Some street fashion brands come out with a new collection 16 times a year. But still - is high fashion disappearing?

Japanese Street Fashion and Subcultures
Tokyo street style is characterized by kiddos, who dress up and go to streets. The image of Tokyo street-style is represented by kids, not models. You don't find those kids in the magazines, but in Fruits (also the magazine, turned into at least two books now). Subcultures are fragmented into sub-, and sub-sub-subcultures.

Shibuya District: characteristics: tanned face, high platforms, heavy make-up
- Ganguro 1998-2000
- Yamamba 1999-2002
- Mamba 2003-present; embraces celemba, cocomba, lomamda

Harajuku District: characteristics: Victorian Doll-style, curly hair
- cartoon characters 1997-present
- Wamono 1997-present
- Lolitas 1999-present; embraces Gothic-Lolita, Princess-Lolita, Conventional-Lolita

All these kiddos leave home dressed regularly, then they reach to their destination, go to McDonald's change their dress and go out to chat and stand for people to watch and photograph.

The Breakdown of Occupational Categories as a New Business Model: Teens as fashion producers
- teen salesgirls as designers and merchandisers
- teen consumers as designers and as tastemakers
- teen readers as magazine models

In Tokyo there are 8-storied department stores selling street fashion. There we find this business model - teens selling, shopping, choosing, trying on, dancing in the shops. Loud music, colors, kids. Subcultures in Japan are male-dominant. In Europe they might not be - for example, punks in Britain are mostly represented by men. But Lolitas and other characters in Tokyo are represented by females. In general, Japanese (kids) spend a huge amount of money on clothes, more than other cultures do. And also on fashion.

Street fashion is a world apart from high fashion. To study street fashion is much more difficult than to study high fashion. High fashion is just so much more out there, exposed. But in the streets you don't know all those kids, but to study them you must know them.

In New York (but in other places as well) there is this sneakers-subculture. This is also a particular subculture within which there are insiders and outsiders. When you are an insider sneakers have a social meaning to you, when you are an outsider, they are just sneakers. Some kids stand a night in the que to get three pairs of limited-editon sneakers. One pair to wear, one for a backup and one for selling in E-Bay in the Internet.

Conclusion
To spread fashion there must be people trained to do that. To what extent fashion divides class?

Russian Dandysm: Gender Controversies and Ideology of Fashion

Lecture notes from November 27, 2007

The lecture was held by a professor from the State University of Moscow, Russia and concentrated on the 18-19th century portrait of fashion. One typical face in fashion at that time was prince Kurakin in the beginning of the 18th Century. For him and the rest of society fashion was a sign of high status and wealth. Prince Kurakin wore luxurious costumes. A characteristic of a time could be found in the foucauldian concept of punishment and prison policy.

Peter the Great was the one to reform dress. He was even called the "British prime-minister of taste" and by that was meant British influence of dandysm, minimalist style. At that time in Moscow, St. Petersbourg and elsewhere in Europe most tailors were Germans and magazines were in French. I mean - high society magazines. The language of fashion has always been French, as a lot of influence came from France.

It is hard to put down into text right now, but the Russian letter f- symbolizes dandysm. The f-letter remains of the pose of a dandy, with hands on the hips. One of the famous dandys of Russia was Kusmin - the Oscar Wilde of Russia. He was extremely expressive and off-showing gay-dandy. Dandysim is also related to cross-dressing where dandies influenced women and there were even female-dandies.

Dandy-style represents confident, intelligent, lady-killer-look. The images of a dandy was later also used in advertising and probably is still being done sometimes. This is how Russian style was constructed. During Soviet time a new male-ideal was constructed and his made it very hard to still be dandy.

Generally there was also lot of opposition to European dandysm. Certain people resisted this style opposing themselves to dandies by wearing national clothes. Another movement was related to leftist-democracy that questioned why someone would dress exclusively at all - people should be poor and simple, there is no need to dress up. Moreover, as dandysm was related to homosexualism and that was definitely the open topic in the 19th Century and also makes today hard to guess or know how many of the dandies were really gay and how many of them just looked different.

Louise Wallenberg: Christian Dior 1905-1957

Lecture notes from October 10, 2007

In the beginning of the lecture we were shown the Dior dress from the 1950. It was the S-shaped long and soft-figured dress with the influences of 19th Century. Then we were shown the photograph by Richard Avedon - A Lady in the middle of Elephants. The power of the image, the brand discourse, the history of a brand... the phenomenon of Christian Dior.

Film and fashion also were told to become together in "Breakfast at Tiffany's" from 1961. There is this narrative-function in fashion and in different films.

Then we were shown the photo of Grace Kelly wearing a big ball-dress with naked shoulders in front of some stairs.

John Galliano was the head of Dior design until 2006. In 2005 he had a couture-show that was inspired from the new look of 1950's. He also made famous lesbian scenes in advertising. New Look was launched in 1947 in New York. New Look - New York, interesting... Dior was influenced by la belle epoque in the beginning of the 20th Century Paris. His many works and importance in fashion history is now presented in Granville in Dior Museum, in France (http://www.musee-dior-granville.com). Therefore we can always relate clothes to history and ask ourselves - what do clothes say about our time?

Though, Dior was no revolutionist, and according to Yunija Kawamura, by whom I am influenced now, after having listened her two lectures very recently, but about three months later after this Dior-lecture by Louise Wallenberg, we can even say that no-one is a genius. No-one is born a genius, they become one - with hard work and help of the team, the network they have. More about Christian Dior - he never showed up in public, in press or gave interviews. He had another person for that, some lady called Susan/Susanne...

Despite no academic is willing to say that Dior was a revolutionist - John Galliano thinks that. In the film we watched "Christian Dior - A Man Behind the Myth", Galliano says that Dior most of all loved to dress a woman. He was fascinated by the proportions, body, ideality and femininity. He loved Dress. He was a dress-architect.

Ann-Marie Sellerberg: Sociology of Fashion

Lecture notes from October 8, 2007

Ann-Marie Sellerberg is a sociology teacher in Lund University. She concentrates on the difference what people buy and consider as beautiful. These things differ because of the income, social position, class etc. She says that it is not possible to have a statical picture of all that, fashion is always in change. She has written the pieces such as "Konsumptionens sociology" (Consumption Sociology) and "Avständ och attraktiv - om modets växlingar" (Resistance and attraction - about fashion change). She brings out, like many other scholars, that fashion in general is not about clothes.

See more: Thorstein Veblen 1899, Georg Simmel 1904, Herbert Blumer

While Veblen and Simmel represent the old opinion of social hirarchy, social distance and class then Blumer fights for anti-hierarchy, new belonging and fashion-collective terms. Blumer says that there are social requirements for fashion, it is like a right for day. For instance, the elite use fashion as a tool to differ to make a difference and to distance theirselves. In turn, the mass tries to follow up, to become more similar to the elite and elite in turn again tries to make a difference again, to go further. The elite won't stop... they make this (fashion)difference based on the contemporary social rules, the expression-style of the present time.

Then Ann-Marie said that in fashion we can clearly distinguish two schools, which I unfortunatelly missed, but further Yunija Kawamura explains the idea maybe even better, so I will skip that part at the moment.

Anyhow, fashion is to do with cultural capital. We could analyse it from Bourdieu's perspective for instance. We can do fashion consumption research. We could study fashion as a collective action or reaction. Or we can of course speak about fashion not within clothing but for instance, food, design, art, politics, economics, where so ever I guess. There is fashion within fashion too - for example, in the fashion of interieur design we can distinguish the fashion of living room, bathroom and so on.

Consuming habits - what clothes we wear, what interieur design we prefer... - all that is to become different or the opposite, to become similar with or towards something.
People look into the future, the wait for the future. People are interested in what is about to come, begin, the freshness, the newness, the change. Therefore exists this fashion-time - we expect the new. And we have our own expectations about things that are about to come based on our own experience and reception of the world.

There is infra-structure inside of fashion, so there also must be different management-classes being taught how to manage fashion, how to market fashion. Fashion in the same time is individual and collective.

Klas Nyberg: The birth of a Consumer Society

Lecture notes from October 3, 2007

The lecture was an introduction to the international debate and history of research of fashion, design and consuming habits through times. It handled the topic from perspective of the history of economics. Klas Nyberg is lecturer in Uppsala University.

In this context the time between 1500-1800 a.d. is taken a "modernization time" when the industrial revolution formed its face. The times after the 1800 a.d. is hereby contexualized as the modern+postmodern time. Briefly about the lecture:

- shift and building-up
- agenda-setting of consumption as a driving force
- European/Scandinavian/Swedish/Stockholm's perspective
- consuming revolutions in the 19th century

To contextualize this topic we have to take into account the socio-historic and socio-economic background of the place we are standing out from. For example, while the industrial revolution in England took place in the end of the 17th Century, then in Sweden it happened after 1870's. In the same time France had been a 'Great Country' in the 17th and 18th century - there was about 75 million inhabitants, while in England this number was 5 million.

Consumption as driving force
Industrial revolution that we here are talking about took place after the year 1750 and can be divided into three sections that embrace production, distribution and consumption. It began in England and meant changes in town-theories from the economic perspective; the rise of fabric-system, the industrial revolution spreading out from England. So we might want to ask why did the industrial revolution in the first place happened, andy why in England?

England has a long tradition of industrial towns. In Sweden such town is Norrköping, in Finland maybe Tampere.

The concept of production includes three main aspects: 1) Marxism and his followers; 2) market-capitalisms industrial system; 3) their rise in Europe because of the innovations within technique, the institutional backgrounds, the religious ethic and presence of capital.

The concept of distribution includes following aspects: big-buyers, buying system, hierarchies and networks, communications and infrastructure, import and export within the location.

The concept of consumption. In the 17th Century there became the signs of status-dressing; one could evaluate another person based on its clothes (one knew when someone is a king or a guard). Consumption in the 18th Century embraced already the concept of fashion. Fashion was always a preference, a choice made by the possibilities of income and price of a cloth. This time can be described as the time when prices went down and income raised, advertising, fashion and marketing appeared. The formation of this kind of consumer society in Europe is questioned whether it was an industrial revolution or a consumption-revolution?

French lived in its best - they were famous for the art, silk and high-society.

In Scandinavia times were not like that. It was a little people living here, there was just a small number of towns and they were small as well, the climate was difficult. Still, we have some good examples of the luxurious style of life - e.g the paintings of Alexander Roslin. So the handicraft and art and manufactures were present and the business was happening.

Brief history of Swedish consumer society
- Tessin, Hårleman & Jean Erik Rehn
- the castle, the Tessin palace, Skeppsbron
- textile, sugar and tobacco export
- 1739-1846 laws of manufacturing
- 1739-1846 about 3600 texile-workers immigrate here

Clothing manufactures appear in the end of the 18th century, fabrics become more skilled in producing and dying textiles. The courage to sell and market progress first in Norrköping.

Anette Göthlund: "Glances in and on the pictures: of fashion photography and gaze-theory"

Lecture notes from October 1, 2007

Anette Göthlund is a professor in visual-pedagogy. She is interested in picture-use, gender-issues, teenager-girl identity. When we talk about fashion photography we must remember also art-history and iconography and the fact that when talking about fashion we do not talk only about dress, but also the body.

- fashion photography as communication
- visuals of one day
- cornerstone for semiology
- visual culture studies
- commodification of women

Visual material can be studied in many ways. Culture studies do that from a critical perspective, as well feminist studies. Visuals hide the constructed power. They can construct anything - gender, nationality, sexuality, ethnicity, identity... you name it. Fashion and identity are always represented in close relation to each other. One field fashion researchers deal with is fashion as a picture. They ask, what does a photograph say? What do say different types of fashion photographs when placed into another, totally different context? From their point of view clothes and bodies are tools for visual communication. Besides, fashion photography surrounds us daily, it's practically everywhere we go. Or even, not go. There are some basic differences between fashion photos and advertisements. But a fashion photo can also be a commercial photo and vice versa. From the history it is known that former fashion illustrators became fashion photographers when technology had progressed enough.

Sisley was one of the first fashion companies who started to experiment with fashion photography in the net. They also started with what now is called 'fashion pornography', they were the innovators in fashion photography.

In the 1990's fashion photos were still, but that's what they are not any more. During the last decade the catalogue-fashion-business created the image that fashion is the most important commodity, that one must buy clothes, no matter what. Today's fashion photos do not represent so much clothes any more, but the mood, the color, the shape maybe. Photographs are often just dark images of something that remainds us of a dress, but we cannot actually see the dress. They do not say that clothes are the most important elements on the photo. But still, photos are full of meaning that say a lot more than one dress; they speak about ideals; ideal family, ideal personality, perfect body.

So the body embraces figure, form of a body, feminine body, the deformation of body. We have types of bodies came up during last two decades - "heroine chic". See more "Face of fashion" by Jennifer Craik, 1994.

And not to save fashion from critique - fashion and fashion photography are a lot, lot to do how 'real' women are made.

According to gaze-theory, the feminist woman is the spectacle of a woman. What is it to be a woman? To control the body and to have power over women. The body can be fashionable or fashion-able, moreover the body is fashion-able or not. The clothes are an expression of self, bodies represent sexuality. In every single case.

Many theorists say that female body is formed to satisfy male-gaze. But there is also this "come-on-look" that is considered to be masculine. So where one image speaks to us, the picture itself calls to see it. Where images are sometimes artificial and constructed, they still represent some kind of a reality, they are not just fantasies, they are moments saved on that very moment they were taken and that is how things looked like, even if they were constructed to look like that.

Annette brings an example of the famous YSL Opium Fragrance ad from 2001 which is the representation of auto-erotica where Sophie Dahl is touching herself. We can also imagine Goya's work and syrrealism that has provided interesting topic for researchers in semiology and psychoanalysis (Freud). People look at the images in different ways, they also understand them differently. The new sessions of spring or fall collections do not represent so much spring or fall, but the mood, the art, the new stuff that has become into the mind of an artist - the photographer or designer. It's just a composition. Although people see and read images that tell stories, the choice is theirs. They can take these images as pictures that are produced by a company that wants to sell clothes, or by a magazine who wants to tell a story. It is the world of images.

To think further
- fashion photography without clothes?
- how do we use pictures in our everyday lives?
- how the power uses the image or how image uses the power?
- look at an image, by what you can say that there is a wo/man; what are the characteristics of gender when not seeing the full body, but some parts of it?

Swinging Femininity - 1960's Transnational Fashion

Lecture notes from September 25, 2007

- swinging era of 1960's
- cinema - a virtual department store
- commodity consumption
- fashion played a role in defyining national identity and continues to do so
- cultural studies
- new and powerful group of FREEDOM (for example motorcyckles)
- politicizing of youth, critical thinking of teenagers. "Teenagers of the 1950's&60's - they didn't want to change the world - they just wanted to travel more, to buy stuff, to be different..."
- swinging London

The culture of consumption was evident how people saw the world (today the see the world through 'FashionScape', but they haven't lost their critical thinking of it). The world was seen as a dynamic place, like a playground with the cosmopolitan idols like Twiggy, Mary Quant, rock music, pop art, comics, cartoons. See also the movie "Knack" - it's hilarious. People remembered and knew what the hype is, the cinematic flirtation and one must be critical towards hype. Some more movies creating the fashionscape were "Hard Day's Night", related to the Beatels, the innovation of style, the French New Wave; "Darling" with Julie Christie. Julie Christie played Diana, a woman who didn't want children, family and other traditional values, but just everything. Character Diana in "Darling" was the role model of this new type of woman - the one who wants to be admired by others.

Notes: desirable body in cheap dress; daytime clothing; expensive simplicity, transnational femininity (also related to princess Diana, who became the symbol of femininity)

Another film that carried the message of clothing of the time was "Il Desorto Rosso" - The Read Desert. This was the film about high society, a film about elite, main character was called Julianna. The question about what do we see? Always we see an image; the landscape of what we see makes us wonder what should I look at? - this is the most disturbing question of the film.

Another Italian movie came up - "A woman with a pistol" (La ragazz con la pistola)

Then we discussed internationality in films in general. There certainly are transnational relationships exposed, created and represented. Journey - literate journey, train journey... we are talking about femininity as well as national identity. For instance, the question are you Italian? - no, I'm Sicilian! etc.

Håkan Preiholt: Fashion Market. Gucci-exmple

Lecture notes from September 24, 2007

Further readings: Fashion Marketing (obviously, about fahion marketing;)); Logomania (about global branding)

PS! I translated the notes from Swedish into English, so I ask for understanding when some stuff might sound/seem odd.

I don't know again why the lecture had co-name "Gucci example". Preiholt slightly talked about Gucci, but concentrated more on the fashion industry in general, especially on lux-industry.

"Fashion kills you not with fury, but coldness" - he started with the quote from one of the funniest myth-creating illuminating cliché-like fashion movies "Devil wears Prada". I must admit that I'm not the big fan of the movie, but it was and would once again be interesting to see it from the social scientist point of view. Håkan Preiholt brought some other examples of the movies that are considered as constructing the image of fashion-village. For example the Wall Street movie that claims that greed is good. If you want a friend, get a dog. In my opinion, this is very true when we look how media-stars like Paris Hilton or other represent their interest into clothes and small almost invisible dog-look-alikes. They represent theirselves as difficult-to-catch individuals, who don't care so much about humans, but instead of dogs for instance.

Fashion goes along with, is influenced by and influences itself the phenomena like internationalization and globalization. Internationalization shows that a company has a home, but globalization shows that a company can actually function outside its own home-conditions. But the criticism of globalization consists of the idea that globalizing enterprises are actually oppressing the other markets. For example Western companies extending to Africa. Against that kind of free-market there is the protectionism

Fashion is communicated by brands. This means that brands are not connected to products, but the idea of products. But brands also cause trouble, brands have had the power that certain communities have started to fight against this kind of dominance. For example the WTO meeting in Seattle in 1999 called "The Nike Disaster" where weaponed protection was needed to protect the NY Niketown.

A postmodern company American Apparel in turn sees to be the opposite example. Their slogan "We always produce in America and not in Asia" has worked 20 years now and been pretty successful.

Right now there are policy documents that seem to form the future of brand market:
1) PRI - The Principles for Responsible Investment
2) UN Global Compact - everything from the rights to corruption
3) Amnesty business

***
On the day that the lecture was held there was the "Rena Kläder" event in Stockholm. Organized by Fjällraven (the outdoor clothing company) och Gudrun Sjödén from the BSCI, Business Social Compliance Initiative. Fjällraven is a Swedish stock-enterprise with 743 SEK on the market. The business secret of Fjällraven is the ethical code within their business. And in Sweden they also have this SGS Institute that inspects the companies to make sure they act ethically. Anyway, this "Rena Kläder" (Fair Clothes) event was driven by Swedish Church youth, röda korsets ungdomsförbud, If metal, Fair Trade Center, Handelsanställdas förbund etc. a network of initiators who support the idea of fair clothing.

***
Talking about luxury and lux-production we might also talk about lux-industry. This consists also of the networks of film-making, branding, celebrities and so on. When we look back and look in the present, we have very good example in the body of Marie Antoinette and a Hollywood movie produced of the idea of luxurious lifestyle. Luxury is a funny thing - it seems to be everywhere, almost no-one can afford it but everyone seems to want it. Many desire it when there are only a few in exi (Berry 1994, about the Bond ad). By luxury it is meant here fashion couture, ready-to-wear and accessories, perfumes and cosmetics, wines and spirits, watches and jewelry. What's the thing with luxury? - it is the most often used word within advertising, therefore it has created the want for luxurious things, without any sensible reason actually. Some of the mainstream brands have started to use this extreme desire for lux and use high fashion designers to create for them (H&M with Lagerfeld etc).

Further I will give a brief overview of the largest conglomerates in lux-industry:

LWMH - directed by Bernaud Arnault. Embraces Christian Dior (John Galliano, Hedi Slimane), Louis Vuitton (Marc Jacobs), Marc by Marc Jacobs, Givenchy (Riccardo Tisci), Fendi (Karl Lagerfeld).

ONLY THE BRAVE GROUP - directed by Renzo Rosso. Embraces Diesel, Martin Margiela, Sophia Kokosalaki... Renzo Rosso is the establisher of Diesel brand and the fashion-conglomerate is named "The coolest of the biggest"

PPR: directed by Francois Henri Pinault. Embraces Gucci; department store Printemps in Paris; Ellos, Puma, Alexander McQueen... PPR's chief competitors in luxury goods conglomerates are LVMH and Richemont groups.

GUCCI GROUP: directed by Robert Polet. Embraces Gucci (Frida Giannini), Yves Saint Laurent (Stefano Pilatti). Gucci is related to the word 'classical' or nostalgic, if you wish. In this context we can talk about Audrey Hepburn in 1940's and 50's, about Grace Kelly, Jackie O handbag and so on. To be honest, they produce cheap, but sell expensive. That's it. "It even happens in the best families." Tom Ford's Gucci was known for hedonism, today Frida Giannini creates the soul of Gucci.

PRADA GROUP: directed by Patrizio Bertelli. Embraces Prada, Miu Miu, Azzedine Alaïa. Thinking exercise. Do you think of Prada when buying Miu Miu? (Miu Miu is the cheaper brand by Prada, though not cheap at all, but still Praa-da). Prada is one of the biggest fashion-houses in the world. They have enormous brand family embracing also Armani which in turn embraces Emporio Armani, Armani Casa, AJ...

PUIG GROUP: embraces Nina Ricci, Carolina Herrera, Kurt Geiger.

Annually, over 100 international leading brands are bought over by Management Buyout.

Wanna know what makes profit? Here it comes:
- media exposure
- famous persons
- the name of the designer
- the growth of business

Case-study of Ralp Lauren. The whole organization could grow because the enormous popularity of his Polo-shirts - "I was in a world I didn't know and I was in a new game." But the opposite example too - "I heard RL stock is down and I was thinking... I don't need this guy's suit."

Case-study of Prada. Prada is famous with its vertical integration. They have the high control over production and distribution. Prada has 250 fully owned shops around the world keeping the tight control over retail activities, therefore it avoids franchise agreements, licences and duty-free shops. Everything is in the hands of the company. Famous product: Kelly-Bag. Prices begin from 200 000 Swesish Crowns.

Case-study of Marni. No advertising at all! Concentrates on the shows and catwalk-events. The slogan, logo, sign, signifyer - they must not be shown

Case-study of Benetton. Benetton goes hand in hand with the society-debate. They are famous for their advertisements.

My own conclusion to this hard business-talk would be that we can really talk about fashion clothing versus fashion business. Well suited men struggle for prestigue and money, not for trends. They are totally unlike ordinary followers of fashion. There we have this WASP man - White Anglo-Saxon Protestant. A man who has been rich for several generations.

Fashion class on thursday

Peter McNeil "Dressed to Kill: Fashion, the State and Regulation"

Lecture notes from February 6, 2008

Though I didn't find any connection with the actual content of the lecture and the title given to it previously, I made some notes to think further.

We discussed two articles about the Fashion Studies methodology - one by Alexandra Palmer "New Directions: Fashion History Studies and Research in North America and England" and the other by Roland Barthes "The Photographic Message". There are several ways how to approach fashion, moreover there are several sociological problems to study in and within fashion field.

One of the most respected Fashion Studies scholar Elizabeth Wilson (wrote a fabulous book "Adorned in dreams"), whose lectures I have also been very lucky to hear, comes from the 1970's feminist studies while these times feminism and fashion were considered as something that definitely do not go together. But Wilson, being a feminist, became interested in fashion, mainly fashion matters in everyday issues, not high fashion.

Fashion studies in general have grown out of Victorian times' descriptions. During 1980's when the bestseller novels were read, there were fashion issues present everywhere; for instance women's questions in work field, sweatshop labor etc. Fashion was considered as an extremely materialistic approach.

Coming back to Barthes and his theories on fashion, we must admit that Barhes was actually not interested in reality, or clothes as material things. He is a semiologist interested in the science of signs.

While discussing the articles, we came to the idea of fashion as a suppressor, as a social factor that makes some people feel bad. Fashion can be seen as an ideological tool. This is the way Barthes sees fashion too.

Fashion is always mediated. Could it even exist when it wasn't mediated?

Palmer in turn approaches fashion from a couture perspective claiming that couture is a myth. She studies high fashion worn in Canada.

As I also described in my other blog, we then made a short semiological analysis on a fashion photograph where Vivienne Westwood impersonates Margaret Thacher. It is a cover story of old British magazine Tatler. Many interesting things came up when talking about Westwood. We concentrated a lot on punk. Both Westwood and Thacher have been or at least expressed punk style in their outlooks in history. Punks in 1980's hated American mass-culture. Their aim was to make everyone angry. Everyone. Also they believed in anticonsumerism. Westwood is always been a rebel designer. In 1982 she was the first designer ever who brought trainers on to a catwalk. She has this child-like charm and laughter over certain social issues. But the thing that most people don't know is that she strongly fights against street-culture as such, the street fashion or mainstream fashion - she even has this saying "Nothing good comes from the streets.".

One other expression against fashion/dress industry as an oppressor was 1970's bra-burning event. Is fashion really that oppressive?

I mean, subcultures are sub-cultures because they are always fighting against something mainstream, for instance consumer capitalism. But always, always sub-cultures end up reaching to the main street, back to mass-consuming. Even if only as a short trend, but still. Sub-cultures are like sources for the mainstream cultural industries to collect ideas and sell them.

The last thing that came up was the question of represented body. Analysing one design of Westwood that remained of torso Peter McNeil explained what is behind that. 1990's was globally a decade of coming out of the closet for homosexuals, therefore the issues of HIV/AIDS also became public. And as known, HIV/AIDS eats the body, therefore bodybuilding and pumping the muscles became enormously popular within this crowd in 90's - shiny tanned pumped up bodies. It was big fashion. Now it is totally out again.

Latter idea actually remains me some of the previous false-imaginations of perfect bodies. For example in Estonia, many people don't even know from where this trend originates from, therefore in certain circles it is still popular and respectful to pump up yourself. Without knowing that in 90's gay-culture and fashion system it was strongly related to these killing deseases and a way to protect oneself from signs of death.

Lotta Lewenhaupt: Fashion and Journalism

Lecture notes from September 19, 2007

Lotta Lewenhaupt has workd for Damernas Värld (DV), one of the best selling Swedish fashion magazines. She has also written some books and articles about fashion.

She claims that there is only one serious fashion magazine to speak about - Vogue. It was and is a class-magazine for middle and upper class reader. To understand the contemporary context of fashion magazines we must look back into history again.

1672 Paris - the time of Ludwig XIV when fashion was one part of culture
1877 news about fashion world, the first fashion magazine was born, actually it already born in 1867 when Harper's Bazaar was first launched. More fashion journalism appeared in the 20th century, and Vogue became absolutely the most important fashion magazine. Nevertheless of the male dominance within fashion production, fashion journalism is a feminine field and being a fashion journalist a feminine position.

In the beginning the slogan of Vogue was Vogue - a weekly magazine of fashion and society. They have had high quality of photographs and paper. It was also the time of Poiret. 1930's there was about ten workers for the magazine, today it's three times more. 1940's in American fashion journalism are interesting, we might throw the line with Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. In the fifties Vogue looked like we know it now, but there was no text on the cover, just the title and the cover photo, no texts screaming buy me! buy me!.

Since 1916 Vogue has also its UK edition. After Vogue started to establish the other national issues as well it was important in each country to pay attention to national traits of character. For example on the cover of the US edition was always chosen a blonde blue-eyed woman to differ from UK or France editions.

In the sixties Diana Vreeland, the former editor of Harper's Bazaar brought the big plastic jewellery into fashion. Then Anna Wintour, the famous editor in chief of the US Vogue brought supermodels into fashion. Nowadays it is so common that brands, ads, icons and celebrities carry on and sustain the fashion system. Lotta Lewenhaupt says that the role of celebrities comes and goes in fashion, today it's a bit down, we don't have these big supermodels anymore, but still, some celebrities and actresses are trendy to represent in magazines.

Mostly she repeats what other lecturers have already said, the things about style-icons, like Marlene Dietrich, the rise of Chanel, Elsa Schiapparelli, the world in war, the femininity going masculine and photos as part of journalism. Also talks about Dior's New Look and picture-analysis. One interesting and important conclusion she makes is that today it is far more difficult to be first, in anything.

1950's were the women's time of elegance. She mostly uses the examples from the US Vogue. She says that ballerina shoes and marine-style is the fashion of teenagers, not ladies. It comes from the Audrey Hepburn who became famous teenage-idol in the fifties. She mentions David Bailey and Jackie Kennedy. Then moves on to the sixties when women became teeny tiny, had small breast and needed new type of bras. The end of sixties was highly influenced by the 1920's.

Biba was one of the revolutionary brands of the seventies. It had particular style and patterns. The rise of branding. 1945 Fiorucci shouted that jeans are most beautiful from the backside. Rei Kawakubo uses retro to be in fashion, taking the elements from past and placing into present. Helmut Newton. Mario Testino.

1980's - the time of Giorgio Armani, Peter Lindbergh, Yohij Yamamoto (black outfit). Attention into the catwalk. Co-operation of advertising and photography, relations between stylist, acquaintances, personal relations etc. Inner circle within fashion industry.

2004 - UK Vogue represented the "Bloomberg Way" - the flashlights of Biba fashion, vintage. Underwear as streetwear. Madonna for Versace...

In fashion journalism you have to be self-confident, stylish and brave. You must go with time, read newspapers, magazines, go to theatre, cinema and read lot's of books. High specialization needed. There are good literature about fashion. There is several ways to write about fashion. Read! See around!

Hans Jansson: Jansson Hannson brand

Lecture notes from September 17, 2007

Hans Jansson is a former investment banker who hoped that somehow he will end up in fashion industry. And he did.

He travels to get inspired, he speaks Swedish with slight French accent and represents everything one can adapt to a frenchman - the attitude, the style, the decorousness, the class. He collects data, techniques and materials from his travels to Egipt, Asia, East and South; he claims that handicraftsmen (mostly women or girls) are happy if not exploited. They sew and do high class embroidery, they have the knowledge and the skills. He now has about 20 handicraftsmen who create the patterns with utopian flowers and embroider the cloth. Mostly they live in the societies where women don't work - women in these places have even hard to imagine going to the university. Hans Jansson admits that to communicate with these wonderful craftsmen one must study hard to learn how to deal with and understand them. These are people who are not influenced by consumer capitalism and fashion industry, they just do the handicraft without knowing how unique is that skill and product in Western capitalist system. Their conscience is clean, they are the opposites to the Western trend-follower.

It's like the 'glamorous' world of fashion versus real mix of cultures through fashion. The key to success is not the invention of 'new'. He's talking about beautiful souls, the innocence, the untouched areas within fashion and how remarkable that seems! And when he said that many Swedish designers should change their style, attitude and action - the silence filled the space. Everyone shut up.

The he showed off some living fashion - hand-made exemplars of his designs on the girls from the class. The prices start with 40 Euro for T-shirts, the dresses start from 1000 Euro and go up until 3-4000 Euros.

He admits that even young girls work for him, for instance after their day at school, after studying couple of hours per day. He takes that into account when planning and receiving the orders from clients. I start to wonder - what is that actually? Is that really business or handicraft, or can it be both, in the same time making all the parties happy?

Even if all these nice pieces are produced by hand by beautiful souls then one former investment banker puts the most money into his pocket. Or does he?

He says that the best market for 'his' production is Southern Europe, Greece, Italy, Dubai and Japan. The price is what fixes the price. In Sweden he hardly sells, though it is possible to make a personal order. Japan here is the trendsetter, he claims. "In Japan, very young people, girls, buy very, very expensive designer clothes." He also says that he doesn't want any African or other recognizable ethnical symbols on his fabrics, but unique, non-existing flower figures. He points or creates like the non-existing ethnography, the new version of ethnography.

This guy has a bit wider perspective. Since 1985 he doesn't live in Sweden, which makes 22 years abroad... He has roots of Scandinavia, school of Paris and expression of Arabic. Fashion really can be on very simple proof of globalization.

Elizabeth Wilson: "Fashion Photography"

Lecture notes from September 13, 2007

Fashion and photography share some characteristics. Unfortunately neither of them is considered as serious art nowadays. Luckily, somewhat still are parts of artistic stuff.

The art in photography lies in displaying, playing with a picture not with the technique. Photography and fashion are like languages. Fashion styles are globalized through photography, through the mass image. "They are part of globalization." (EW)

Fashion can never express the truth of the world, but represents strongly the consumer capitalist ideas. Whereas fashion can lie and photography not - how can a camera lie? Controversially, even the camera can lie, because every photo is take by an individual which makes the shot as a construction of reality. Which in turn is someway a reality.

See also Susan Sonntag, Umberto Eco, Roland Barthes...

Mass-media emphasizes the glamorous side of fashion, glamour and celebrities are becoming more and more represented in press. Glamour in the same time is a sort of fantasy to pull other people off their stage. This is the standpoint to Wilson that she is more into everyday fashion than the glamorous mediatized fashion. She says that clothes we put on every day and even when we refuse to deal with any fashion issue we still must admit that we wear clothes produced by fashion.

Fashion is about now-when process when we dress. We think about now, the present, what we like and what to express in this very moment. Whereas fashion photography is totally different thing. Nowadays we don't even get the clear image on some fashion photos - it just expresses the mood, the shape or context, not one or several particular item(s).

The bridge between fashion photography and personal photography is syrrealist photography. Fashion photography is totally utopian - any other kind of photography has some reality touch. Alice through the looking glass - photography can never become looking glass. We can not go into the picture.

Fashion cycle has been and still is critizised - why does a fashion cycle have to exist? Sigmund Freud's short essay from the I WW time says that depression of winter can be replaced by trends and rebellion/ denial/ immortality.

For discussion
Fashion-reality; fashion-shows and reality; construction of reality of fashion on media landscape

Elisabeth Wilson: "Reform Dress"

Lecture notes from September 11, 2007

Reform dress is an important conclusion of the 20th (19th?) century because from that comes pretty much everything that we think and assume about fashion these days.

If to go back to 1789, the advent of the French Revolution we start to find fashion criticism - the issues about sex, gender and class. The use of a dress. The criticism of fashion lasted until the 19th century when it started to intersect with the perspectives of philosophy and political science. For instance, Marie Antoinette represented the strong political attitude when presenting herself in an informal dress. And then, moving on in time, socialist communities started to create their own image of a dress. Early 19th century groups of socialists expressed the new ideas, new ways of living and also new dresses. The most radical idea of that time was the trousered tress for both sexes.

And, another interesting exsample - an influence coming from Turkey were trousers under the dress. Then the political ideas of feminism influenced dressing. Although the agricultural working women had worn trousers before this was tied with immorality and lower classes before it became fashion.

One joke spread out - woman as a trouser-wearer - should she now also act like a man and ask her father-in-law the hand of her groom?

Fighting against the corset - why oh why should a woman wear a corset? Political rebellions through fashion/dressing. Women becoming free of corset that had crippled them for centuries. Clothes as a tool to express oneself and also a tool to fight for women's rights. Today it is all about fashion following, it's the eternal fight in business. This breaking from the "prisoning" ended the criticism on fashion.

Another aspect that stopped the criticism was the aesthetics movement. The simple form of dress and embroidery as a craft was very important. And then there was William Morris' arts and crafts movement which became popular in Europe, especially in Germany. W. M. was a socialist, marxist, but despite of that he became a businessman who was engaged in embroidery production and brought the flower-patterns into fashion.

In 1875 Liberty's in London started to sell reform dress. Japan became very popular. Hygiene matters got a new meaning. The dirt and air pollution also influence dressing. Sport appeared in women's daily agendas, mostly tennis and riding. In the beginning they played tennis in corsets, that made the skin itchy, in turn to scratch and ended with blood on dress. After that there was the manifest-protest against everything that deforms the figure or size of the body. We want reform dress!

Another new dimension in clothing was that women started to work. Women became more similar to men. In 1899 the "Critique of society" included the critique of a dress and fashion cycle. The main argument was that people don't need all these clothes - it's wasting resources, labor etc. No one needs fashion cycle! Fashion in turn demands things we don't have/ who we are not/ what we don't need!

Anyhow, heavy clothing was unhygienic. The most influencial designer of the time was Paul Poiret. He brought up high waist-line, short curly hair, revolutionary silhouette, straight lines and a trousered dress.

Until the 1914 is considered the ending of the 19th century. Imperial tensions from Russia, the women's movement and history took their shape.

From these days everything can become fashionable. Theories, food, politics, interior design - there are thousands of matters than have become, are becoming and will become fashionable. There is fashion in everything that humans do.

For discussion
Is fashion inherently anti-feminist? - The dressing of females. To whom we dress? Maybe women don't dress so much for men any more, but dressing up has become a competition with other women.

Fashion industry is everywhere. Do we dress to be individual? But then how come we all look exactly the same? Well, this is the thing - this is fashion industry.

What would happen if there was no fashion? When there was no fashion cycle? When the fashion wouldn't ever change? Let's take jeans - they are always just jeans, so what the shape and color can vary, they are just jeans! Nothing ever really changes, it's just the conspiracy of capitalism to remind us that whether in clothes or other fashionable things - it's all a cycle that never changes. There are always influences and modifications, but the idea is the same, the capitalism, the capitalist.

For Wilson, the most ideological absurd is the school uniform. Clothing in school should not be so important, fashion has too much power, but uniforming children doesn't take that power off. She considers school uniforms as ugly, therefore questions why should children wear an ugly dress? Fashion in general provides an opportunity for self-expression: you can express rationality, ecological thinking, irrationality...

Fashion in 20th Century

Lecture notes from September 5, 2007

20th Century is complicated in many terms, also within fashion. Two wars and several movements have left footprints into fashion. The rise and exploration of photography, film industry, and body shape - the winds of change.

The dominance of France in fashion world reduced. Although, Paul Poiret, the French fashion designer was one of the dominating figures in fashion world in 20th century. Poiret, who had his own fashion house in Paris, designed clothes for new type of woman, he was also the first designer who launched both, his own fashion- and perfume brand. Dark colors and stressing the line under the breast dominated. We have examples from 1911 when the skirts and dresses were so tight that it was only possible to move on tiptoes.

In 1892 Vogue was born. In 1916 the first British edition was launched. It was and still is the fashion and photo-magazine of luxury production. Fashion in these days was equal with style, attention on details not so much constructing the image of wealth or class. Though I personally doubt on this claim - high fashion and stylish outlooks has always been somewhat in relation to class and wealth. Even if we do not want to admit that.

Anyhow, in the 20th century, UK and US started to influence the world of fashion. Fashion industry was born. Putting that information into Swedish context, the department store NK was established in 1915. Some other department stores opened in Stockholm. Greta Garbo (Greta Gustavsson) who became famous as an actress, was the mannequin for NK. She is the style-example of fashion industry, femininity and icon of the 20th century. Who ever was now allowed to dream about becoming a star, because Garbo originated from quite an ordinary family. She was the first Swedish movie star and fashion icon who became famous worldwide.

Although the First WW didn't touch Sweden remarkably, the clothing here also changed more simple, functional and wearable. This is how dark colors can be explained - they are good in practical matters. The skirts became shorter, stratified clothing showed its face. The silhouette seemed more natural. After the I WW the issues of freedom and relaxation turned out to be revolutionary for women. Naked legs and arms were shown off as they had never been shown before. The prototype of a woman in the same time became more masculine, which also meant that women started to smoke, dance and play harder, they were occasionally represented similarly to men. It was the beginning of androgynus type of an individual.

1920's
- the eye-make was used in fashion photography. The general exposure of make-up industry. The time when celebrity actresses, singers and other social women influenced the 'ordinary woman'
- women became even more smaller and thinner.
- short blonde hair, masculine look, ultra slim body
- jazz music influence on fashion
- sub-cultures and special clubs for homosexuals
- expressive forms of art; cubism, futurism, syrrealism, constructivism
- New Age High Class; social status - modern free women
- women comparing themselves with men
- women driving cars, horses and doing sport

And of course, the classic of classics, Coco Chanel - "Less is more"- ideal. Simple androgynous silhouettes, little black dress (LBD). Chanel as first model for her own designs.

1930's
- functional style; practical hygiene conscious modern people
- long thin legs, flat breast, tanned skin (the "favor" of Chanel as well, she brought it into fashion) PS! This is where tanned look has gained its representation as the sign of high status and wealth - the tanned look connoted the money and after-holiday-life
- in 1936 women's haunting-fashion came up, women actually started haunting together with men
- an alternative to get fashionable clothes was to sew them on your own

1940's
- slim waist, large shoulders, A-cut

1950's
- plyester, acrylic were used for fashion, the price of these materials went down, it was possible to produce bigger collections
- washing of clothes thanks to new materials - previous times in history it hadn't been possible
- the birth of Ready-to-Wear (pret-a-porter)
- 1947 Dior's New Look (!)