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THREAD
ISSUE ISSUE NO. NO. VII VII
THE THE ROMANCE ROMANCE ISSUE ISSUE
FALL FALL // WINTER WINTER 2015 2015
Thread, an independent student organization located at Cornell University, produced and is responsible for the content of this publication. This publication was not reviewed or approved by, nor does it necessarily express or reflect the policies or opinions of, Cornell University or its designated representatives.
Alexandra Clement Editor-in-Chief Sisi Peng President
Kelly Guo Vice-President
Ariel Hsu Creative Director Ada To Technical Director
CREATIVE
Nellie Congdon Jax Davies Grace Lawson
Kate Chen Charlene Luo Sabine Strauch George Tsourounakis
Beauty
Director Lyanda Dudley Dikshing Lama Nelson Charlene Pires Ashley Shim
Diane Tsang
Finance Director Marketing Director Zahra Abdulhussein Sarah Chefka Michelle Dan Katrine Greve Alexis Martel Paula Paddock
Hannah Babb Kristina Linares John Payne Sanajana Saxena Mauricio Quispe Emily Wan Olivia Whittaker
Kendra Sober Handan Xu Jenny Yin
Creative
Joyce Bao Claire Bowie Jenny Chan Emma Freiman Jessie Harthun
TECHNICAL Business & Marketing
Art Director
TEAMS
Gabrielle Leung Christina Nastos Nicolette Ocasio Weihong Rong
Models Ben Abeles Maximiliano Alaghband Brittney Atkinson-McFarlane Destini Gibbs Claire Guffey Naomi Jawahar
Danielle Kar Charles Kowalczyk Ju Hwan Park John Payne Anastasia Turin
Editorial Associate Editor-in-Chief Pia Bocanegra Avidan Grossman Hansika Iyer Elena Jiao
Daniel Preston Sidney Lok Victoria Lopez Isabelle Phillipe AndrĂŠs Vaamonde
Photography Director Ben Abeles Chris Andras Gail Fletcher Tina He
Yodai Yasunaga Emily Keenan Cameron Pollack Katie Roscoe Jade Song
Styling Director Amarachi Abakporo Kailee Abeshaus Quincy Blair Jyoti Goel Rebecca Kruger Cathy Liu
Emily Gartenberg Brenna Louie Kate Rabin Sonal Rastogi Olivia Simon Ravenna Stafford
Special thanks to: 108 Stewart Ave Callahan Digital Cornell China Club Cornell Fashion Collective The Cornell Store The Johnson Art Museum Laurence Xu Student Assembly Finance Commission & other non-members who have contributed to Thread in any way
Advisor Prof. Denise Green dng22@cornell.edu
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Letters Editor Creative Director
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Editorial Booty Calls A Vain Affair No Man’s Land co-ed Beauty Endures Deliquescence of the Male Bare Minimum Asphyxiate The Age of Romance You are given the entire world
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c o n t e n t s Photoshoots Honey, I’m Home! To Wear your Heart on your Sleeve Deliquescence of the Male Gaze Unknown Terror
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letter from the
editor
It’s four a.m. on a Sunday night. Final touches are being made to the issue and we’ve already devoured a carton of chocolate ice cream, made our second coffee run, and attempted to name every article after a Justin Bieber song. Victoria’s piece on confidence could have been Love Yourself while Hansika’s timeline of lingerie might have been I’ll Show You. We could have titled Dan’s article on male eroticism Boyfriend and my essay on the evolution of romance Somebody to Love because if you #beliebe it, you can do it. The past few months have been as busy as ever, as I prepare to graduate and beg someone, anyone, to hire me. Amidst the hustle, however, Thread has been a haven. After three years of writing for the magazine, I continue to be impressed by the creative genius, technical savvy, and dedication of our team. As the magazine evolved since its inception in 2011, it has concentrated less on the trendy and more on the persisting. Finding a balance between art, lifestyle and fashion is a constant battle, but one I believe we always win. We reached a beautiful equilibrium in this trio of motifs in our ‘Romance’ issue. When we first decided to pursue the theme Romance, my mind jumped to Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters. Then I thought about the modern fairy tale:
Tinderella. Regardless of the time period, the one word I supposed synonymous with romance is love. Insert heart eyes emoji. Thank God for @Ariel and @Dan, because if it had been up to me, this issue would have been exploding with pink hearts and glitter. Jk. Kind of. As we explored romance, we found that it is a matter based on concepts of the self. From this discovery we identified a few main ideas, reflected in the following pages. Isabelle gives us a history lesson in romanticism, hailing Edgar Allen Poe and Caspar David Friedrich. Avidan talks Kanye and fashion, drawing parallels between the breaking down of social constructs of gender and self-expression through style. Andrés exhibits his creative prowess in verse and prose, demonstrating romance as he reflects upon it. Sidney and Pia bring it home to Cornell with their pieces on two student designers whose work conveys their interpretations of identity. From Nicki Minaj lyrics to shifting social norms, we embrace the laughable and the sincere, incorporating our own interpretations of romance with a cultural
lens. In a fast-paced society that values convenience over quality, it’s important to step back and refocus our energy on liberating ourselves from unrealistic standards and rules. In a way, we need to re-embrace the ideals of romanticism. Before the music starts playing and I’m escorted off stage, I’d like to thank Dan, Ariel, Yodai, Kate, Emily, Hannah, Kristina, Diane, Kelly, Ada and Madam President Sisi for making this multi-geared machine of a publication run oh so smoothly. And thank you to our readers, for caring as much as we do about our child, Thread. Ugh, sometimes I can be such a romantic. — Allie Clement
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letter from the Last semester was a labored push. Not to pat ourselves on the back, Thread birthed a North West. She was prettier than expected and she was the most important thing in our lives. With Allie as the gorgeous socialite to my unchecked artist’s ego, we’re the pregnant-again Kim and Kanye of Thread Fall/Winter 2015. By adding a third element in the mix, we officially became the West’s: Kanye, Kim, and North; we became a fashion, lifestyle and art magazine. Achieving some intersection of the three became a challenge. After the pendulum swung to its extreme of being a fashion and art magazine last semester, the magazine needed to find a medium – a balancing act and a position of equilibrium. By nature, the pendulum returned in the form of this issue - The Romance Issue. As we settled on the theme of ‘Romance,’ our main fear was that the magazine would become too much of a cliché. Romance is quite frankly the most overdone, overstretched shell of a concept. It’s safe and approachable. It’s the crop top and leggings combo of Friday GNO’s, flattering and comfortable
creative director
so you can shake your tushie no holds barred. For the more cultured readers, it’s the Fetty Wap of the trap game. At this point, Romance should be dead in the world of possible themes for a conceptual magazine. (Editor’s Note: she picked the theme herself.)
and emotional journey, and that’s all I ask for when working on a fashion magazine. This is my last semester as Creative Director and as the jaded, old person in the room, I will pass on one piece of advice for posterity, “believe in your flyness, conquer your shyness.”
But as we let the theme sink in, we realized we’re students. All we can do is think critically and creatively, and that’s how we should approach fashion and the theme of Romance. Rather than focusing on Romance as just love, we focused on Romanticism and the concept of Romance – the mystique that departs from the mundane. Romance is the idealized, the unrealistic, the emotive, the distorted, the other. Through this lens, we should analyze the social implications of fashion in our written and visual content, and draw parallels between multiple media of identity and expression. That’s the intersectionality of fashion, art, and lifestyle (aha!).
Next semester, I will be taking a semester off from school but will be returning in the Fall as a senior. I can’t wait to see what direction the next issue will take or what happy medium of fashion, lifestyle, and art the next Creative Director will strike. After being on Thread’s E-board for four semesters, I’m not sure how I’ll feel about the photo shoots or how I’ll feel coming back as a general member. If I don’t like it, I just hope you all will treat me like a beloved family member and flip me off. But mostly, I can’t wait until the future E-board speaks fondly and in reverent tones about my time on Thread and I’m sitting in the back of the room like, “hello, it’s me (Adele).”
We worked for a semester and surprise! Here’s a magazine. I want to say thank you to the best team we’ve had thus far (All hail POTTM Sisi)! It’s been an intellectual
— Ariel Hsu
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“Yes I do the cooking, yes I do the cleaning Yes I reject the stigma of culturally prescribed gender norms� -Nicki Minaj (probably)
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Honey, I’m Home!
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Alexandra Clement
Ashley recently moved to New York City to start a new job. She works around the clock and struggles to make time for herself and friends, nonetheless a boyfriend. Meeting someone outside of work? Not likely. So, Ashley does what many early twenty-year-olds do—she Tinders. She Bumbles. During her commute, she looks through a collection of hundreds of men’s dating profiles on these apps and, through a mutual selection process, has conversations with them. If they hit it off, they arrange an in person date. Today’s dating scene shocks those who married before the dawn of smartphones. But as technology and gender roles evolve, so do the development of relationships and the concept of romance itself. To properly discuss the evolution of romance, the term itself must be defined. Merriam-Webster refers to romance as a medieval tale or narrative; a fictional love story. The dictionary also lists this definition: “an emotional attraction or aura belonging to an especially heroic era, adventure, or activity.” Urban Dictionary parts from its usual vulgarity and claims society has created inaccurate expectations of romance. “Real romance isn’t manufactured. It is completely individual. Romance is…showing the person you love that you’re thinking about them,” proclaims the popular site. “Romance is something simple and sweet that reminds your partner why they fell in love with you in the
first place.” The Oxford Dictionary is straightforward and says romance is “a feeling of excitement and mystery associated with love.”
and official means of wooing a significant other in hopes of a marriage proposal. Women are typically the objects of affection.
To Jessica, a Cornell senior, romance is more than mutual liking. “A snapchat isn’t romantic,” she says, pursing her lips to imitate the infamous duck face. “A hand painted portrait that took hours is romantic.” Her analogy expands to professions of care as well—a love letter is romantic, whereas a text is not. She equates romance to chivalry, surpassing standards and going out of one’s way to make your loved one notice. It comes down to the expended effort. This sounds stereotypical; an old-fashioned male suitor pursuing a woman. “It’s a man’s world,” shrugs Jessica. Doesn’t mean we have to like it.
In an article titled “The End of Courtship?” New York Times writer Alex Williams highlights the lowered expectations of the modern bachelorette. She cites economic stress in a phenomenon called the “mancession,” leaving young bachelors more inclined to hit up Chipotle than Mahogany Grill for a date night. And as the playing field levels for men and women, there’s confusion as to who pays for the date. Where’s the line between chivalry and equality? Throw social media into the mix, and courtship becomes a whole other animal.
The mysterious quality of romance resonates with Jenna, a Cornell junior. She believes romance is the result of attraction, associated with feelings of excitement and intrigue. It is the predecessor to love, which Jenna describes as “The mutual understanding between two people that they will be there for each other no matter what.” Cornell senior Joshua concurs. “Love is when you care about someone else’s well-being more than your own,” he says. As the most technology-reliant generation enters the spouse-seeking age, scholars and writers have turned their eye toward the phenomenon of courtship. Courtship is the traditional
Although a bit outdated, the 2009 theater hit He’s Just Not That Into You perfectly captures the struggle of dating in the 21st century. Mary, Drew Barrymore’s character, summed up the communication landscape: “I had this guy leave me a voicemail at work, so I called him at home, and then he emailed me to my Blackberry, and so I texted to his cell, and then he emailed me to my home account, and the whole thing just got out of control. And now you just have to go around checking all these different portals just to get rejected by seven different technologies. It’s exhausting.” In six years, the technology she references is already obsolete. Here’s an updated scenario: “We matched on Tinder, and he liked my Instagram post, so
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16 thread I snapchatted him, then he texted me, so I Facebook messaged him, and now I have no idea which conversation is still happening.” But one thing hasn’t changed—it is exhausting. Tinder is the predominant medium of choice for meeting romantic interests. Intentions of those using Tinder are not surprising, given the kind of people they expect to find on the app. Joshua believes girls on Tinder are “above average promiscuous” and not “girlfriend material.” Rachel, a Cornell senior, has a theory. “Guys who are on Tinder and actually want to meet up with girls can’t find girls in real life,” she says. She also believes men and women enjoy the “power trip” that comes with being able to swipe left or right, as individuals have the freedom to be superficial. Both genders agree, however, that everyone is using Tinder for the same reason: an entertaining way to kill time. Not every millennial is Tinder-obsessed. Danielle, another Cornell senior, tried Tinder but has a “love-hate” relationship with the app. She downloaded the app as a freshman and didn’t use it for the entire year. Now, as a senior, she has thrown a swipe or two, but is still hesitant. She normally does not respond to messages and although she’s set up three dates, she always cancels. “Part of me feels like I’m still thirteen,” she says, explaining her nervousness about meeting her matches in person. “It’s like stranger danger on crack.” Admitting that it’s probably much safer than she imagines, Danielle says she is basically “scared of getting raped.” One of her experiences with a Tinder match serves as a kind of within-subjects designed experiment. She was at a bar in her hometown when an attractive French man bought her a drink. After a night of great conversation, and the promise of a date, Danielle couldn’t shake the feeling she had seen him before. Then it hit her— she had swiped left on “a particularly picky day.” She admitted that she never would have agreed to meet him from Tinder, but in person she was very willing. What does that say about the type of people on Tinder? Perhaps they’re not the
catfish our parents warned us about, and perhaps Tinder is simply a virtual dive bar. As exemplified by Tinder, technology has invaded the most intimate of human activities—sexual relationships—leading to a fascination with the term “hookup culture.” Communication professor Sahara Byrne discusses hook-up culture in her Media and Development class. Her comments are refreshing amidst the judgmental derisions articulated by many members of older generations. Byrne witnesses the hectic lives of college students and reasons that hook-up culture is the result of the basic human need for intimacy without the luxury of time. Maintaining a romantic relationship on top of managing classwork, participating in extracurriculars, and finding a job is virtually impossible. The only time college students are free to indulge is at 2:00 a.m. Saturday night. Cue the booty call. However, hook-up culture extends past the one-night stand and serves as the foundation for more mature relationships. The pervasion of technology has created a fast-paced lifestyle from which dating is not exempt. In the teenage years of our parents, it would take some time to get to know someone because the only available communication tools were the telephone and in person meetings. No such restraints exist today—people are in constant communication with each other. Elise, a Cornell junior, is in that tricky stage between casually hooking up and seriously dating another student. They only hooked up for the first time a month ago, but “we text each other from the minute we wake up to the minute we fall asleep,” she says. With that kind of accessibility, two people can reach the same level of familiarity in a week that it took our parents to reach in a few months. According to that scale, it seems typical that people would advance their physical relationship respectively. Recent Cornell graduate Kelly sees technologies like Tinder as empowering. “I would never get up the courage to ask someone out after seeing them in a bar,” she says, “and as sad as it sounds, the technological intervention between me
and the other person is the only way I’d get the courage to do that… When you have the protection of a screen, you can feel safer and be a lot more forward and honest with someone from the get go, no matter what gender you are.” Kelly went on one Tinder date, intrigued by the man’s bio, which included a link to his Soundcloud profile. After the date she deleted her Tinder account—and has been in a relationship with the man since. Maybe we still can find love in a hopeless place. Technology and media facilitate and accelerate our romantic ventures but is not required to fall in love. Elise spent two weeks in a small town in Argentina during high school in a vain attempt to learn Spanish. She spent her last night at a local club, and to the beat of electronic dance music, she locked eyes with Alejandro from across the room. Neither spoke each other’s language, but, Elise reminisces, “it was love at first sight.” The two spoke daily via WhatsApp, using Google translate to communicate. Eventually, Elise taught herself Spanish for him. A year after a tearful goodbye, Elise returned to Argentina to see him again. “Now that’s romantic,” Jessica says with awe. Not much has changed since Paris fell for Helena. Men and women defy social standards for lust; pursue for passion; and fall in love. Courtships happen via text message and the love letter has been replaced by the booty call, but behind the façade of an emotionless millennial, behind the screen of a smartphone, are still two people looking for love. Is romance dead? Oh, the contrary. Romance is thriving.
All names have been changed to protect the identity of those who would like to be swiped to the right.
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To Wear Your
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Sleeve Flesh and fabric mesh to embody a collection of human parts
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A Vain Affair Looking at the perversion of confidence Victoria Lopez
Amidst standards and expectations, the often toxic nature of society has provoked seemingly irrevocable harm to the individual notion of self worth. With society’s idealized concept of beauty, we are endlessly seeking that which is unattainable. The facile nature of enhancement, from Photoshop to plastic surgery, is an inexcusable response to this craving to attain society’s definition of beauty. In what could be considered an age of the façade, there seems to be unity in conformity and confidence in the uniqueness of our natural selves has become a rarity. In an attempt to fix this self-imposed standard, society has recently reveled in the importance of promoting the idea of “self love.” This drive to support individuality is becoming increasingly reflected in the voices of major media outlets. From Vanity Fair and Cosmopolitan to E! News, media is embracing the “be yourself” message, possibly to the extent of, dare I say, hypocrisy. While the embodiment of confidence is, without a doubt, one of great importance, its portrayal is difficult to see as genuine. These outlets are encouraging women to love their own beauty, yet continue to feature airbrushed, size 0 models; just look at the 2014 Victoria’s Secret Love Your Body Campaign. Women are encouraged to love their own beauty, yet looked down on when they do not conceal every blemish or follow every trend. Women are encouraged to love their own beauty, yet considered vain the minute they actually feel good about themselves. With the confounding stance of today’s media, even the slightest display of “self love” is beyond refreshing. The exploration of self esteem leads to the question: confidence or vanity? As with all aspects of life, there are inevitable extremes; however, society’s focus should be on building up rather than tearing down. Any and all feelings of worth or
pride should be praised and not faulted. Purpose and a sense of self go hand in hand. Thus, self esteem promotes success (to each its own). The more confident you are, the happier you are, the stronger you feel and the more powerful you become. Take the ultimate confident woman: Coco Chanel. Fearless, innovative, and although sometimes controversial, Coco always remained faithful to her identity. During the 1920s, going against the status quo, Chanel became the first designer to create an unusually relaxed style for women, using jersey knit, a fabric traditionally reserved for men. Refusing to succumb to the societally expected femininity of the time, Chanel ignored the traditional corseted look and instead went for ease and comfort. Sporting a bob haircut and boyish figure, Chanel became a style icon herself, inspiring many women to liberate themselves from the constraints of the “feminine standard”. She used the power of confidence to create a legacy and a lasting empire. The notion of vanity stems from a place of insecurity. For this very reason it is not possible to be both vain and self assured. The comparison between confidence and vanity is one between feelings of content versus feelings of superiority. Admiring yourself in the mirror or taking countless selfies? Feeling content. Admiring yourself as better, and therefore, above everyone else? Feeling superior. Ultimately, free of influence and judgment, the power of confidence is unparalleled.
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No Man’s Land A new normal in an era of androgyny
Avidan Grossman
In April of 2011, following the recent release of his fifth studio album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, Kanye West took the stage at Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival to deliver what would eventually become known as one of the greatest hip-hop sets of all time. Hovering above the churning crowd, West seemed at once ethereal and apprehensive; his performance at Coachella marked the end of a very public fall from grace, including a string of uninspiring shows and a debacle involving Taylor Swift at the 2009 VMAs shocking enough to make even the savviest PR maven shudder. West, having been deposited safely back on terra firma, glided through the crowd to the main
stage amidst riotous applause wearing a pair of faded blue jeans and a flowing silk top that looked an awfully lot like the one Phoebe Philo sent down the runway for Céline’s spring collection earlier that year. The following morning, the blogosphere confirmed it: yes, Kanye West was wearing a woman’s blouse. Later that year, West would also release Watch the Throne, a collaborative studio album made alongside his longtime mentor Jay Z. In the subsequent tour for the album, West often appeared on stage in head-to-toe black wearing a leather skirt from Givenchy. West, however, was not the first musician to experiment with the boundaries of gendered dress in his
on-stage performances. Mick Jagger famously wore a ruffled white smock with a bow-laced front for the 1969 Rolling Stones’ Hyde Park Concert, and David Bowie, appearing on the cover of The Man Who Sold the World just a year later, was photographed wearing a cream gown with vivid blue detailing in an outfit that would only hint at the later exuberance of his glam rock persona, Ziggy Stardust. West was not so adventurous. Underneath his skirt, he wore a matching pair of black leather pants. Hip hop has a storied history of forging new fashion frontiers. West, in particular, has a notorious knack for predicting movements in the mores of men’s dress
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with a prescience that often borders on the prophetic. West’s concert at Coachella signified a seminal moment in the changing characterization of men’s style, simultaneously suggestive of a significant shift in the way society perceives gender and the way men are responding to that shift through the clothes they wear. In March of this past year, Young Thug, the 24-yearold Atlanta-based rapper and West acolyte, was featured in CR Fashion Book, a glossy magazine published by Carine Roitfeld, a former editor of Vogue Paris, wearing a curated collection of women’s tops in an editorial entitled “Pretty Young Thug”. Thugger, the noted clothing enthusiast’s cognomen of choice, was recently quoted as saying he wears almost exclusively women’s clothing, because their slim cut better suits his wiry frame. Appearing in the pages of Dazed just a few months ago wearing a sheer tulle dress, Young Thug mean-mugged for the camera and lent the same sense of wild nonchalance that has come to define his music to the clothing he wore in the pages of the magazine. If you told Young Thug his sui-generis sense of style represented a significant shift in the way men dress, years in the making, he would probably cough and then laugh wildly through a dense fog of smoke, dismissing the notion that he represented anything momentous just as ably as he would flick away the burnt end of a blunt. But it’s true; Thugger, along with other like-minded members of his generational Photographs courtesy of SENSE Magazine, Dazed Magazine, Telegraph, Gucci, Burberry, and New York Magazine.
cohort, including Jaden Smith, that enigmatic capturer of tweeted zeitgeist, who wore a white skirt and black blazer to prom, are seriously changing the way men relate to the previously rigid boundaries of gendered dress. So much so, in fact, that when Alessandro Michele, the newly appointed creative director of Gucci, sent his debut men’s collection down the runway this past fall, critics raved about what Tim Blanks, writing for Style.com, referred to as the “droopy, androgynous languor of the show and its blurred gender divide”, which, translated into clothes, meant stock-tied blouses in chiffon and slinky lace tops, and even the occasional female model. At Burberry this past summer, models wore delicate shirts made out of fine lace that perfectly offset the implied masculinity of the strong-shouldered suits layered on top of them. Under Hedi Slimane, the controversial creative director of Saint Laurent, the house that Yves built was transformed into a brand now defined by the grungy androgyny of its rock ‘n’ roll-inspired collections, which are often modelled by waifish, lanky, barely-legal teens of both sexes, typically with long, flowing hair and an affected aura of druggy cool. Slimane, who made a name for himself designing shockingly skinny, hyper-sexualized menswear for Dior, and happened to dress David Bowie for his 2002 Heathen tour, is widely credited with effecting a paradigm shift in menswear, away from the ultramasculine baggy excesses of the late 90s and towards the slim
28 thread silhouettes of the early aughts. That artists like Young Thug can today wear women’s clothing and rap just as convincingly about doing “a lot of shit just to live this here lifestyle” without being criticized for being disingenuous, is in no small way a testament to the changing mores of men’s fashion, and, in particular, the acceptance of androgyny not as anomalous but as the norm. It’s not for nothing that designers like Craig Green and Jonathan Anderson, both considered to be two of menswear’s best and brightest rising stars, are also two of the most experimental when it comes to consistently pushing the boundaries of gendered dress to the very outermost limits of commercial salability, oftentimes adding an air of androgyny to more staid menswear staples, like the oversized shawl collar coat Anderson showed in his latest collection or the funnel-neck crop top Green showed in his. Andreja Pejec, the Australian transgender model, who walked the runway for Anderson and Jean-Paul Gaultier, the OG, if you will, of gender-bending design, initially began her career as Andrej Pejec, a male model whose unusually androgynous look caught the eye of industry insiders across the globe. Pejec,
who was dubbed the “Prettiest Boy in the World” by New York Magazine in 2011, is described in the article of the same name as having “flawless and poreless” skin with an “English-rose luster”, “mussed blonde locks” and a height of six-foot-one, but “thin as the stroke of a paintbrush”. “If he were not a man”, the article, which was published before Pejec’s transition, states, “he would be the most beautiful woman” ever seen in the flesh. The term “androgyny”, from the Latin androgynus, (derived from the ancient Greek word-stems andr-, meaning man, and gyne, meaning woman) is not the exclusive domain of fashion industry avant-gardism. The New York Times has reported since as early as 2009 that the gradual breakdown of gender boundaries has resulted in a generation that scoffs at the formerly sacrosanct confines of the gender binary and dresses itself accordingly, mixing and matching men’s tailored clothing with flared women’s trousers, or embracing trends that were typically considered exclusively masculine or feminine like no other generation before. In 2012, The Times again explored the ever-evolving topic of gender fluidity, in a magazine article entitled “What’s So Bad About a Boy Who Wants to Wear
a Dress?”, which describes some of the difficulties, as well as some of the delights, of being a young, gender-nonconforming child. As societal values shift to become more aware and accepting of these important gender issues, the fashion industry will surely follow suit, making clothes of the type designed by Green and Anderson less experimental and more de rigueur. Earlier this year, Kanye West debuted “Yeezy Season One”, a clothing collection made in collaboration with the German apparel giant Adidas. The collection, comprised of grungy, post-apocalyptic active wear in the likes of Helmut Lang and Raf Simons, represented the culmination of West’s decade-long struggle to be treated as a serious figure within the fashion industry. Although reviews for the line were mixed, the collection was notable for its wholehearted embrace of androgyny; West has said that the entire line was designed with the intention for all the clothes to be worn just as easily by members of both sexes. West, though often criticized as a designer for being distractingly derivative, tends to exert an extraordinary influence over the menswear masses. Put more succinctly,
On the night of October 23rd, “Yeezy Season One” went on sale unannounced on the website of the Italian retailer G&B Negozi. Despite the buzz surrounding West’s design debut, many critics had voiced confusion over the genderless nature of the clothing, and expressed concern about the actual commercial appeal of the collection. Would West’s progressiveness translate into profits? Would the androgynous nature of the collection rocket “Yeezy Season One” beyond the realm of attainable avantgardism and instead end up alienating even West’s most fervent followers? Many of the items listed online were some of the more experimental pieces from the collection, including a slouchy, semi-sheer sweater priced at almost $2,000, and a fur coat with a price tag of equally astronomical proportions. It’s hardly difficult to imagine the success of West’s collection as a sort of litmus test for society’s gradual acceptance of the androgynous, at least on an aesthetic level. Was West once again just a bit too far ahead of the curve? A search for “Yeezy” on the G&B website now yields no results. By the early morning of October 24th, the entire collection had sold out.
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the man moves merchandise. That’s not to say that West’s forays into fashion have always been successful -- a particularly disastrous debut designing a short lived women’s collection comes to mind -- but it does mean that when West commits to a certain aesthetic, he does so in a methodical way more calculating than it may seem. That West would incorporate androgyny so obviously into a collection he worked so hard to realize speaks to the societal shift in the way people perceive gender, and the way designers have responded in kind. Still, society is far from finished shifting. On Hypebeast, an online fashion forum known for its particularly fanatical fan-base, a post recapping the looks from the show received over 150 comments. One guest, posting anonymously, wrote: “Kanye I love you...... but this shit is so fucking bad”.
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co-ed Pia Bocanegra
Dressed in a loose-fitting grey ensemble paired with chunky, neon pink oxfords, Rae Dagdagan appropriately epitomizes her artistic inclination for androgynous designs. A senior majoring in Fiber Science and Apparel Design from Los Angeles, California, Dagdagan revels in exploring the intersection between menswear and womenswear. Inspired by Bauhaus and the experimental works of Issey Miyake, Dagdagan hopes to one day release her own collection to change our perception of gender-specific clothing. Born to practicing architects, Dagdagan’s passion for the arts was virtually inevitable. She recalls her early childhood memories at her mother’s office, sifting through upholstery textiles. However, it was her internship with Velvet by Graham & Spencer that was the pivotal experience, leading her to pursue fashion. It wasn’t until Dagdagan’s junior year that she was able to fully develop her interest in non-gendered clothing. In the fall of 2014, Dagdagan studied abroad at the Paris College of Arts, a small art school located in the 10th arrondissement of the capital. While in Paris, she was able to delve into the functional and technical sides of apparel design. It was this semester that Dagdagan drew inspiration from her modern art history classes, frequent museum visits and the Fall 2014 JacqueMus runway show she attended. The classes she took in Paris helped her “tie in the technical construction aspects of my work to my concepts.” In the spring of 2015, Dagdagan released an eight-look line, titled co-ed, at the annual Cornell Fashion Collective show. Most of her pieces integrated quarter length sleeves,
wide-legged pants, and boxy shapes. The aesthetic of her line screamed minimalist, clean, and to the point. Her pieces, designed to be not figure conforming, captured both a man’s and a woman’s figure, reinforced by the nondescript models she sent down the runway. For co-ed, Dagdagan said, “There’s a line that is really ambiguous as to where menswear and womenswear starts and ends. I was playing with that line and seeing where it would take me.” Evidently, the theme of gender is central to Dagdagan’s artistic motivations. Referring to the translucent silk organza top in her co-ed collection, she believes that although a specific type of fabric can be attributed to a gender more often than the other, nothing is “inherently gendered” because “gender is socially constructed.” Dagdagan uses fabrics—mostly in the colour white—with more weight, including denim, neoprene, and poplin. Despite the mainly monochrome scheme, splashes of bold colour were incorporated in the co-ed collection. The use of primary colours is deliberately reminiscent of the works of Picasso and Mondrian, pioneers of modern art. Although colour was an important component to the line, the central focus was the way in which the clothing fit on the model’s body. She recalls the work in the draping process being more difficult than the construction of the clothes themselves. Dagdagan believes that form and material are intertwined and “there’s not one thing that’s more important.” Dagdagan started experimenting with form during her sophomore year when she created two white foam dresses for the 2014 CFC show. She did not have any gender considerations before experimenting with pattern making and form. However, the
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shapes of the two futuristic dresses ended up being structured in ways that make them neither masculine nor feminine; both pieces can “be worn by both male and female figures.” Since “fit is the fundamental factor that separate mens and womenswear,” the idea behind these two pieces as well as a red jumpsuit in the co-ed collection is that “both genders could share the same item of clothing because of its larger proportions.” For the upcoming Spring show, which will be Dagdagan’s last year at Cornell, she wishes to continue to focus on form and non-gendered clothing, making us question if a line between menswear and womenswear even exists. Her refreshing opinions about conceptions of gender, which dictates so much of today’s fashion
industry, mark a shift in how society should define what “masculine” and “feminine” clothing are. Dagdagan’s works reveal to us that fashion should not be bounded by strict socially acceptable notions of masculinity and femininity; it is free-forming.
Photographs courtesy of Rae Dagdagan
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Spring 2015 Collection Photographs courtesy of Cornell Fashion Collective
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beauty endures Sidney Lok
Kennedy Rauh’s smiling face and bright expression were unmistakable as she entered the Human Ecology Commons on a rainy, cloudy day. She wore her hair up in an effortless bun and purple polka dot socks peeked out from under her white converse sneakers. Her easygoing and playful yet simple look reflected her personality and her eye for fashion. A California native, Rauh has been interested in designing clothes ever since she was a little girl, from “play[ing] dress up and wearing plastic high heels to the grocery store” to making her own middle school graduation dress. Her love for fashion and design extended from these preteen years as she went on to design and sew her own prom dress, create collections on Pinterest, and continually exploring her interest in fashion during her experience in the College of Human Ecology, majoring in Fiber Science and Apparel Design. Though she is still in the beginning of her junior year, she is already working hard on her senior line for the Cornell Fashion Collective’s annual runway show. She offered a sneak peek of the idea behind her collection, “a line for all ages of women… 8 to 80.” Her age-fluid line will be “modest, classic, and comfortable, but the textiles will be crazy.” Her newly-developed interest in textiles led to her vision to either hand make them or acquire second hand fabrics to reuse in her line. In this upcoming line, she delves back to her roots by basing it on “dress up and free expression” and “having fun with your
clothing”. Toying with the fascination of fantastical childhood ‘dress-up’, Rauh challenges the phenomenon that adults seem to lose this imagination as they grow older. She wants to make it apparent that people should have the ability to express themselves, no matter what age. According to this philosophy, “If you’re feeling a yellow raincoat with some polka dot shorts, then you should be able to wear that kind of thing.” Rauh’s encouraging and upbeat attitude towards fashion and selfexpression also translates to her ideas about models. She articulates a strikingly simple concept: “clothing is made for all humans” and “designers should use everyday models.” This philosophy was epitomized her sophomore year when she wasn’t afraid to put male models in gowns. Looking ahead, Rauh will “use all different shapes, all different sizes, all different ages” for her models. Kennedy Rauh’s ideas about fashion and the fashion industry reflect a new age in our society of freedom and uncensored self-expression, but in a way that ultimately ties the complexity of a revolutionary change back to the simplicity of childhood freedom. Rauh’s fresh take on self-expression and acceptance through fashion reminds us how regardless of one’s age, one can always “dress-up”.
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Deliquescence of the Male Daniel Preston
In November of 2011, over one hundred works of art were displayed at SOMArts Cultural Center in San Francisco in the exhibition, “Man as Object: Reversing the Gaze.” While the exhibit was no more than a collection of unsystematic accounts of masculinity through an aggressively sexualized feminine lens, it begs the question: why is the male body so de-eroticized? The heteronormative nature of American society drives the eroticization of the female body over that of the males. It is not because a woman’s body is quote unquote sexier, or that her curves embody anything more than those of the Caryatids of ancient Greece, but rather the homophobic implications of sensualizing a male’s body in a particularly patriarchal society are far too controversial. If you were to take the stance that the female body is objectively more beautiful than the man’s, you might understand then why heterosexual
women are more aroused by nude women exercising than by nude men. But how do you argue why the erotic male stimulates homosexual men? As a gay man, the question has perplexed me for quite some time. Why do I find my heterosexual female friends fantasizing over the beauty of other women while all I do is sit there thinking how attractive the guy sipping coffee at the next table is? Is it a question of sexes eroticizing other members of the same sex or simply that gay culture celebrates and eroticizes the male body in a way that straight culture does not, simply because homosexuality has long been a subject of controversy? There has been a recent proliferation of sexualized images of men that can be highly attributed to the success of the gay liberalization movement, which has increased in legitimacy in the past three decades, and the accompanying acceptance of gay culture in a heteronormative society. Do I
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believe the increased eroticization of the male figure is solely attributed to gay liberalization? Absolutely not, but the liberalization of the gay community is a liberalization from the masculinity of mankind as a whole. Had society not started this progressive transition we wouldn’t see David Beckham’s sultry 2012 H&M Super Bowl campaign or Calvin Klein’s infamous black and white underwear ads, for which we are all grateful, but rather we would still see an excessively oppressive, rather homophobic, internalized view on masculinity and male eroticism. But while media has been progressively sexualizing men for the past forty years, it has taken society quite some time to catch up. Still, even with the dramatic liberalization of societal institutions, why is the objectification of men still restrained? The de-eroticization of the male is not just a strife between human sexualities; rather, it stems from the symbiotic relationship between heterosexuality and the aforementioned masculinity. One key assumption about gay men is that they’re somehow less manly than straight men, effeminate, even “girly”. While I’d like to think most of the twenty-first century world knows that not to be true, there has historically been an androphilic obsession with men. To objectify men is to reduce their being to submissive characters in a hegemonic play, and in a patriarchal society, the loss of dominance is a loss of power. Why would a culture dominated by heterosexual men
passively avow male eroticization? In fact, masculinity is enhanced by the presence of women, a sentiment that further nurtures man to objectively exploit the female body and never once will he get quote unquote slut shamed for it. So, if the size of a Sultan’s harem or the breadth of a pimp’s streetwalkers bolsters their power and extent of their authority it’s no wonder men conform to the beastly and misogynistic practice of exploiting women in lieu of their own sex. Heteronormative gender identification is masculinity and masculinity is power; it is as simple as that. Heteronormativity has driven the de-eroticization of the male figure. A look at People’s list of sexiest men, with David Beckham at number one, and you’ll see loose t-shirts and face shots sans of any bodies but very rarely is a women deemed sexy without explicit societally drawn curves. It has become evident through gay liberalization that homoeroticism reflects liberalization of the hetero man yet defined masculinity still restricts absolute liberalization. The media draws on the objectification of certain men in certain moments but lacks the tenacity for a full fledged coup for fear that the eroticization will deliquesce the apex of male power and, well, God forbid.
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40 thread 1900-1920 In the early 1900s, lingerie returned to looser and more relaxed underwear. Women wore lace and satin closed crotch drawers, thin camisoles, and sheer nightgowns. These new styles hinted at the body underneath in a more suggestive yet virginal way. Light colors and sheer fabrics showed just a little bit of skin.
1750-1900 18th and 19th century women’s fashion was characterized by flowing gowns and tight corsets. A corset would squeeze a woman’s waist and lift her breasts, creating the illusion of a petite, curvaceous figure. Women would spend as much money on a proper corset as on its accompanying gown. Some corsets and petticoats contained lace trims or satin finishes that were meant to be seen peeking out of gowns, suggesting an erotic allure. Fashion historian Aileen Ribeiro notes how the act of lacing a corset or slipping on undergarments hinted at their sexual nature.
1940-1950 World War II impacted the lingerie market by limiting elastic goods, so women stopped wearing nylon stockings. Bras and underwear became more structured and functional for working women who needed practical undergarments. “Pin-up” images featuring scantily clad women in suggestive positions became popular and inspired ranges of novelty lingerie as well as more minimalistic underwear.
1920-1930 The Roaring ‘20s took the lingerie market by storm. The boyish, lean figure that was in fashion was supplemented with silky, shapeless slips and camisoles. Glamourdaze, an online fashion history resource, comments on the “new fashion of exposing women’s legs” in reference to the stocking market. Stockings became a provocative garment when women began rolling them down to expose their knees. Companies such as Maidenform were founded and advertising for the lingerie and hosiery market nearly tripled. Sales of sexy lingerie increased with the Gatsby-era sexual promiscuity of young men and women.
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1960-1970 Women used lingerie as a symbol of femininity and oppression during a time where women fought to change the way they were treated. Bra burnings were common to symbolize the removal of the physical barriers that separated men from women. “No-Underwear” underwear became popular as women seeked comfort over glamour.
1980-2000 The ‘80s and ‘90s pushed the limits of edgy attitudes and styles. Lingerie marketing involved almost nude supermodels on giant posters and racy television commercials. Lingerie attracted a new market of teens with the Wonderbra, which also promoted new technology in push-up bras. Wonderbra launched a famous ad campaign with Eva Herzigova posed provocatively in a black lace bra with the caption “Hello Boys.” Billboards of this ad were even linked to an increase in car accidents!
bare minimum 1950-1960 The 1950s popularized short brief style underwear and feminine babydoll tops, as seen in the sleepover scene of Grease. Lingerie became more popular as a market with the introduction of La Perla in 1954, a premier designer of luxury lingerie. Push-up bras arrived on the scene and lingerie gained the sexual aura it has today. Lingerie was associated less with function and more with the romantic implications associated with lingerie.
From Queen Victoria to Victoria’s Secret, lingerie has evoked discipline, eroticism, and feminine power
Hansika Iyer
1970-1980 In 1977, Victoria’s Secret was founded by Roy and Gaye Raymond. Roy wanted to create an environment where men could shop for sexy lingerie without being judged. Buying lingerie was no longer the social taboo it had been in the past. Sexy lingerie became affordable and more common as women began embracing the sexual implications of lingerie. Images courtesy of Grenier a Livres, Wonderbra, Victoria’s Secret, Time Magazine, IMDb and Victoriana Magazine.
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gaze Looking beyond the edifice, she squints into the glare of the unfamiliar
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AndrÊs Vaamonde I have ruined everything there is to ruin Just to see how high I can heap debris I have burnt all that can be licked by flame Just to hear the smutty suck of ashes kissing I have held all that can drown to drown below water Just to learn about love from air-starved lungs I have built homes from our broken poems assembled sad furniture from the fractured verses poured gasoline in between their splintered stanzas and lit it all on fire just to choke on the smoke so as to teach myself to forget the taste of oxygen I was always your best regret. You were forever my worst comfort. Of everything we drank last night I recall only the last bitter pulls of truth; the sticky blood remembering itself to my lips. We stayed awake, late, fighting to defeat sleep in fear of suffocating morning, Speaking in unspokens, talking in infinites, saying that all we were saying was saying nothing. Saying that between us silence would live and grow like moss in old forests, That the space would first burn green, but soon grow grey and brown and black and that soon all these bloated words would deflate and be scraped from our tongues, that soon we would forget and even the silence too would forget and shed its old moss for flowers. But now I can only think to tear at the flora, leave the woodlands naked, blind and dumb strangle my wanton tongue to fugue state and burn the forest, silence and space and words and moss all. I crave no trace of clean air’s crisp taste This is not me locking you out This is me locking myself in, painting the walls and ceilings black and covering the windows in concrete. This is not me burying you. This is me decomposing on a pile of our broken poems and waiting for the earth to eat my body to rot. This is not the last time; It is only the last time I call it so.
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A s p h y x i a t e
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UNKNOWN TERROR A malevolent force disrupts the banality of the everyday...
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the age of
romance
Isabelle Phillipe
To say the word Romanticism is to say modern art - that is, intimacy, spirituality, color, aspiration towards the infinite, expressed by every means available to the arts. - Charles Baudelaire Beginning in Europe during the 1800s, Romanticism took its form in various seductive and “forbidden” romances, dark and dramatic paintings of the naked human body, and serene vast landscapes. These visuals stirred a mix of emotions, representing the period’s ideals and new revolutionary visions. It was a juxtaposition of various human feelings, a raw and sensual time where emotion raged over reason. The unnatural and beautiful as well as the calm and rageful all fused together creating a movement that would leave an impact on all others to come. Dominated by writers and philosophers such as Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe, dark and passionate painters such as Egide Charles Gustave Wappers, it was a time of both liberalism of the human body and exploration of nature’s beauty. Romanticism began as a rejection of the calm, conservative, and rational nature of Neoclassicism which dominated the previous age. Gone were the expressions of grace and triumph, of men dressed in armor and women fully clothed. This revolutionary movement brought about a passion of emotion,
of testifying against the balanced and tranquil forces of human behavior and embracing the erotic and tortured soul. The art form heavily emphasized the liberation of the individual, liberation from rational and scientific thinking, of order and elegant behavior. Characterized by an obsession with raw and undiluted emotion, Romanticism urged for individuals to not only express feeling, but deliver it in all forms. Suppression of this emotion was by no means encouraged and the works of literature and various pieces of art such as Théodore Géricault’s “The Raft of Medusa” and Eugéne Delacroix’s “Liberty Leading the People” took on this lack of suppression and dramatically highlighted this freedom of thought and embracement of passion. Along with this expression of the individual, Romantic work heavily highlighted natural landscapes and seductive literature. Post Industrial Revolution, the age of Romanticism was dominated by vivid oil paintings of spacious mountains and valleys, stormy blue waves crashing into rocky cliffs, and perhaps most famously, Caspar David Friedrich’s “Wanderer above the Sea of Fog”, which highlights the serenity of a mountainous landscape masking the individuality and freedom accessed through nature. Sensual literature was boldly projected across passionate and newfound readers who craved the poetic language and verbose style that
accompanied the movement. Many writers urged the individual to pursue desires and embrace creation and the unusual. Emotionally heavy works such as Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and Victor Hugo’s famous The Hunchback of Notre-Dame and Les Misérables focused on forbidden lust and inner torment, all Romantic ideals. Today, traces of Romanticism can still be found within art and literature as well as within modern day values and beliefs. Characterized primarily by visions of individual desires in life and peace with nature, the present day still firmly holds on to the ideals and values of a time when passion and emotion overtook reason, and the body and mind were constantly in angst and conflict. Works such as Gone With the Wind and Moby Dick still echo the beliefs and visions held in accord with a time period almost 200 years prior. The age of Romanticism brought not just a new way of viewing visual works and literature, but a new way of understanding and resonating with one’s self and surroundings. It is the movement that brought about a revelation to not just the body and soul, but to the mind. It was a revolution of burning desire, a desire to be free to be human, perhaps the most human desire there is.
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Photograph courtesy of Sugimoto and Fraenkel Gallery
You are given the entire world AndrĂŠs Vaamonde
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You are given the entire world, but it is not the gift you wanted. You wanted no gift at all. It is handed to you, by impossibly warm hands, in a package you did not order and were surprised to see your signature already on. Inside, you find an infinitely unfolding cosmic map: proud planets and their loyal moons, bright stars embedded in the deep web of dark space, universes upon universes coiled tight in matrix. Time too is bent within this box. All pasts and prospects, histories and futures tingle at the tips of your fingers but soon you realize how vast it all is and cannot think but to give it back. The world starts to suck you in but you’d prefer to remain on the periphery. You’d prefer only a small peephole to see through, an isolated view from which to observe in your beloved bitter envy, jealousy and wrath. You do not want the world to fill you. You’d rather be unfilled, be nothing, be hollow, be empty ~~ all in pursuit of a bliss you think exists. But it is too late. You have already swallowed, already let the contents seep deep into your pores. The world is long, wide and asphyxiating. It is too much, too close, too near and all packed in so tight bits of you start popping from your every nook. You think to open your mouth to let out the pressure but can’t for what essence might spill from your open lips or maybe the anger stuck in your teeth will dislodge which would be bad because you like that anger and do not wish to part with it but you also need to smile otherwise how will people know you’re happyyou’rehappyyou’rehappy so you spit out as much as you can to try and say some anything, try to backtrack, try to refuse, but you realize your tongue is plugged down by too many other words, words you think might be yours but of this you cannot be entirely sure so, just in case, you cut your tongue, erasing whole dictionaries of what might be you. At first the pain hurts but soon enough you’re drunk in the pain and ~ah~ the rush is so right, right, you need moreneedmore. You look down at the lines of your palms, hating them for their crookedness. You strike a match in one hand and bring it to the other, hoping to burn the paths to ash because touch is a road you never want to retrace your steps upon. Now unable to feel, you think you’ve found the culprit but no, it’s all that tangles in your hair so you take scissors to your scalp and cut it all off, making sure the roots are good and dead so that all the ifs and whens and buts and thems and yours and hers in your life can never grow back. You look at your bald self in the mirror. The dark stubble on your
head looks like a forest of stumps. You wish you could cut down all the trees in your life because, knowing you cannot climb them again or watching other winds that are not you rustle their leaves and mistaking this for a wave, it is just too much. You think you’ve finally done it but yet again you’re wrong. No, the worst of it still lies in the sting of your muscles and the ache of your bones from everywhere you go twice, and now the second time, alone, so you pour liquid cement over your feet, tie your legs together and your arms behind your back, lie on your belly and wait for emptiness’ kiss. But you realize, horribly, that you will never really know empty so long as the terrible master continues his reign atop your spine. Do it. Bang his castle, your skull, against the ground again and again until the lights dim in perfect unison and until your eyes no longer strain against the bright and until their sight is out and blackness is your only canvas. You want this forever don’t you? Do it then, bang, do it until you no longer have to wonder whether those trees are waving or not and until the world is a blip in your radar, bang, a bug in your windshield, bang, until you think you’ve reached the vacant bliss you lusted for bang, bang, bang,bang,bang but you are too greedy. You take too much. You give it all away. You are left empty of all, including emptiness, and you will not get nothing back, not even nothingness. And now you wonder the worst of it: how could you have not kept the world (thatlove) when she gave it to you?
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Thread is an independent student publication and the only fashion, lifestyle and art magazine at Cornell. Thread is a conglomeration of studentmade fashion, art, photography, styling, and design. It is published semesterly, and aims to showcase the interdisciplinary talents of individuals within the Cornell community through its attention to compelling visual and written storytelling. Thread encourages students of all disciplines to join our team. If you are interested in working on Thread, please contact us. Web thethreadmagazine.com Email thethreadmagazine@gmail.com Facebook facebook.com/thethreadmagazine Instagram @threadmag
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