Sunday 19 June 2011

Gender Performance

Womanliness as masquerade 1929

'Women with masculine ambition had to hide behind a façade of femininity so as to avoid retribution by men: Womanliness therefore can be assumed and worn as a mask both to hide the possession of masculinity and to avert the repercussions espected if she was found to possess it

J Entwistle, The Fashioned Body, Fashion and Gender p179

Thursday 9 June 2011

Designing for the Androgynous

Butler Insists “Identity is fictional”, that it is conjured by socially coded actions of the body, including acts and gestures, articulating desires to create an illusion of the interior and organize the gendered core
( Butler J, 1990, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, Routledge, London)
 

‘A mask is not primarily what is represents but what it transforms’ (Levi-Strauss 1982)



Local Gender Performance with Chris Lilley
Summer Heights High

First previewed on ABC, Summer Heights high is a local example of Gender performance by actor Chris Lilley.

 An Australian comedy which is narrated to look like a reality show exposes the sterotypes found within High school's both public and private around Australia.

Lilley acts three characters, Jonah the Tongan bully with learning difficulties, disrupting the class, Mr G a flamboyant attention seeking teacher who tries to make the role of the drama teacher the most important in the school, suffering from insecurities of his acting career that never took off the ground and Jaime, popular school girl who Lilley portrays as a sarcastic sterotype of the feminist characteristics and behaviour of the stuck up school girl.



Lilley plays with each role and draws out the irony of each sterotype to Australian high schools, the dramatic differences between each character played by Lilley exaggerates the characteristics he can create for each character using heavy sarcasm and humor.
His trio role of each character, each so very different, portrays the performance of gender and how it can be acted by gestures, acts and behaviour of the individual to organise the gendered core of their identity.

'The futures uncertain and the end is always near' Jim Morrison, The Doors

'Well i woke up this morning and i got myself a beer...the futures uncertain and the end is always near'

Jim Morrison in Roadhouse Blues, the Doors

The future of society is unknown. We do not know where our world can lead, we can only predict. This quote is a motivation to my design process which lies as a constant reminder that we are not sure where we are heading, when the world can end or where we might be in 10 years time.

Enjoy the moment, hope for the best and put forward what you desire. Dont hold back.

The Man in Black


Johnny Cash
The Man In Black lyrics
Well, you wonder why I always dress in black,
Why you never see bright colors on my back,
And why does my appearance seem to have a somber tone.
Well, there's a reason for the things that I have on.

I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down,
Livin' in the hopeless, hungry side of town,
I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime,
But is there because he's a victim of the times.

I wear the black for those who never read,
Or listened to the words that Jesus said,
About the road to happiness through love and charity,
Why, you'd think He's talking straight to you and me.

Well, we're doin' mighty fine, I do suppose,
In our streak of lightnin' cars and fancy clothes,
But just so we're reminded of the ones who are held back,
Up front there ought 'a be a Man In Black.
{ From: http://www.elyrics.net/read/j/johnny-cash-lyrics/man-in-black-lyrics.html }

I wear it for the sick and lonely old,
For the reckless ones whose bad trip left them cold,
I wear the black in mournin' for the lives that could have been,
Each week we lose a hundred fine young men.

And, I wear it for the thousands who have died,
Believen' that the Lord was on their side,
I wear it for another hundred thousand who have died,
Believen' that we all were on their side.

Well, there's things that never will be right I know,
And things need changin' everywhere you go,
But 'til we start to make a move to make a few things right,
You'll never see me wear a suit of white.

Ah, I'd love to wear a rainbow every day,
And tell the world that everything's OK,
But I'll try to carry off a little darkness on my back,
'Till things are brighter, I'm the Man In Black.

Comme Des Garcon

Wednesday 1 June 2011

John Berger 'Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at' 
(Berger J. Ways of seeing, Men act and women appear' 1972)


Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Series and the role play of Gender
Cindy Sherman uses herself as the subject to transform into multiple identities of a woman, using common visual codes recognized under the male gaze. These codes are what is percieved to 'feminine' by the viewer.
Her work in her Untitled film series shows a variety of female sterotypes based around the 1960's. Suggesting there is no innate biological identity; that gender is unstable and constructed by the individual.

Feminism is created by the woman to hide her power from the male gaze.

Breaking The Habit... Pushing Boundaries


A collection of images that recognise a sterotype or repeated habit and act to break through these boundaries. These images are a reminder of the ironies of life. They aspire my path as a designer to not let go of my values and give an edge to my work and ideas.

Marcel Duchamp's Mona Lisa 1919





YSL, The Smoking Suit, 1975


The smoking suit by YSL was created in 1966, empowering women by giving them the option to wear clothes that were normally worn by men with influence and power

Designing Away from the Body


Yohji Yamamoto
 The designer that has been the most inspiring to my collection through his design practice creating volume and shape away from the body. The body is used as a palette to build on, creating a space between the body and the garment.

'Space is movement' Yohji Yamamoto

Asymmetry is a basic element of Yamamoto's designs unbalancing proportions to create a different sense of movement. This ties in well to my concept i have been researching considering the elements of gender performance including energy, motion, gestures and repitition.

Jan Saudek's Palette of colours

Jan Saudek, Photography Artist

Originally i was drawn to the brilliant childlike, rainbow colours of Saudek's work
He takes a photograph and manipulates the contrast and brightness of the images to create a beautiful surrealist dream of a setting.

Bright turquoise, burnt oranges and rust mixed with dusty purples and deep navy blues are an inspiration to the colour palette for my collection 


Tuesday 17 May 2011

Andjec Pejic and the Interchangable Gender


Transsexual Beauty Andjec Pejic is a young, transsexual model from Serbia.
Jean Paul Gaultier and Marc Jacobs have used Pejic to model both their menswear and womenswear in the same seasonal collection.
Pejic is an inspiring muse to my collection; his work is an example of interchangeable gender within contemporary fashion



Tuesday 26 April 2011

Breaking the Habit

The Smoking Nun
Elizabeth Wilson, Fashion Theorist refers to the individual as an actor, not a gendered individual, just an actor performing under a mode of beliefs creating an identity or illusion of the gendered core.


E Wilson, Adorned in Dreams, 2007


My collection has been inspired by the body as a variable surface, influenced by culture, social surroundings, politics, hierachy, compulsory sexuality and gender.
Researching the interchangable performance of gender i was inspired to create a design collection that was not focused on dressing the 'gendered body' but dressing the body through elements of performance on interchangable gender.

The title of my collection will be 'Breaking the Habit'

Exploring The Paradigm of Masqerade Through Superhero's

Dressing up as a superhero
Fabrications of personal identity are represented through an object of desire, the superhero. An escape from reality through fantasy to escape the ordinary.



Looking into our inner child
Children have inspired my collection to design through their eyes. They seek a world with no boundaries or rules and inspire a world created by their own fantasies, with no understanding of what is acceptable or appropriate in society. Children do not understand gender, sexuality, identity or politics, in their world they can be whatever they want to be. A bird, a fairy, superman, batman or robin. It does not affect their decisions that they cannot fly...

Tuesday 19 April 2011

Masquerade of Dressing up: The Ungendered Body

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=39141630389&set=a.492781570389.290374.712055389&type=1&theater


The Ungendered Body

The transformation of the body into a metaphor, dressing to our fantasies from fictional characters and superhero's. It is an escape from the worlds realities emerging form through myth and illusion.

The body meditates from its physical state, masked into a state of illusion.





Wednesday 13 April 2011

Dude looks like a Lady

(Marv, robber from home alone)
Dressing up: photo taken at a dress up party. Theme'Where were you in 1992?'
This costume was an inspiration from the films we grew up with in the 90's