BACKSTITCH

Personal style is one of the principal ways in which we project our identities. This combination of words itself explains the phenomenon–personal, a word with an intimate kinship with the self, and style, a word steeped in cultural formation. Our style of dress both reflects and determines our experiences with the world, obviously or not.

The simple axiom that style is projective extends into numerous exciting questions. How do we honor the passage of time with our clothes? Are our tastes supportive or combative of our families? Do we dress to blend in or stand out? For the Spring 2023 Style Shoot, we mull over the ways in which identity and dress correlate by dedicating our shoot to the idea of generational kinship.

Kinship brings with it an essentialism. Family is the origin of kinship. For all of us, family determines our nature and creates the foundation for being nurtured. It is both the determinant of genetic makeup and the origin of socialization. To be ‘kin’ is to be related, by blood or love. Over time, close friends, lovers, and even our pets become kin. These elements of kinship change and develop as we grow, giving us avenues to explore our own relationality with the world around us. Friends are chosen when our ideologies are aligned, and we incorporate the characteristics we admire amongst our friends into ourselves. In the most general sense, kinship is connection. It is a loving togetherness between ourselves and the world around us. Whenever we are kin, we can find inspiration from the other.

When we ask ourselves about the relationship between kinship and fashion, nostalgia emerges. The patterns, materials, styles, and pieces we wear often are closely linked with where we come from, who we are now, and who we want to be. These comparisons stem from kinship, a connection to those who define and redefine how we see ourselves. Through kinship, we connect to our past and present to formulate pastiches of those we idolize.

Pastiche describes the reappropriation of past influences or styles in modern contexts in a respectful, almost mythical manner. The trend of pastiche is a symptom of postmodernism that has imbued today’s arts, media, fashion, design, and culture with a perpetual reverence for yesterday. Pastiche can be aligned with a larger idea in postmodernity–a nostalgia for nostalgia. Pastiches are like a doublepaned set of rose colored glasses. We push culture forward by reappropriating styles of the past.

We can think of pastiche and generational kinship like a handmade quilt. Quilts are associated with storytelling; they symbolize family, stability, and creative expression. Each piece appropriated from another garment adds to the form, function, and style of a quilt. Each piece is stolen from another garment, but the combination and sewing together of the pieces is what imbues the quilt with originality and value.

The symbol of a quilt is useful to think about how intergenerational kinship influences our sense of style. Styling pieces from different time periods, stylistic generations, locations, and designers is a chance to assemble a collage of our own self expression. Like a good quilt, kinship-inspired fashion choices tell a story. Fashion is increasingly reflective of the diverse cultural backgrounds that represent us. Our self-expression places us in a liminal space with time, history, tradition, newness, and refurbishment. At the center of it all is kinship, our connective thread to cultural identity.