YearBox 2015 by Jonathan Kyle Farmer

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MAFASHIONSTUDIES www.womenof69unboxed.org

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ART DIRECTOR Jonathan KYLE Farmer ma(rca) Associate Professor of Fashion farmerk@newschool.edu 917-929-9274

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PHOTOGRAPHY

Eliza Dillard

PORTRAITS BY:

dille099@newschool.edu 434-770-0167

EDITORIALS BY:

VIRGINIA Eda Cakmak Eeda.cakmak@gmail.com 347-760-0052 ISTANBUL, TURKEY Lauren Sagadore sagal030@newschool.edu 917-504-6055 CANADA Stephanie Edith Herold heros690@newschool.edu 917-860-0671 . CANADA Zoey Chu zoeychu1125@gmail.com 617-820-1339 TAIWAN

Eda Cakmak

When I received the invitation from my colleague Terri Gordon for some Parsons students to produce a 2015 version of Women of ’69 Unboxed, I was intrigued. Once I saw the documentary, I was hooked. The film presents how the lives of some of those ‘Women of ‘69’ unfolded, how their dreams and aspirations were realized, or changed. It speaks to women everywhere who were part of a generation whose lives were shifting so significantly, offering them greater opportunities and more agency. After all, the Skidmore women were graduating at a time of enormous social and political upheaval in America, and they ‘wanted to be free’ - they wanted to be ‘un-boxed.’ Nearly 50 years on the world has changed for women, but countless issues remain the same, many of the hopes are shared, but so are the anxieties, not least those summoned by graduation and entry into the wider world. I am so impressed how our Women Unboxed, 5 graduates from the MA Fashion Studies class of 2015, participated wholeheartedly in this project. They bared their souls, shared their hopes and fears, put on - and took off, their clothes, to create this wonderful set of photographs and texts; all this as they were completing final theses and course work. I am very glad that Eda, Eliza, Lauren, Stephanie and Zoey were able to see the project through to completion. It became a little uncertain at times, but it was also a huge amount of fun. I extend my sincere thanks to my colleague Jonathan KYLE Farmer, in the School of Fashion, who entered into the project so enthusiastically, when he was also very busy, and brought his unique creative eye to the art direction, and filled in as photographer. Thanks also to Zhi, a sophomore BFA Photography student, already with the skills of a professional. Finally, and importantly, thanks so much to our Women of 2015 : Unboxed – wishing you each the brightest of futures. Professor Hazel Clark Research Chair of Fashion Parsons School of Design March 31, 2015

Zhi Wei www.zhi-wei.com 646-894-7073 LAUREN SAGADORE - EDITORIAL BY:

Jonathan KYLE Farmer ma(rca)

WITH THANKS TO MA Fashion Studies, School of Art and Design History and Theory. + The Gender Studies Program Parsons School of Design, The New School The MFA Creative Writing Program at The New School for Public Engagement + Phyllis Kriegel

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Eda Cakmak

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You never know if you will get what you ask for. But the only way to make sure you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get it is to not ask for it. Locating the body in queer embodiment: queerness in subversion of the body through dress.

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It’s a mess getting dressed. I set aside at least 30 minutes to get dressed every morning, and then I panic because it takes longer. I put on and off clothes until I find the outfit that’s a perfect balance of complimenting the weather, my mood, how they feel against my skin, how well they go together, what I have clean, and what I will be doing that day. And then I end up with a giant pile of clothes on my floor that I have no time to clean up and somehow in an outfit that expresses who I am. It’s like magic. And it’s what Fashion Studies is about. So I put myself in the middle of all of this, and ask, how is this queer? How is this me? How is this the dress practice of a queer fat woman from Turkey living in New York?

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Stephanie Edith Herold

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Ice Cream Dreams: Food as a tool Visual Rhetoric in Luxury Fashion Advertisements from 2010 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Present

Though Lagerfeld crafted the appearance of a grocery store, he had created a space without a referent in the real world- a completely constructed concept divorced from its supposed facsimile, the supermarket. Having given up their goods, the participants were left to go home desirous of the products they visually put in their own shopping bags during the show, and in want of more Chanel wares, ultimately frustrating their consumer desires rather than satiating them.

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;I decided then to take as a guide for my new analysis the attraction I felt for certain photographs. For of this attraction, at least, I was certain. What to call it? Fascination? No, this photograph which I pick out and which I love has nothing in common with the shiny point which sways before your eyes and makes your head swim; what it produces in me is the very opposite of hebetude; something more like an internal agitation, an excitement, a certain labor too, the pressure of the unspeakable which wants to be spoken.â&#x20AC;? Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida (1981), 18-19

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Zoey Chu

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A life detoured is not a life destroyed. The borderlands of Fashion Blogosphere: Performative Identities and Transnational Flows of Fashion Blogs in East Asia

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I’ve always struggled with what it means to be Taiwanese, an anonymous or “the other” living in New York City. National belonging is an important value for me, but I also recognize that nationalism is noxious. Having lived in the States for four years, I value my transnational experiences and the opportunity to be a part of the Fashion Studies community at Parsons, which has allowed me to gain a critical understanding of fashion and simultaneously helped me reconcile all the differences I’m told that I can’t be. People have repeatedly told me that I can’t be a fashion publicist in New York City without being a native English speaker. That I can’t be Taiwanese while also being Chinese. And that I can’t compete with all these up-and-comers when I am already 27 years old and still in school. The more I listen to them, the more I am faced with identity anxiety. I long for a sense of national belonging and recognition, but I also abhor the “forever foreign” label that others have ascribed to me. As a result, I’m always trying to expand my understanding of the relationship between transcultural practices and the local societies in which they take place. By analyzing East Asian fashion bloggers in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, I have studied how the precarious relationships between fashion, race, gender, sexuality, nationhood, and global economy are negotiated and managed in contemporary societies across East Asia. The power of the fashion blogosphere is of course integral to identity and body politics. However, today it is equally important in terms of how cultural and ethnic differences in the fashion blogosphere exist within the broader transnational and contemporary context of social inequality, cultural prejudice, and systemic bias, as well as in all the practices aiming to defy and blur accepted polarities—polarities we’ve taken for granted for a long time, like the ones between modernity and tradition; foreign and native; men and women. In this sense, my study reflects, rather than renews, society. It reflects each one of us. Most importantly, it reflects the identity anxiety I have. I’ve come to realize that identity actually is not given to individuals, but produced in concert through their exercise. This study has made me realize how meaningful it is to be able to understand the particular vulnerabilities associated with my sense of personal identity. In doing so, I have become reconciled to my situation and I am able to play a role that transcends these aforementioned polarities and identities.

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Lauren Sagadore

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Constructing the Self through Costume: Dress Practices in the New York Burning Man Community.

I reflect a lot on happiness. Happiness isn’t something that just happens, it has to be chosen, cultivated, advocated for. People often ask me why I’m always dressing up in costumes. It’s simple. Costumes bring me happiness.

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Life in New York City runs at a breakneck pace. As a graduate student, I’m constantly juggling classes, project deadlines and work commitments. How does one deal with the stress? My research looked at how a change of dress, by stepping out of fashionable garments from our everyday lives and into costumes, can act as a tool to release these pressures. Looking at costume culture in New York’s Burning Man community, I wondered why I’d met so many adults who, likewise, enjoyed spending their weekends dressing up in bizarre costumes. Costuming reconnected me with the materiality of dress. Inspired to make my own costumes, I was able to tap into a creativity I’d underutilized. Making, styling and performing costumes empowers men and women, activating agency in their dress practice. Costumes also have the ability to lift us out of our everyday lives, a spectacle amidst the routines we become entrenched in. Adopting characters, personas, and fantastical attire allows for the exploration of multiple sides of our personalities, in the process revealing secret selves that are obstructed by our normal subject positions. Perhaps most importantly, costumes encourage us not to take things too seriously, channeling one’s inner child. Just as children are encouraged to play, so too should adults. Costumes allow me to work hard, and play harder.

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Eliza Dillard

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The Reality of Aging: Discipline and Aging Anxiety in The Real Housewives of Orange County.

The aging body is oftentimes a taboo subject that tends to make people feel uncomfortable, and I think this is why I gravitate towards it. My research pushes me outside of my comfort zone daily and causes me to question my body and my existence, which I find extremely rewarding.

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Women are involuntarily thrust into a fight against time and aging. Almost all forms of media ask us to maintain or rediscover our most “youthful” selves, whether this means something as simple as dyeing our hard-earned grey hairs or taking more extreme measures such as Botox injections or even plastic surgeries. For a large portion of middle-to-late-aged women in American culture, anti-aging creams, lotions, or serums are an assumed staple of their daily beauty regime. What does it mean that women are so eager to buy into products marketed to “defy” or “combat” time and its subsequent effects on the body? What does this reveal about our relationships with time and our aging exteriors? The media tells us that when we are young we are at our prime mentally and physically. While certainly some resist these notions, it seems like most women view each accumulated wrinkle as a mark of shame— something that should be hidden. However, aging does not have to be a dark and downward spiral, and time does not have to be an antagonist. Though the skin may wither as we age, we also gain the inner wisdom and peace we strive for when we are younger. At twenty-three, I feel as if I am floating in a deep sea of uncertainty— personally and professionally— and that scares me. I think that youth is just the preface to the more certain, good things to come.

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MAFASHIONSTUDIES www.womenof69unboxed.org

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