The Book by StyleCircle Vol. 6: Prefix

ISSUE 06

THE BOOK

BY STYLECIRCLE

LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

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he land where The Book is produced and released has an important history, present, and future that we need to understand and acknowledge. This land is called Turtle Island, and it is originally the home of many Indigenous peoples. It is the unceded traditional territory of the Anishinaabe, the Haudenosaunee, the Wendat, and the Mississaugas of the New Credit. We acknowledge and respect these nations as the past, present, and future true inhabitant people of this land. What is today known as Toronto is located in the Dish With One Spoon Territory. The Dish With One Spoon is a treaty between the Anishinaabe, Mississaugas, and Haudenosaunee that bound them to share the territory and protect the land. We want to recognize that we are sharing this land on which Toronto sits with each other.

EDITORIAL

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Steve Nguyen MANAGING EDITOR Omar Taleb LEAD COPY EDITOR Lannii Pettiford COPY EDITORS Lesley DeBoer, Noah Holder, Safia Sheikh

WRITERS

ART

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Samantha Cass ART DIRECTOR Mia Yaguchi-Chow ASSOCIATE ART DIRECTORS Nevi Gaetan, Isabella Papagiannis

SENIOR GRAPHIC DESIGNER

Christina Armanious, Petra Calder, Harrison Clarke, Erin Colquhoun, Jessi Hamilton, Danica Hooper, Norah Kim, Taite Krueger, Victoria Malawi, Delfina Steph Russo, Erica Weekes Brennan March

PHOTOGRAPHERS

Jacqueline Borg, Audrey Chen, Arushi Chopra, Aisling Gogan, Jennifer Ji, Safa Kubti, Sarah Pasquini, Cindy Phung, Mia Portelance, Zoe Statiris, Natalie Welsh

OPERATIONS

DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS

FINANCE COORDINATOR Cynthia Zhou

EVENTS

DIRECTOR OF EVENTS Danica Hooper

Harrison Clarke, Jillian Pollock, Isabelle Rossi, Cynthia Zhou

Grace Hickey, Jonathan Matta, Hunter McNeil, John Monic Delante, Michaela Owusu, Qiuran Zhu

Madeline Pelley

SPONSORS/PR COORDINATOR

Violet Yin

MARKETING

MARKETING DIRECTOR Nour Al Saied MARKETING COORDINATORS Grace

GRAPHIC DESIGNERS

EVENTS COORDINATORS

SOCIAL MEDIA COORDINATOR

Morgan Cheung

Hickey, David Robert, Julia Rodriguez

CONTRIBUTORS

Liam Brand Margarita Brodie Tamia Campbell Emma Cheuk

Juliette DeJonge Marla Ellis Adam Hedman-Murray Caroline Levin

Mah Moud Austin Philip Ana Sami Katerina Zoumboulakis

LETTER FROM THE TEAM

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lothing is sometimes said to be a second skin. Our relationship with how we dress and present ourselves is inherently personal. It goes beyond the merely representational forms of objects, and what we wear reflects the vivid complexities of the human experience. Fashion can be one of the most intimate forms of expression that cultivates the self, seen through the liminal spaces between the multifaceted experiences of life. The objects that we encounter or revisit become a rite of passage that communicates the trans-formation of identity intersecting in all areas of life. Dressing reflects the authenticity and subjectivity within material culture in relation to the bodies that contextualize personas, legacy, and importance. Ultimately, it is the individual that gives these objects its first breath.

The Book 06 by StyleCircle explores these personal and collective documentations of sentimentality in relation to fashion, culture, and dress. By examining the ideas of reflection, redemption, reconciliation, reconnection, and reclamation, we unveil the cyclical nature of fashion and its ephemeral charm. The pages that follow feature an intimate glimpse into the moments and excerpts that share pivotal shifts; confronting intuitive reflections of our desires, ambitions, frustrations, hopes, and fears manifested through our clothing or other forms of personal adornment. In its essence, clothing makes up the collective scrapbook of our lived experiences, infusing these objects with character and significance. The act of dressing is an act of continuity in shaping ourselves from now until the end.

DISCLAIMER: Over the course of the pandemic, StyleCircle has adapted new forms of creativity that propose challenges to ensure the safety of the team and contributors. All members have undergone internal safety training and followed COVID-19 protocols during all in-person activities. We are incredibly grateful for the entire team for your perseverance and dedication throughout the making of this issue.

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Nostalgia of Physical Touch

ART DIRECTION ISABELLA PAPAGIANNIS PHOTOGRAPHY HUNTER MCNEIL VIDEOGRAPHY KATERINA ZOUMBOULAKIS MUA CAROLINE LEVIN SET ASSISTANTS SAM CASS & JESSI HAMILTON MODELS JEHIEL DOUGLAS, LENIQUE JERVIS, JULIUS RODRIGO, SARAH RUEST

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ARTIST STATEMENT

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ouch is something we as human beings need. From the moment we’re born we find comfort and safety within it, and throughout our lives it continues to be fundamental in the ways we express ourselves. When you’re able to intimately exist alongside your own group of people is when we often find ourselves most comfortable. Meeting people you feel an innate connection to is a beautiful part of the human experience and it’s a gift we often take for granted. It’s when we become physically isolated from these same people we remember just how important their presence was to our lives. “Nostalgia for Physical Touch'' is a visual editorial with the intention of representing people craving touch in different ways while being in isolation.

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In March of 2020 the coronavirus pandemic erupted and the entire world became completely still. Our lives completely shifted and the people we once surrounded ourselves with were now completely physically isolated from us. The feeling of being so distant but close to someone, feeling their presence but being unable to touch them became something I couldn't help but feel on a daily basis.

Through both production and the final product, “Nostalgia for Physical Touch” intends to present how the pandemic has affected touch and the ways we continue to miss it.

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GUTTER CREDIT

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Letters To Our Skin

In the process of adding to, embellishing, covering or adorning, the body is shaped by culture and rendered meaningful. With its changing styles and constant innovation fashion is always reinventing the body, finding new ways of concealing and revealing body parts and thus new ways of making the body visible and interesting to look at…dress and fashion mark out particular kinds of bodies, drawing distinctions in terms of class and status, gender, age, sub-cultural affiliations that would otherwise not be so visible or significant….throwing light on the ways in which bodies are made meaningful to us…

(Joanne Entwistle and Elizabeth Willson, 2001)

CONCEPT DIRECTION NOAH HOLDER

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etters To Our Skin is a collaborative project engaged with by a few members of the StyleCircle team as a running thread throughout this issue of The Book. What began as an exploration of how the dressed body either found power or poison in the way we wear what we wear, became so much more.

As much as our understanding

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of fashion and dress encompass how we communicate our bodies, there is an un-severable link between ourselves, our consciousness, and the flesh we inhabit.

The clothes dress the body, and the body dresses the soul.

What comes with inhabiting this earth in the way we do is a myriad of strife and struggles.

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All of which we experience, as one letter explores, either through our bodies or with them.

Some of these notes discuss a tension of separating the self and the capsule we are contained by.

How often we see the body as the source of our pain and displeasure, or more so the reason we are responded to with fear, hatred and oppression.

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One piece is a culmination of letters dealing with a new knowledge of their queer body, how we begin to communicate such a thing, whilst holding on to our other identifiers.

“STILL BLACK STILL BLACK” echoed in a small corner. Speaking to a learning of holding everything we are at the same time without letting them slip through the alleyways of our own hands. Others speak to a will to be seen, to be watched. How liberating it may be to be lusted after, a twisted gawking in which the dancer holds the watchers glare, demands it. How this desire to be seen can become an internalized gaze that, overtime grows fangs and wretched nails, manifesting body checking and an unrelenting view of the self.

How these thoughts become tools to tear us apart.

A torn, sewn, dyed, re-dyed, and then dyed again work calls to putting ourselves back together.

Engaging with diasporic legacy, the Indonesian technique of Batik Tulis is applied to a square of fabric. The lengths we go to when we hold no joy, and the work we must do to reconnect with ourselves, to reconcile.

Another sees scanned and manipulated backgrounds raise up like mountains, or skyscraping waves.

“Os to skin os” it begins. A meditation on the space we take, or the space we wish we could, how we often shrink under the weight when we wish we could expand and beam.

One thing that all of these letters know to be true, is that amidst the warring within ourselves, or with the streets we walk and the stares we beat away; is that there is only ever love to give ourselves as the healing ointment. As much as these notes voice a falling apart, an ‘out of love’ or ‘never did love’ rhetoric.

They acknowledge that, to move through the rest of these moments that wait around bends, we must learn how to grow to love the way we grow with our bodies.

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GUTTER CREDIT

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WORDS ERIN COLQUHOUN & TAITE KRUEGER GRAPHICS SHIRLY TO

An anthology of two stories from two writers reflecting on accessories belonging to their families, and the sentimental relationship our writers share with them. In being taken back in time through these items and their histories, we are reminded that nostalgia can be followed by bitterness, sweetness, or both.

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The Legacy Necklace WORDS ERIN COLQUHOUN GRAPHIC SHIRLY TO

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n 1950, at the age of 20, my grandmother Audrey moved to Toronto to study nursing. The city was so beloved by her that she cried when she and my grandfather moved back to Nova Scotia, not long after my father was born. 70 years later, in 2020, I moved to Toronto to begin grad school. Though Audrey died almost six years ago, she is never far from my mind.

Stepping off the plane at the Toronto Pearson International Airport, alone and tired, I thought of her. Now, when I walk two blocks down the street and pass by the hospital in which my father was born, I think of her. The necklace she gave me, never far from my body, serves as an ever-present reminder—a reminder that Audrey is gone, and yet a piece of her lives on through me.

At the age of fifteen, during an irregular visit, she gifted me the necklace. If I had known then what I know now, I would have documented that moment. In hindsight, that moment was so pivotal to my life, and yet it felt fairly unremarkable at the time. I can’t help but wonder what prompted it. I know that a grandmother passing down a necklace to her granddaughter isn’t necessarily exceptional. Many women pass heirlooms down to younger generations as they get older, in a practice that is a somewhat morbid yet thoughtful preparation for their inevitable death. I imagine they also want to ensure that their loved ones have pieces of them before they go; perhaps their own mother or grandmother gave them something of theirs, and they want the women after them to feel the same connections they did. Could it simply be tradition and obligation that carries this practice through generations? Surely, it must be something deeper.

The necklace in question has a delicate gold chain, and on it a thin circular pendant with flecks of red, blue,

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and green arranged in a subtle yet intricate pattern that is meant to represent the French Gothic stained glass windows of Notre Dame Cathedral de Paris. It was given to her by her second husband Bob, when they visited Paris for the first time in the late ‘80s.

Bob died three years before I was born, but Audrey lived for another twenty-one years after he had passed. When I was twenty-one, I traveled to Paris and visited the Cathedral myself. My grandmother was not Catholic, and I am not overly religious, but as I clutched the necklace in my hand and walked through the pews, I was overcome with the most peculiar combination of grief and peace. My grief, still not wholly processed to this day, was tempered by the gentle candlelit energy in the church and eased by the sweetness of my special connection to her. I knew, with the most ardent conviction, that I was in the right place at the right time. Audrey had once stood where I was standing, wearing the necklace I was wearing. I believe she felt one of her many dreams being fulfilled, the same why I did.

After Paris, I started to think about Audrey as a fully-realized person, rather than just what she was to me. Who was Audrey before she was a wife? A mother? A grandmother?

How much of herself disappeared into those roles, the way so many women’s identities do?

I know that she loved to travel, but I gather she didn’t get to travel much until her children were grown and she was well into her second marriage. I try not to project my own ideals too much onto her, but I like to think she felt a sense of liberation when she traveled, that she was able to do what she wanted,

when she wanted to. So many women, especially of her generation, were robbed of that freedom. I wonder what she might have felt, when this second chance at love was cut short with Bob’s passing. Above all, I wonder why she chose me to carry this necklace, this piece of her heart, this symbol of love and adventure, for her. I choose to believe it's because, even at my tender age, she recognized a kinship between us.

It wasn’t until Audrey’s funeral, mere weeks after I graduated high school, that the significance of the necklace began to take hold.

Many of my most sentimental belongings from childhood were given to me by her: a teddy bear, an embroidered pillow, a ballerina figurine. Still, it was the necklace that brought me comfort during her service, resting gently around my neck as I hummed along to ‘You Are My Sunshine.’ It was the necklace that glinted in the sunlight as I stood next to her final resting place, as her urn was set to rest next to Bob’s. I remember the moment my aunt’s eyes lit up with recognition as she saw the necklace and gently reached out as if to touch it; I remember putting the necklace on, and almost never taking it off again.

I didn’t give a lot of deep thought to the necklace immediately after the funeral, other than that it was nice to have something of hers.

It was a conversation starter; people would compliment it often, and ask me where I got it. Telling people the much abridged story of its origin was always joyful. I loved to talk about her, I was proud to show what she had given me, and share how wonderful she was.

Months later, when I thought I lost the necklace in a moment filled with panic and despair, was when I began to really reflect on its meaning. It was an anguish so overwhelming and instant, that I couldn’t even begin to process the intensity of my

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IT WAS NO LONGER MERELY A PIECE OF JEWELRY, BUT A TANGIBLE SYMBOL OF EVERYTHING AUDREY AND I WERE —ARE— TO EACH OTHER

reaction for a long time after.

Losing the necklace felt like losing my grandmother all over again. It was no longer merely a piece of jewelry, but a tangible symbol of everything Audrey and I were—are—to each other.

The pendant is a touchstone, and as I run my thumb over the ridges I understand with steady faith that Audrey—wife, moth-

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er, grandmother—entrusted me with her legacy. Pieces of who she was as a woman, independent from the role she played in the lives of others, are what I wish to learn and remember about her the most. I choose to remember her for her sharp wit, her natural glamour, her sense of adventure, and her unparalleled skill at cards, instead of only as “Granny.” When I touch the

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pendant, I can feel her spirit, grandmother to granddaughter, woman to woman. Even though my time with her was too short, I can take solace in the fact that she gave me this necklace. She chose me to know this piece of her, even if this piece of her belongs to a puzzle I can never complete.

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Red Leather Grave Dancing Boots WORDS TAITE KRUEGER GRAPHIC SHIRLY TO

TW: mentions of abuse

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he remnants of night clung to the corners of my quilt, as sticky and persistent as the fragments of a spider’s web unknowingly stumbled through.

The echoes of the nightmare bounced against the corners of my mind, it took all my courage to slide from under the protective shield of my covers and creep out into the hallway. All I could hear was the rasp of my breath and the complaints of the floorboards under my feet, surely giving my location to the monster behind the bathroom door.

My sleepy eyes saw ghastly creatures in each shadow and heard their groans in each mutter of the furnace. But as I reached the end of the hallway… the red of thick block crayons in the moonlight. The heel, scuffed yet sturdy, was wedged against my mom’s bedroom door so I could hear her breathing, steady, as languid and regular as waves on the beach on a sunny day. Casting shadows across the doorframe, it was a reminder of safety—mom is here.

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The doorstop, a licorice red heeled boot, sat in the doorway of my mom’s room every night like a timid party guest hesitating on the threshold of an evening of entertainment.

Though the boot was anything but timid, fighting off the creatures that salivated in the shadows, it was and still is equally as intriguing as that shy partygoer. The boots in my mom’s doorway were a signal light to follow, to run towards, as I fled nightmares. Scuffed and worn as they were, the red heels stomp, dance, and shuffle through many of my childhood memories. My sister and I argued over who got to wear them—our tiny, soft feet slipping around on the cracked leather soles that grew around us. The sound of the block heels in the hallway was a drumbeat, a heartbeat, for our dancing. As time rolled over on itself, like stacks of tea rings sinking into a well loved desktop, it never gave me pause to wonder why my mom wouldn’t put the shoes on herself, why she didn’t dance and stomp with us in lovely red.

As I grew, nightmares solidified, climbing out of my mind and learning to walk, to follow me. The things I feared most no longer lived in that quiet space behind the bathroom door or the shadow created by my bed skirt, but walked beside me in the hallways and whispered in my ears when I was alone in my room. No longer did my nightmares have fangs and glowing eyes, but their breathing sounded a lot like the word “failure.” Through everything the boot remained, the cracked leather murmuring, “Tell me what’s wrong.” During the sleepless nights that followed my first heartbreak, I stumbled through the darkness, tears in my eyes, seeking comfort.

Those nights I halfway hoped a monster really would come out from behind the bathroom door, if only for a distraction.

Heartbreak fades though, as did the vibrant leather, but the boot never failed to hold my mom’s door open.

It was an unremarkable morning when my mom and I sat in the kitchen steeped in the fragmented sunlight coming through the window that she blurted out, “They don’t even fit me!” Sleep stuck in my eyes and caffeine not yet in my system, I was confused. Her socked feet murmured as she paced around the kitchen table uncovering, as a painter uncovers a work only on the canvas, the story I had longed to understand.

It was the morning of my uncle’s wedding. My mom, her sister, my twin and I were left with time to kill in the sticky summer heat. We wandered through a small town in Southern Ontario, waves from nearby Lake Huron lulling its roads to sleep as my mom, one tiny hand in each of hers, set off in search of an adventure. The four of us spent the morning window shopping from kitschy stores of sea shells, beach towels, and branded water bottles. The townspeople were friendly but quaint, much like the town itself, worn down by the incessant nature of the currents. It was my mom who saw the store across the street, a second-hand shop with charmingly shabby knick knacks filling the windowsill and slouched mannequins in old furs parading along an invisible catwalk.

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We travelled as a compact unit, mom and sister each with a twin in hand, drawn towards a store of promise and discovery. Holding onto the heat and smelling like the sun-faded lace curtains and quilts in my family cottage, the worn clothes seemed to leave the racks on the shoulders of their previous owners’ memories, following us as we shuffled through old closets and past lives.

My mom saw them in the corner first. They were like the unapologetic red of merlot staining your favourite blouse. They had a thick heel, a square toe, and they stretched up mirroring the curve found on the back of the leg, where the ankle turns into the calf. Despite their beauty, the boots were too small for my mom by a size and a half, and despite her best efforts, she could not comfortably squeeze her foot into the stiff leather. The woman who owned the store, upon hearing of my mom’s love affair with crimson shoes, pointed to a pile of red shoes behind the cash register. Each pair was unique, there were more shades of red than I even knew existed, and all different styles and shapes. The woman explained that she was collecting them 24

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for herself and her four sisters.

While admiring the boots, mom didn’t pry but the owner began to explain: “We plan on using them as grave dancing shoes. We’re going to dance on my father’s grave,” She said. “He was a horrid, abusive man, hated women and having five daughters was like the worst kind of punish-

ment for him.” The woman spoke of his belittling them, sneering when they dressed up, and calling them horrible names. It was the thought of her four sisters, as tightly woven together as the sides of the zipper on the boots themself, that kept her smiling.

Just as my mom and her sister would dance together to the radio songs they could always remember, the storekeeper and her sisters used melody as medicine. Bruised skin was soothed by song, sweet words sung in darkness possessing as much power as any painkiller a doctor could prescribe.

Despite buckling plaster and whisky stains on the couch, the rebellion remained strong, if underground. Pinky promises communicated secret codes, sugared cereal and the red shoes in the back of the closet were the only indications of the secret society the sisters created. Sisterhood had propped them up, even as fear had threatened to shrink them. “He hated us dressing up,” she said, “he always told us we were trash, so when he died we decided that we needed to go, all five of us, and dance. We needed him to know he didn’t get the better of us.”

My mom had then tried to return the boots to their place behind the counter telling the store owner that they needed them, that these boots would be the best ones for the sisters’ last hurrah, but the owner shook her head and pushed them back at my mom. She explained that while she had purchased these boots for grave dancing, they didn’t seem to really fit in with the other shoes, and that she already had five pairs to choose from. Looking at us, she decided that they belonged to my mom.

My mom still thinks of that woman from time to time, in her little store of mementos with her sisters and their grave dancing shoes.

She’s told me that she has always wanted to know why this woman looked at the four of us, two sets of sisters, and decided to share her story. Maybe it was for just that reason— sisters have a magical sort of power, and this connected her to us in an unexplainable way. Or maybe it was the heat of the day, or the shape of the moon, or the way her sister laughed that made the store owner want to explain the power of the red shoes.

“And so, that was how I came to own a pair of red leather grave dancing boots that don’t even fit. But I’ve learned from those boots that just because something doesn’t fit doesn’t mean it doesn’t fit in.”

My mom had been talking for almost an hour, my tea was cold and had a strange film on top. Her words fresh in my mind, I climbed the stairs to my room. One of the boots sat in her doorway, sprinkled with a coat of dust, like icing sugar on a pancake. Grave-dancing boots? The familiar leather seemed to scoff.

They weren’t, they aren’t, grave dancing boots to me. While that woman and her sisters dance through life with the soles of their red shoes dirtied from their liberation, to me these boots represent safety and love. They make me feel protected, reminding me that, whether it be in the claustrophobic panic of a half-shaken nightmare or the throat burning sensation before angry tears, my mom will always be there.

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Reading Between The Lines

ART DIRECTION PETRA CALDER PHOTOGRAPHY PETRA CALDER MODELS ANONYMOUS

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ARTIST STATEMENT

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tretch marks cover our skin like the sleeves of our favourite shirt and the legs of our favourite jeans. They sprawl over our bellies, backs and breasts while sharing stories of our past. When did we decide stretch marks were flaws?

When did we decide only women had stretch marks? When did we decide they weren't supposed to be there at all?

Just like our skin, the world around us stretches, evolves and transforms. The waves in the ocean, the cracks in leather couches, the crumpled paper in notebooks, the veins growing on plants, the grooves in hardwood floors. Each an imprint that has transformed over time into a familiar pattern, one we see everyday but neglect to recognize on our own bodies.

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Just like our skin, the fashion around us stretches, evolves and transforms. Distressed jeans, ripped leggings, pulled wool, frayed dresses, stretched t-shirts, wrinkled leather. Each an homage to the stories on our skin.

Each a piece of fashion that reflects the familiar pattern, one we see everyday but neglect to recognize on our own bodies.

We believe stretch marks are a flaw, a mistake, a weakness, an imperfection. When in reality they are a design, a symbol, a motif, a map. They are everywhere on everything, impacting everyone, why can’t we realize it?

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Disclaimer: This article tells the story of body piercing as significant in reifying queer narratives from the contributor’s personal experience. This experience has been produced under a colonized perspective, meaning that the Western connotations of piercings as queer or “other” discussed in this article operate with privilege shared amongst white Westerners. Readers are encouraged to seek supplemental resources that challenge this understanding of body piercings and which promote body modifications like piercings as technologies originating from BIPOC cultures.

Embodied Practices of Queerness WORDS SAM CASS PHOTOGRAPHY SAM CASS

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f you tipped me for the oatmilk latte I served you between the years of 2019 and 2020, I welcome you to take the stage to receive thanks for sponsoring the collection of piercings that decorate my face.

With 14 piercings in total, I’m a regular target for questions like, “How do you blow your nose?” and “Don’t you have enough?” Once, an older woman even struck up a conversation while we were both in line for the cashier at Metro to ask very boldly if I had any other piercings, which I laughed off awkwardly.

I first wanted piercings when I stepped into a ballet class at a local studio at six years old. I would dance there on Saturday mornings, and while my mom ran groceries, I would admire the princess-cut crystal studs that each of the girls enrolled in competition wore. I didn’t have my own ears pierced until I was eleven, after I’d left training

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and would never have my own turquoise studs covered up with taupe tape for recitals.

Before my freshman year of university, I had unremarkable double lobe piercings on either ear that didn’t stretch far enough from the norm to raise any eyebrows. Then all of a sudden, I found myself in a new city, making new friends, but answering an old question, “How will they know I’m queer?” It’s a situation many 2SLGBTQIAP+ identifying folks are confronted with—the process of coming out, if you choose to, never really stops. Piercing my cartilage meant that I was subverting what was expected of my bodily appearance, and was more likely to be perceived as queer. My piercings still hold for me a permanent commitment to queer aesthetics and the desire to be visibly queer to this day.

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I STARTED SEEING BODILY MODIFICATIONS, LIKE MY PIERCINGS, AS AFFIRMING PR AC T IC ES

During my sophomore year of fashion studies, I had the privilege of enrolling in a queer special topics course where I learned how my journey with piercings could be understood from an academic perspective. I was re-introduced to Judith Butler’s theories of phenomenology as discussed in her paper, Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory, where she reflects on existentialist philosopher, Simone de Beauvoir’s suggestion that “One is not born, but, rather, becomes a woman.” She interprets that if phenomenology tells us that identity is developed through the “stylized repetition of acts,” then the performance of one’s identity is manifested in reaction to established social models of behaviour.

That’s when I started seeing bodily modifications, like my piercings, as affirming practices. If there’s a hegemonic model for the “natural” body, it inherits heteronormative models of behaviour.

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By fundamentally altering the body with permanent forms of adornment, the repetition of acts is broken, and the body is freed from any expectations it had carried. tttvv was like accessing a tool used to carve out self-guided narratives. While researching for my final assignment in the course, I learned that the need for this was a shared experience.

The journal article, Visibly Queer: Body Technologies and Sexual Politics, published by Victoria Pitts, discusses interviews held with six queer-identifying participants of a larger study investigating Western body modification subculture. Several themes surface in the paper, including that of “negotiating risk” experienced by one participant named Bob, whose practice of scarification placed him in under an active role of accepting self-stigmatization.

Yet, as scarification denied Bob any hetero-acquiescence, it returned to him a sense of agency. In this way, body piercings can enact what Pitts’ refers to as a “site of action and protest” across the body.

Outside of the classroom, the discoveries I’ve made about my connection to my piercings continue to empower me. It’s been two years since I first walked into a tattoo parlour in Toronto’s Kensington Market with a bright green twenty-dollar bill and identification card in hand and signed away for a nose piercing, and though I haven’t made a return trip in a long while, my piercings continue to help me feel more at home in my body. And the next time someone asks, “Will you be getting any more?” I’ll probably reply, yes.

Beauvoir, S. d., Borde, C., Malovany-Chevallier, S., & Thurman, J. (2011). The second sex (First Vintage Books ed.) Vintage.

Butler, Judith. “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An

Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory.” Theatre

Journal, vol. 40, no. 4, 1988, pp. 519–531. JSTOR, www.jstor. org/stable/3207893.

Klesse, C. (2007). Racialising the Politics of Transgression: Body Mod ification in Queer Culture. Social Semiotics, 17(3), 275–292. https://doi.org/10.1080/10350330701448561 Pitts, Victoria (2000) Visibly Queer: Body Technologies and Sexual

Politics, The Sociological Quarterly, 41:3, 443-463, DOI: 10.1111/j.1533-8525.2000.tb00087.x

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Capitalism, and Conformity WORDS DELFINA STEPHANIE RUSSO GRAPHICS BRENNAN MARCH

It's three in the morning, I'm still at school and my phone is buzzing with texts from my very concerned mother. Sprawled out on the floor scribbling designs, the scratchy, multi-toned carpet beneath me starts to look like TV static. Before me lie two spiral bound sketchbooks spilling with smudged graphite drawings.

My first year of fashion school could be summed up as the desperate search for an aesthetic that spoke on my behalf—questioning how the wholeness of my identity, thoughts, and experiences could be articulated through my designs. Weary STYLECIRCLE.ORG

nights spent in the fashion labs, heading to class the next day clad in eyebags and exhaustion, all the while thinking that I suffered from a sort of creative deficiency. Creativity was not something that I lacked, but instead, mine had been strained through conformity.

Fashion exists at the intersection of art and function. The challenge of fashion design is learning to balance the two so that they accompany each other rather than exist in competition. Wearability, sellability, and relatability have become sole indicators

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of functionality in fashion.

Function is often thought to be universally understood, as if anyone can look at a collection of garments and, without bias, identify its purpose and how well that purpose has been achieved.

Design is ubiquitous. It's nearly impossible to avoid placing or being fed value judgements on design. We are constantly told how “proper” design should look and function. Taking a step back and redefining functionality on an individual level is vital to the creative process. Function doesn't have to be at odds with 39

art, it too can be incredibly meaningful, and creative. This is best embodied in the work of the Central Saint Martins Masters student, Eleanor Chapman.

1 Granary’s interview with Chapman reveals how she marries art and function by using modular design. Within her graduate collection intuitively titled The Body Decides, she channels femininity and power while granting the wearer endless styling possibilities.

By allowing the wearer to decide how a piece functions, Chapman is subverting the capitalist school of thought on function.

A piece’s inspiration, and its intrinsic creative value are so often overshadowed by its ability to produce revenue, or in the case of many fashion students, achieve a decent grade. An artist's understanding of function can dictate whose stories they share and with what audience.

My creative process takes jumbled up concepts and slowly uncrumples them to reveal intangible feelings and experiences. As I make sense of these sporadic ideas, I begin to understand how they shape my identity and inform the way I think.

Throughout my second year of studies, I looked into my relationship with gender roles, trying to separate my idea of femininity from the patriarchal teachings ingrained within me. These gendered ideas of dress within capitalism prey on people for not looking and acting feminine or masculine enough.

Capitalism creates the demand for products that enable people to aspire to unachievable ideals. Given the very rigid views of gender roles that are often entrenched in fashion, it was difficult for me to translate my ideas using fashion media.

I tried to challenge gender roles by incorporating a mix of satire and personal experience within my designs.

A big pink coat excessively littered with frills as to impede the wearer, a pair of denim jeans with a 15” pocket lining and keys sewn into the hems, a pink houndstooth daywear jacket with oven mitts dangling from the sleeves.

My ideas couldn't always be folded neatly into the pockets of my designs, so I looked outside of myself; I felt like I owed people a specific version of my work. Other times, I would feel pressured to mould my creativity around dominant aesthetics—even when they weren’t relevant or meaningful to my vision. My creativity felt inaccessible.

So long as fashion exists under a capitalist society, creativity becomes currency. The fashion industry demands true artistry while it stands by and watches that same art get exploited, commodified, appropriated, and cheapened

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until it's rendered “unwearable.” Something that was drilled into me during my first year is that the fashion cycle works in five stages: the introduction, rise, peak, decline, and finally, rejection. Under this structure, new garments can be distributed as they simultaneously undergo their journey to the landfill.

Shipra Gupta and James W. Gentry’s chapter in the book Eco-Friendly and Fair, explains the impetus behind fast fashion’s success, writing that the Temporary Identity phenomenon is being capitalized on. In other words, the constantly changing identities, preferences, and aesthetics of young consumers are being taken advantage of by the ever changing ideals presented to us in fast fashion.

Fast fashion retailers can copy the work of designers and have it on the market at a remarkably quick pace, and because of this, stress is placed on designers to release collections faster and faster. From the runway to the shelves of fast fashion stores, the most trendy garments will force their way through at watered down versions of their original brilliance, until their meaning evaporates entirely. The final appearance of a garment in fast fashion has a precarious relationship to the original idea that inspired it. Capitalism subdues the value of brilliant design ideas by giving them an expiry date.

THE FINAL APPEARANCE OF A GARMENT IN FAST FASHION HAS A PRECARIOUS RELATIONSHIP TO THE ORIGINAL IDEA THAT INSPIRED IT

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The immediacy of the current fashion cycle carries substantial weight in the minds of creatives, conditioning me to prioritize aesthetic validation over creative identity. Many designers fail to tap into their truest selves through design because they too have been inundated with the threat of the fashion cycle. We ask ourselves this: whose work will the fashion cycle hold space for?

Design requires that we look inwards and working within an industry that monetizes our creativity can be scary.

It puts us artists in a place where we have to negotiate which parts of our authentic selves are marketable. If we look to trends and what's popular to tell us how to design, our work will never be our own.

I’ve learned that a huge part of being a designer is unlearning, deconstructing, and questioning your most default assumptions about fashion and the world around you.

Questioning things that feel fundamental can be a doorway into creativity; when a shirt is no longer defined by having a collar and two sleeves, it can be completely reimagined.

Design can be expanded when we start to rethink the structures we’ve been taught, and challenge the spaces we’ve been told we can and can’t occupy. Peeling back the layers that inform design, confronting the reality of who your work is for, and determining what you really want to say are key.

Pursuing a creative process that doesn’t have a clear path with an identifiable result is intimidating—I'm still trying to figure it out myself, but I know that conformity, expectations, and fear cannot coexist with raw creativity.

In lieu of a burgeoning awareness within the fashion industry, we need to ask, how much of our work is really us? Sometimes it's the most default aspects of design that become the most detrimental to the creative process.

As designers, it is our job to challenge them.

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GUTTER CREDIT

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Anthropocene: Cycle of Decay ART DIRECTION NATALIE WELSH PHOTOGRAPHY AUSTIN PHILIP & NATALIE WELSH HMUA JULIETTE DEJONGE MODEL JULIETTE DEJONGE

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ARTIST STATEMENT

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his narrative photography series explores the significant periods of human activity on Earth: the birth of humanity, the birth of agriculture and the birth of industrialization. Each of these stages intend to remind us of our past roots which contrasts with current and future anxieties.

As the cyclical nature of life on Earth continues despite five mass extinctions, life will still manage to survive.

What we don't know is if this will be with or without us.

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GUTTER CREDIT

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GUTTER CREDIT

Using organic shapes and ephemeral methods of creating, Cycle of Decay emphasizes the non-permanence and beauty of life in contrast to the everlasting yet sterile impact of an emerging technological future. Our desire to live forever and be remembered fights with an organic life that lacks permanence.

Through our impact on Earth, we are making a larger footprint of our existence; yet is it an admirable one? By showing likeness between the human form and botany, can we really have power over nature if we are a part of it? It appears we are at the cusp of another major shift.

What will be our legacy?

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Buy It Once,

WORDS OMAR TALEB GRAPHIC MIA YAGUCHI-CHOW

“You never actually own a Patek Philippe. You merely look after it for the next generation” is the 25-year old slogan that became as famous as the brand it mentions by name. Though it’s been updated over the years, Patek Philippe’s Generations campaign is not about some watch; it’s about an heirloom that will last forever, existing outside the constructs of time and novelty. In muted black-and-white, the ad tells the story of fatherhood.

Seems like an awful lot of significance to place on a magazine ad, doesn’t it?

“Storytelling” is a buzzword that encompasses everything from brand identity and creative direction, to product placement and customer relationship management. More than the subject of a Business of Fashion op-ed, storytelling is the ad infinitum of communication. Before the

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written word, stories were told orally; we’ve always relied on storytelling to explain and record the world around us.

Stories are intrinsically human and yet it’s only in the last few years that we’ve seen companies realize that it takes more than filming a TV spot or plastering an ad on a billboard to build a stronger, more human connection with the consumer. Fashion or not, any marketer will tell you that storytelling is the number one priority for brands a decade into the information overload era.

The romantic notion of having a fashion item last “forever,” synonymous with Patek, is relied on by much of the world’s luxury fashion houses as a powerful marketing tactic. Russell Belk wrote about the “extended self” back in 1988, arguing that a sense of self can include what consumers buy and want to buy. His ideas preceded the industry’s focus on storytelling in marketing, but our

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emotional attachment to fashion points to storytelling as being a powerful enough tool to let us see these luxury goods as extensions of ourselves, almost as companions.

There’s something jarring about the Patek campaign, an advertisement that isn’t necessarily telling their ideal customer to shop, come back, and shop some more. For the middle-class, luxury purchases are just that, luxuries—not exactly the everyday shopping list. This customer segment is far from the jet-set crowd fashion houses aim for with elaborate runway shows.

Leather goods and accessories remain luxury’s bread and butter—the main entry point for middle and upper-middle-class consumers that brands look to enchant while maintaining an image of exclusivity. Call it the Generations Principle, but for some brands, it’s more valuable to let customers be swept away with that “once-in-alifetime” purchase they’ll cherish for years to come.

The Generations Principle doesn’t work for every brand, and the handful of conglomerates that own most luxury fashion houses know this. Conditioned to expect a never-ending stream of collections, collaborations, and capsules, some consumers have come to view luxury fashion as disposable, the latest it-bag piquing their interest just long enough to finish watching one unboxing video on YouTube before moving on to the next.

Global consulting firm Bain & Company describes hero products as the items “every shopper will know and look for.” They are familiar to customers, and brands can expect to sell them season after season. To own a Burberry scarf is to own a piece of England, wherever you are and wherever you go. In the eyes of a tourist, the scarf connects the wearer with a specific period of time and place, not only an extension of the self, but an extension of a location.

Heritage is a crucial element to this fashion narrative, and is a key differentiating factor in the luxury market. Centuries of concentrated wealth fuels the unconscious association consumers make between “luxury” and “Europe,” and allows European fashion houses to take advantage of these perceptions and upsell the romance.

The Generations Principle is most valuable to brands like Dior, who rely on exaggerated, dream-like stories of the past to sell oncein-a-lifetime bags like the Lady Dior to middle-class women on honeymoons in Paris.

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CALL IT THE GENERATIONS PRINCIPLE, BUT FOR SOME BRANDS, IT’S MORE VALUABLE TO LET CUSTOMERS BE SWEPT AWAY WITH THAT “ONCEIN-A-LIFETIME” PURCHASE THEY’LL CHERISH FOR YEARS TO COME. 50

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Evoking Christian Dior in his post-war atelier, or Princess Diana and her iconic black purse, raises customer expectations and emotionally charges the experience. Anyone can go shopping, but shopping at Dior is something else entirely.

For many of the world’s fashion houses, competing in a space where luxury has been commodified while fighting to maintain the heritage that comes with their name is a delicate balancing act. Dior may use “timeless elegance” on their website to describe the Lady Dior, but that’s hardly the same messaging associated with one-time drops like 2020’s Dior Homme x Shawn Stussy collaboration.

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Between historical grandeur and cutting-edge contemporary, the narrative seems to shift with every Instagram post.

This back-and-forth approach to storytelling may have worked up until the COVID-19 pandemic but changing consumer attitudes may force brands to pivot, with fashion houses like Gucci cutting down on a never-ending stream of capsule collections.

There’s little evidence to suggest that these fragmented narratives are sustainable in the long-term, however. The risk of weakening brand equity may steer luxury away from licensing and so-called “diffusion” brands, but they are being replaced with disposable, fast fashion-esque collaborations that may be just as harmful in the long run.

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It’s almost too good to be true, to have something forever—a fairytale tempting us through a window display. Our relationship with not only fashion, but where we place ourselves as consumers of fashion, is informed by marketers spinning competing narratives.

The Generations Principle taps into the human affinity for storytelling to paint luxury as something bigger than just a scarf or a purse. It’s a formula that is at once cracking under the weight of social media, but thriving as customers crave authenticity; you’d be correct to assume that the fashion industry has a lot invested into the smoke and mirrors of it all.

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WORDS SAFIA SHEIKH PHOTOGRAPHY SAFIA SHEIKH

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hat would you wear if nobody was watching? What would you wear if everybody was watching?

These are the stories of three individual second-generation desi Canadians, as told through their words and clothing.

DISCLAIMER: The desi diaspora is not a monolith. These are merely the narratives of three individuals, told by them, and relayed here with their consent. Each interview was carried out in casual, conversation format, allowing each individual to freely express their thoughts.

Not all aspects of each conversation have been included. For the sake of privacy, safety, and their own personal preference, all interviewees have been de-identified.

Code-switching is a frequent practice for many BIPOC folks as a method to conform to sociocultural norms. Dressing can encompass different facets of personal performance, primarily behaviour, and appearance within between the private and public spheres. For him, clothing is seeking refuge and safety at home; it can mask and protect not only the body, but also the mind. It can be used to adapt and per53

The fabric of his garment tells a story of familial love— the touch of a motherly figure and the love language of gift-giving. The value of a garment extends beyond the aesthetics and construction to what it represents: connection. The tangibility of a garment translates that connection into a tactile experience and practice; garment care and maintenance becoming the vocabulary for this language of love.

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I just wear this at home. [...] It is a very normal thing for us to wear at home. [It is] just like what my dad or my brother would wear… and it’s a safe choice—like...it’s very…heteronormative. […] I don’t have to stress about what my parents are thinking while I’m wearing this.

This one [garment] has a bit more substance because I felt like it could incorporate a bit more of my culture. […] I thought of different things— one of them, of course, being performance of identity and how […] that [is] different from when I go out or when I stay in—like [what are] my priorities? […] I feel like this one represents...my background, but also a very normal—at least for me, what a normal, straight […] Indian boy would be wearing at home.

[My grandma] was the one who gave it to me…as a little gift when she came to visit Canada, maybe a few years ago? It’s my mom’s side, my Nani. I honestly wouldn’t choose this if I were in a store in India and there were so many [other] possibilities […] I think it’s like a Salman Khan-type of shirt, and I’m not that guy […] it’s not my taste per se, but yeah, I like her [the garment]. [...] She’s [the garment] mine now.

I also really like the button detailing. They’re little iridescent buttons, and you can tell that they’re hand-sewn! […] Some of them have fallen off, and I’ve had to mend two or three of these, and of course that comes with some things that are a little bit…worn in. […] the buttons falling off, stuff like that, I don’t want to keep dealing with, but I keep on mending it because I care about it.

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The consciousness that others will be observing our bodies influences the choice of what to wear before leaving the home. This can manifest in wearing garments in the public sphere to create an aspirational image of ourselves.

For him, this practice of aspirational dressing is an expression of freedom. He described to me the complexity of emotions involved when wearing clothes that make us feel good about our appearance. Dressing is an intimate act, and while we claim it to be a liberating practice, we sometimes find ourselves juxtaposed in its emotional and physical experience.

"

Most often, [I] wear it for Instagram just to take pictures. I’d wear it to clubs. I’ve worn it to parties quite a bit.

I was thinking about how ideally [emphasis added] I would like to represent myself to other people without having to worry about my family or about what kinds of looks I would get in the daytime. I think in the nighttime is when I feel most comfortable in public and then this is what I would wear in a space where I feel the most comfortable...like—I wouldn’t be wearing this to a restaurant per se. It’s kind of a more badass-type of vibe for me, and I’m not someone who’s super badass, personality-wise.

I’m not someone who would consider myself… edgy when I’m talking to people. I’m just…a… chill boy-kinda vibe. [...] It’s kind of like an armour for me. It represents how I would like to dress in the public sphere and why I dress a certain way. [...] It just evokes this feeling of “I could just dance the night away and not worry about anything”, and I can feel [emphasis added] good because I look good.

Honestly, if you’re asking me physically [emphasis added], I feel really uncomfortable [while wearing the garment]. It’s really taxing to wear all night: you sweat; it’s the opposite of this [gestures to previous garment], you will sweat your ass off. [...] [However] when you do wear [it], it incites a little personality in me. [...] If you carry this off [choose to wear this], you just have to camp it up, you know? So for me, this really is like a little caffeine pill for the night. [...] I kind of want to feel uncomfortable but nice sometimes. Like, physically. Because then it feels—I don’t know, I just feel more dressed up. […] I feel better emotionally, if that makes sense.

Because then it’s like, “I look good. This is what looking good feels like”.

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"YOU APPROPRIATE THESE DIFFERENT CULTURES AND THERE’S NO REAL SENSE OF… SELF. IT’S DOING WHATEVER WILL MAKE YOU FIT IN BEST" The act of gifting garments is a crucial part of intergenerational bonding. Choosing to wear a garment that we may not personally prefer, solely due to the fact that it was a gift lovingly chosen for us, perhaps indicates a form of proximity and respect for the gift-giver. It provides a way to better understand the cultural language of our ancestors, and serves as a bridge to reconcile our differences. For her, it was wearing her mother’s love as a statement piece.

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When Mama first opened the suitcase and showed me this suit, saying it was mine...I was initially kind of disappointed?

Like I have grown up kind of observing the fashion trends in Pakistan, albeit belatedly, and trying to reconcile them with what I see here, and there was always a disconnect. Everything from there, although I grew to love all the suits I wore after I got them, the trends just seemed kind of…I don’t know, kitsch-y? Camp-y? I’m not sure what the right word is [...] And then, somehow, as time passed, I kept wearing it around the house […] I guess over time, just wearing it so often, I came to love it.

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The role of gender and the binaries of “Eastern” and “Western” clothing came up briefly in our conversation. The gender roles we are assigned in our hybrid communities and their subsequent dress codes are constantly challenged.

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I honestly didn’t start wearing any clothing that was looser until I graduated high school. When I did, there was this big trend of “dad shirts”, where people would wear those button-ups with the gigantic cuffs and they would be super cute. My dad was coincidentally planning on getting rid of two of his tops. It’s not really normal, I guess, in my family for us to ask our parents to borrow their clothes […] but he gave me both of those tops, and this is one of them. I think I’m still at a stage where I’m growing and exploring my outward gender expression…it might not seem like much, but I enjoyed the change this top offered me from the tighter clothes I used to wear. It felt kind of like a shield from prying eyes.

I grew up watching my mom wear […] “Pakistani” clothing no matter the situation, and my dad wearing more…”western” clothing no matter the situation. Not that I really believe in that “east vs. west” binary, but it was just something interesting I observed at home.

Both of them were also kind of resistant to adjusting their ways, too. In hindsight, it was kind of fascinating and I have no idea if that’s a universal thing, or just a “my family” thing, but it was interesting. […] I think that’s what made taking this shirt from my dad also seem so weird at the time.

I’m still not sure exactly why it felt weird, and I’m not sure if I can really explain it in words…it didn’t feel wrong [emphasis added] per se, just out of the ordinary. But once I kind of “broke the ice” in a way, it made it so much easier for me to dress how I wanted.

My parents make fun of my choices sometimes now [laughs] but I appreciate that they trust me and don’t really nag me about my clothes anymore.

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What does being a desi person in Canada look like?

Their responses reflected the complexity of desi politics and identity construction in Canada, citing feelings of shame, pride, and confusion.

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I think the experience of being desi in Canada—and this is probably specific to GTA [Greater Toronto Area]—but it’s that idea of kind of growing in shame and being a bit ashamed of your culture. But once I hit university, I noticed—and it wasn’t just with me—but a lot of Brown people who weren’t very connected with their culture, suddenly, it’s like you took pride in it: you were proud to be Indian, you were proud to wear your Indian clothes in public.

Whereas when I was younger, if I were wearing a saree or lehenga, even though they’re really pretty, I just didn’t want to be seen wearing them because I just didn’t want to be stared at. But now, it’s like I want to be seen in that, because I feel it’s kind of like making up for this connection that I kind of lost as a child.

For my thesis project, I made sure to highlight my love for Indian textiles. If someone ever asked me “who are your favourite designers?”, especially in graphic design, I’d always make sure to answer [mentioning] this type [typography] teacher I had. She was Gujarati, she was young, it was the first time I ever saw a Brown teacher teaching me design. Literally, my entire class— it’s all white people teaching me how to do design, and white people stole so many design techniques from us! [...] To be desi in Canada to me means to really own up where you come from, and really be proud of that, in whatever way that means to you. Highlight your background where you can, and raise up other Brown voices in the field that you’re in.

Confusion? […] I don’t think we’ve been in Canada long enough [to say] that there is a very distinct North American desi style. I think it’s emerging and it’s growing, but I think we have so many different facets and types of people. [...] In the U.S, there’s a very distinct Black American culture that encompasses music and clothing, and that’s just by virtue of being there so long.

But I don’t think that’s the case with desi people.

I don’t think there’s a very distinct, separate, desi North American culture.

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[…] and I think with being South Asian in general—it’s not a monolith, you know what I mean?

It’s more than just wearing Indian jewellery with western outfits. That’s what I mean by there’s no distinct North American desi style. I’d say it just pulls from different influences. And I’d say a lot of these tastemakers are usually Punjabi or North Indian…I think it’s just [because of] the presence of Punjabi people in Canada, just because they have longer roots and a history in the country, I think that identity is a lot more distinct than other parts [of South Asia].

"BEING SOUTH ASIAN IN GENERAL—IT’S NOT A MONOLITH, YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN? IT’S MORE THAN JUST WEARING INDIAN JEWELLERY WITH WESTERN OUTFITS."

So, I would say [it looks like] confusion. And I think I see that because, at least when I was growing up, it was like: align yourself with whiteness. That’s what gets you by in the world, that’s what looks good. And if you look at a lot of other diaspora in different areas, it’s: align yourself with Blackness, because that’s what’s…trendy.

That’s what, I guess, is “cool”, right? You appropriate these different cultures and there’s no real sense of…self. It’s doing whatever will make you fit in best. And this was even the case when I was in middle school—I was surrounded by other South Asian people […] but even then, there was always this idea that it wasn’t “cool” to be too Brown, even though everybody around you was Brown! […] it was so strange, when I think about it…there were only one or two white people at our school, but even then, that idea of whiteness was held as a standard, even though no significant proportion of white people were around us…it was still present in what we admired or wanted to be. And so that’s what, I think, would encompass the desi experience.

Perhaps sartorial pride and reclamation is one form of navigating an identity that is so unclear and heavily riddled with outside influences. Our clothing traditions, as they evolve through our experiences and locations, remain our most intimate form of expression. Whether our honesty lies in the way we dress in the private sphere or the public sphere, our choices are wholly ours; they reflect our relationship to the environment and people around us.

One of the interviewees said it best:

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It’s confusing, I’m still figuring it out.

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ART DIRECTION STEVE NGUYEN ILLUSTRATIONS ZOE STATIRIS, TAMIA CAMPBELL, MIA YAGUCHI-CHOW

ARTIST STATEMENT Represented through imaginative and liminal experiences of freedom, this editorial seeks to view the complexities of self-fulfillment, self-discovery, and self-reflection through a utopian vision. Through the perspectives of three illustrators, the featured

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artworks navigate the ongoing quest to explore the senses of what freedom looks like and how their art serves as a medium for physical, psychological, emotional, and spiritual transformation.

This editorial speaks from an urgency for expression bound

by physical limitation and examines the juxtaposition within our emotional and literal realities. It demonstrates how achieving a level of personal and collective freedom is transcendent as we connect with our inner selves beyond physical manifestation.

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ILLUSTRATION ZOE STATIRIS

ARTIST STATEMENT

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n an endless, grassy plain, young queer femmes exist, under an endless stretch of blue. A communal environment, they take care of each other, and tend to the common spaces that they all share. They sleep in a circle under the open sky, and when the sun rises they work together to accomplish an honest day's work. It is a modest, fulfilling lifestyle.

Over seeing this world is a gentle but commanding deity. On a clear day, She is a face in the sky in the form of a butterfly, and in the night She is sprinkled throughout the stars. Omniscient, She protects the femmes from harm's way; although they are certainly strong enough to protect themselves.

The women embrace themselves and move through this space openly, vulnerably. In this space, the women know they are truly safe to be themselves and it's evident, from their powerful strides to their easy laughs. In touch with their needs, they put themselves first; but still there is the sense to nurture and uplift each other in times of need. It is a community of strong and tightly knit individuals, a place of prosper, and healing.

These femmes understand that they owe nothing to no one; not even an explanation.

In this field, they are unbound from the obligations of a world that doesn't want to understand them; drained from their body, there is no more fear left and they are living completely free. In an illustrative painted series creatively directed by Steve Nguyen, I explore the theme of freedom and liberation in relation to the imagination of an idealized queer femme community space in nature.

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ILLUSTRATION TAMIA CAMPBELL

ARTIST STATEMENT

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hen I think of freedom I think of my mental wellness and its processes. I like reflecting on the steps I took towards improving myself, and how I've changed for the better, knowing that even though life hasn't always been the best I could be hopeful that there is a future that's a bit more freeing, more kind. I look at it as a destination of acceptance and a place of peace for myself, it's a thing I'm striving for continuously. Some days I'm closer than others, some days it's a bit out of reach but i still move towards it. I think it's terrifying, and beautiful and worth it, worth the struggle one goes through to become free.

The artwork is just a visual representation of someone reaching for freedom and I think it's an emotional and very relieving moment.

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ILLUSTRATION MIA YAGUCHI-CHOW

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ARTIST STATEMENT

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hen I think of what liberation feels like, I think about what it would feel like to have peace of mind; to let my mind roam free unconditionally. I imagine myself and only myself surveilling my feelings, actions, and thoughts. Liberation to me is being in control of myself.

I imagine Liberation feeling like a warm sunrise, or a flower slowly blooming.

I intended for each piece of the three to communicate a particular kind of liberation; personal growth, in the body, and in the mind. Liberation as a feeling to achieve can manifest itself differently throughout different areas of oneself, and I feel like although it all comes down to the same feeling of “liberation,” the way my body wants to be liberated is different from how my mind wants to be liberated, and so on.

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The Toll of Isolation WORDS ERICA WEEKES ILLUSTRATION SARAH PASQUINI

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n times of chaos, it’s tempting to completely withdraw, to spend your days inside, and attempt to block out all stressors. But in this moment, it is quite literally impossible not to, not because the world is so terrifying, but because we’ve been strongly advised to do so. We know it’s for the best, but after what feels like a lifetime, it’s becoming increasingly difficult. Time spent alone can be beneficial; it can provide a great opportunity to practice some self-care, and help us understand ourselves better, but too much of a good thing can have negative repercussions as well. In the wake of COVID-19 and all it has done to life as we know it, it’s hard not to dwell on the possible lasting repercussions of complete social isolation, especially for those who have struggled with their mental health to begin with. As someone who overthinks to the point of no return, I’ve been giving a great deal of thought to the ways in which social isolation has changed the way I think and choose to interact with others.

This really comes as no surprise given the drastic changes our social landscape has undergone within a mere matter of months.

Taking into consideration just how rapidly this shift occurred, the widespread panic that ensued was completely justifiable. It’s possible that life amidst a global pandemic has simply exacerbated the issues I was facing

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prior to lockdown, but one thing is for sure: spending so much time alone has taken its toll on my mental health. In times of solitude, it can sometimes be difficult to sit and be alone with your thoughts. On the other hand, solitude without any other option is a recipe for disaster, even for those with no underlying mental health issues. Months of this “new normal” have taken their toll, leading many of us to feel defeated, ultimately sinking into the depths of depression.

The initial lockdown was traumatizing for so many. I remember thinking that it wouldn’t last, and that everything would be back to normal in no time. But when those first weeks turned into months, it became evident that there was no end in sight; it was an incredibly overwhelming time filled with uncertainty.

Rather than participating in what I perceived to be an unnecessary amount of hysteria, I completely shut down—a way to protect myself from the uncertainty that was inevitably consuming our collective present and foreseeable future. It was (and still is) extremely difficult to avoid, considering it’s all anyone can talk about; it’s still all over the news, and at the very forefront of our social media feeds.

Staying indoors and avoiding closeness with others gets old very fast. Such times call for a substantial support system, and while I was lucky enough to quarantine with my partner, we both missed having outside connections.

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Following the first wave of the pandemic, and all of the restrictions that quickly ensued, there was a rush to jump back into our social circles in time for the summer. Roaming any public park or beach in downtown Toronto was a stressful experience due to the sheer volume of people clambering to reunite with their friends, attempting to pretend as if everything had gone back to normal.

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I can recall one of my first post-lockdown excursions in the early months of summer, which turned out to be an extremely anxiety inducing situation. On a particularly warm evening, my partner and I went down to Cherry Beach to meet a couple of friends for a few drinks. As soon as we stepped off the bus and took in our surroundings, I was confronted with the urge to leave.

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We were surrounded by what seemed like hundreds of people, dancing and drinking, without a care in the world, as if nothing had changed.

Unfortunately for myself, things had indeed changed. Just like many of my friends and loved ones, I found myself not wanting to be alone anymore, fearful of missing out on a single thing.

In an attempt to combat this fear of missing out, I think that many of us plunged headfirst back into social interaction, rather than taking it slow. Clearly we were all starved for communication with the outside world, and the

much needed platonic affection we were previously prohibited from enjoying. For this reason, some gatherings felt very forced, as if we were obliged to see people right away. The healthiest thing probably would have been to ease back into things, rather than shocking my system with overstimulation all at once. In my attempts for normalcy, I was greeted with a rude awakening of sorts. I couldn’t help but notice that my social anxiety had reached an all time high, to the point where certain social situations had almost become too much for me to handle.

A substantial period of time with limited social interaction changed things for me. It honestly felt like my social skills had just slipped away during the months I spent alone.

As much as I tried to force myself to see the people I had so dearly missed, I was always met with the telltale shakiness, sweaty palms, and the desire to just turn around and go home, where I wasn’t required to pretend to be comfortable with my surroundings.

It’s discouraging to think about how life changing of an experience this has all been. It’s so easy to slip into a spiral of panicked thinking, wondering if or when things will go back to normal, whatever normal even means anymore. As much of a struggle the past year has been, it is so important to remain hopeful.

It won’t be this way forever; beating myself up over the difficulties I have been facing only makes matters worse. In my attempts to reclaim the social side of myself, I’ve learned the importance of knowing my own limitations when it comes to socialization.

It’s not helpful or productive to force things; it’s better to let things progress naturally.

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I now take comfort in knowing that it’s okay to leave any situation that becomes too much, as my own mental health takes priority. Everyone has their own limits, and understanding mine has recently saved me from moments of panic. There’s no shame in struggling, especially given the current circumstances. While I realize that progress takes time, it helps to know that this is uncharted territory for everyone; I am not the only person whose mental health has taken a decline as a result of the changes we are all going through together.

For those of us who overthink or experience panic at inopportune times, it helps to remember that there are others who deal with similar struggles.

As the future is still up in the air, it’s important to be mindful of others during this time.

Check in with your friends and family, as sometimes there is no way of knowing how others are dealing with their own respective struggles. Not everyone will be ready to divulge such personal information, but regardless, it helps to know that someone cares.

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WORDS HARRISON CLARKE COLLAGE HARRISON CLARKE

T

he hook of apathy that my therapist tells me depressed people often miss is that the feeling is not naturally born, but carefully seeded into one’s life through their external circumstances. The worst part of apathetic behavior is being too tired to understand the gravity of the behavior, too sleepy to wake up and realize that you’re on a sinking ship, if not already 20 feet below the water. It often starts when there is a painful moment that slows the motions of your life from a canter to a trot.

The pause on life that the quarantine created initially seemed like the release I'd needed from my work schedule.

I got to twirl around in my closet and pretend I was in the shopping mall montage of a C-list teen movie. I attended online raves and managed to capture the same electric heartbeat as when I’m in a sea of bodies.

Then, the days got longer, and when I’d look up, the sky would be a paler shade of grey then the day before; the weekly packages of steamed take out and deliveries of marijuana increased, while the joy evaporated. I’d bathe, brush, roll a joint, dress up for no one, watch a French movie, fall asleep halfway through, avoid the news, subscribe to new streaming services, and wave and banter with the neighbours.

Engaging in all my privileged activities I still felt like Sisyphus, walking in the same circle until my feet left an impression on the carpet floor. Even though the monotony was digging me deeper and deeper into a hole of mindlessness, there was a part of me that craved to be numb, to be free from the barrage of Black death streamed on every digital platform, and how it made my skin color heavier to wear. The cushiness of my suburban life helped to nurture my grey-tinted view. The affluent, white neighborhoods I had known my whole life, where nothing bad ever happens to those who commit to the simplicity of their lives—in our ivory towers we could be safe from the noise of the world, we could pretend that we weren’t marked by trauma.

On what felt like the millionth day at the bottom of my pit, the French film I chose to watch was Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23 Commerce Quay, 1080 Brussels, a film starring Delphine Seyrig as the titular character.

The three hour long film follows three monotonous days in the life of a widowed mother, consisting of six repeated scenarios: doing housework, cooking dinner, going shopping, doing sex work, taking baths, and babysitting.

Her purpose is reduced to the roles she plays for the dependents in her life, and although she has an air of confidence in her movements, the long gazes she casts into space betray the satisfied image she tries to portray.

In one of the film’s few scenes of dialogue, Jeanne reads a letter from her sister Fernande, pleading for her to restart her love life. Despite Fernande’s reveal of loneliness and trauma in Jeanne’s past, her recitation is delivered with a deadpan sweetness—reading the letter like she was taking a test. Jeanne insulates herself from her trauma by losing herself in her routine, if at the expense of smothering her identity. What I saw in both Jeanne and myself was an unwillingness to be present in our lives, instead finding it more comfortable to allow our capitalist societies to inform our identities.

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I HAVE TO RECOGNIZE THAT THIS SOCIETY DIDN’T TEACH MY BLACK, QUEER SELF TO FIGHT, BUT RATHER TO FEEL DEFEAT. Jeanne’s identity finally cracks when she lashes out one of her clients in a controlled but sudden outburst of repressed rage. This final action demonstrates how living life in the cycle of monotony, as dictated to us by Western societies, is not sustainable. Not only does it form a comfort in numbness, but it sets us up with a false sense of stability that’s been built on myths about gender, race, and class. Living as another identity in Western-European societies holds such a strong allure to sexual and racial minorities because we’re constantly reminded of how violence is perpetrated towards us for being who we are. We become numb to the violence we perpetuate against ourselves.

I rarely see myself represented in Western media, so it’s always been easier to emulate the characteristics 74

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of whatever straight white character I like best; the parts that identify me as marginalized stay neglected and unexplored, boiling to bright heat in a corner of my head. It’s a feeling that dazes me to the point of inaction, rocks me to sleep, and when I wake, I’m sleepwalking through the motions, cycling towards a dead end I can tell is coming—even as all I’ve ever been taught is how to suppress myself, how to not rise to an occasion.

This cycle of mine was irreparably broken the week of May 25. The outcry over the deaths of George Floyd and Regis Korchinski-Paquet rang through the hills, reaching me down at the bottom of my pit. My months of repetitive motions had a fatal malfunction, the depth of the grief I felt in those seven days shook a layer of dust off my brain.

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The underrepresented parts of me I’d allowed to be smothered by apathy were now violently awake to see a much grimmer reality.

The call to action for racial justice refused to fit the monotonous routine of my comfortable Western existence; it demanded I make an active choice to express and spread appreciation for my racial and sexual identity.

Once I got out onto the streets of Toronto and York Region, marching in support of justice for Black victims of racial violence, it made me recognize how my apathy was a product of, and contribution to the cycle of violence that powers Western society. The downward spiral begins when government leaders and the police they appoint to protect the public demonstrate a lack of care for its marginalized population. The public sees these values represented in media, then the well-represented members of the public emulate and gatekeep these values; while the marginalized members struggle to assimilate, the monotony of their assimilation deadens the soul until the body cries out with violence.

2020 demonstrated countless events where the cycle worked its curse, a second example being the B.C. Supreme Court allowing the Coastal GasLink pipeline to be built on Wet’suwet’en territory, echoing the Canadian government’s long history of threatening Indigenous life. The painful spiral of the cycle snowballs to the municipal level, giving RCMP officers the confidence to enforce violent conduct with Indigenous anti-pipeline protestors.

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Breaking my cycle was difficult because I had to face the chaos that was all around me, but it also empowered me with the ability to choose what I wanted my role to be during it all. There are still days where I’m smoldering from the burning rage racial and sexual inequality ignites in me. With heated steps I press forward, away from the autopilot path of the cycle, towards nuanced ways I can stay better informed and involved with supporting marginalized people against forms of oppression. Then, there are days when my apathy sticks to me like honey, coloring me with sickly-sweet grey. In those moments I feel back in the pit, I feel like Jeanne, post-stabbing her client, staring into the void of the camera lens wanting for nothing but total, unmoving peace after unleashing her repressed self.

The violence has the power to break the cycle or reset it, damming the flow of action and regressing us to politically and culturally idle states. This is best illustrated in the meme-ification of efforts to seek justice for Breonna Taylor across Twitter and TikTok, a fight for an African-American woman who lost her life to police violence. People claiming to care about Black lives emerged out of the woodwork with $24.99 t-shirts and caps for sale donning the text “#BREONNATAYLOR” to prove their dedication to the cause. Black victims of police violence continue to be the subjects of retweets that people unfamiliar to this trauma can wear as badges of solidarity, until the tweets stop trending and disappear from public consciousness.

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Now, when I’m having a day where I’m slouching towards dead ends, I try to assess whether my actions lately have made me feel more grounded in the work I’m doing to represent myself and others with similar identities. When all I can think of to contribute is “I sent out a biting tweet to a corporation today,” I can acknowledge that I don’t feel as alive in my sense of being as I would if I had taken my action to a more effective, physical level. If all I can muster is a biting click of a button that day, then so be it, I have to recog-

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nize that this society didn’t teach my Black, queer self to fight, but rather to feel defeat.

There will be times where I will feel weak, still tired from the honey of oppression sticking to my bones, but to be alive in the specific way only a racialized person can be is to negate the perpetuation of racialized violence.

My therapist teaches me that when you’ve broken a cycle it is your duty to run in the opposite direction, get back to the place on the road where all lines correlate with the path your life needs to take: forward.

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ART DIRECTION JONATHAN MATTA PHOTOGRAPHY JONATHAN MATTA STYLING ANA SAMI, MARGARITA BRODIE HMUA ANA SAMI, MARGARITA BRODIE SET ASSISTANT MARGARITA BRODIE MODELS EMMA CHEUK, ANA SAMI, MAH MOUD SPECIAL THANKS MARLA ELLIS, ADAM HEDMAN-MURRAY, LIAM BRAND

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GUTTER CREDIT

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ARTIST STATEMENT

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t’s hard to find time alone when it feels like there’s so much to be done- and when there isn’t, there’s so much media on the internet to consume. Sometimes the idea of making space to sit by myself without doing anything feels superfluous, but of

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course once I actually do it that stigma goes away. Time spent in transit, in cars, trains, and busses has become one of the most valuable parts of my day because I get to spend hours joyfully alone. It feels so good to be away from other people and things in

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my life because I get time to sort through my thoughts and enjoy my own company. It gives me time to dig into reflections about who I really am, question my beliefs, and consider why I think the way that I do.

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Bloomer is a picture of how I feel when I’m alone. I wanted to create a series of images that evoke the same sense of comfort and bliss that I feel when I’m by myself. I isolated the subjects of my photos by taking them out of the context of their surroundings. Using different physical media I added texture and depth as a way of trying to capture feeling that a face alone can’t always portray.

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Sponsors

This project is supported financially by the Student Initiatives Fund. SIF is administered by the Department of Student Life on behalf of Vice Provost Students, Ryerson University.