Punk Culture

This post is based on Punk Culture. We had to look at two different articles on Punk Style, one by O’Brien, L and Dick Hebdige. We had to look at some key words that at first I really didnt understand but after looking online I found out what they meant…

Subculture Bricoleur (briclage) – This is taking something and changing its original function into something else

2. Semiotic guerrilla warfare – This is making a statement with clothing by breaking the rules and pushing the boundaries

3. Characteristics of punk style and ideological statement expressed within these stylistic qualities – This is when clothing has been deliberately changed e.g rip, damage, safety pins used as accessories, hair dyed, OTT make up.

4. Style as homology– means they are all a uniform, punks have rules to.

If we break down the outfit and look at the original object we can see they are not such a statement and not so loud and if your face but when put together that’s when the statement is made.

Week 3

This week we looked at a Zoot Suit Case study. We looked at the outfit and what it consisted of, the suit was very popular with African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans. The craze started in lower-class neighbourhoods. ‘Everything was exaggerated, from the V knot tie, the Zoot chain, the tight collar, the wide, flat hat and the Dutch type shoes. The suit came in various colours, such as lime green or canary yellow…the Zoot suit was but one part of a total look that included not only the suit and accessories but also the way you wore your hair’ (Alford, 2009, p354) 

From March 1942 the Zoot suit was effectively an illegal ensemble, following a dictate from the War Production board that ‘rationed cloth to a 26 percent cut-back in the use of fabrics. 

 (Cosgrove, 1989 cited in Tulloch, 2006, p304)

The next case study we looked at was the ‘Jefferson on the Teds extracts’ we looked at images of Teddy Boys. The styles was aimed more at teenagers because they had more money as they weren’t paying bills so they could afford the expensive attire. They were tailored suits that looked very smart. The Teds outfit consisted of A long narrow lapelled, waisted jacket, narrow trousers, ordinary toe-capped shoes and a fancy waistcoat. Shirts were white with cut away collars and ties were tied in a windsor knot. The suit was originally worn by Edwardian’s but the style came back in only it was altered a little, The suit was normally worm by upper class gentlemen back in Edwardian times and the Teddy boys claimed it to show their class, power and wealth. After Easter we have to write a 2500 word essay on anything we want and I have decided to look at the Teddy boys because it really interested me and I really like the suit.

Week 2

This week with Cath we looked at sub cultures within the street style. showed us a image of a ‘Old Skool B-Boy, 1985’ We discussed what we saw if someone that was in a gang would look like by what they were wearing. From what we know and learnt they are recognizable with their sports wear clothing with one particular brand, Adidas. They are also known for wearing gold jewellery, and chains that they called ‘bling’. There are so many different things going on with this outfit its making a statement, or a conversation between another B-Boy. They broke the rules of fashion and changed it to the way they wanted it to look, e.g taking the laces out of trainers, so its breaking the rules and not using the trainer for its purpose but as a fashion statement.  

Week 1- January 31st

I got my chosen option with Cath!! I was so relieved, waking up early was definitely the way to go……

Today was our first lesson with Cath. We were told what we were going to be doing through out the term with her and what we have to accomplish by the end of the term. 1st we were told we were to write a 2500 word essay based upon 3 images that we have analyzed and researched using academic studies. We were to do this by using the 3 columns Cath taught us in the first term but she was going to go through it all with us so we really understood the tables and what we were doing. The 3 columns were;

* Describe the image

* Analyze

* Theoretical underpinning ( academic studies.)

From here we went on to use this technique, we started by looking at a image of Madonna wearing one of her most famous outfits that was designed by Jean Paul Gautier for one of her Tours called Blonde Ambition (An incredible tour a must watch;

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpzdVuMR-4Q 

First we looked at the basics of the outfit e.g

*The Bra

*Silver and Black

*Corset over suit trousers

*Masculine suit with feminine corset

this was the outfit we were looking at…

We then went on to talk about why shes wearing it, what that outfit is suppose to say….;

*Feminine

* Armour, strength, Masculine 

*Underwear, sexy, feminine, modify the body, Weapons

*Make a statement

*Prove that shes powerful

From there then we looked at possible things to research using academic studies to back up out theory from our second column above, some of the things we could research is;

*Madonna herself

*Jean Paul Gautier

*Armour

*Gender 

*Suits

*Corsets

I really enjoyed this session because I love Madonna and Jean Paul Gautier, also having a keen interest in fashion this topic really stood out to me personally as it’s something i’m really keen on. The lesson in general was quite tiring as there was so much information to absorbed my head felt like it was going to explode.

Term 2- Options..

January 16th was our first constellation session back. We have a long lecture that consisted of a different presentations for different options, because instead of having different study skills sessions like last term, we just have to pick 1 that we think we could really enjoy and that interest you. To pick out option we had to fill in an online form very quickly because its based on a first come first serve basis and the options go very quickly.

When listening to all the different lectures only one stood out for me and that was Cath Davies who’s lecture was called ‘smells like teen spirit’ the lessons would be based on subcultures which relates to my subject area really well and something that I am really interested in. A lot of what she talked about and taught last term in her study session was relevant to her lessons now with analyzing different subcultures. I felt this really appealed to me because I am really interested in fashion and this opened my eyes to different kind of styles that maybe I didn’t really appreciate or understand.

No other option really interested me so I really hope I wake up early to make sure I get this option……

Costellation! First term…..

For the first term I didn’t really make time for my blog, which is a very big mistake because I really enjoyed it and would like to tell you about my experiences with the theory side of my course. We were told to make this blog because its a good way to explain our thoughts about what we have learnt and whether we enjoyed it or not! The first term I have to be honest I was excited but not looking forward to the lectures, lets be honest who enjoys sitting there listening to someone BUT I actually really enjoyed it and learnt a lot from the lectures and study sessions….

We had constellation every Thursday which involved a one hour lecture from 12.00 till 13.00 which was before or after a study skill session for all art and design students! I found all the lectures were different in their on way from talking about Doc Martens to Music being a kind of art. Being a textiles student though I found that some of the lectures weren’t quite relevant to my area and didn’t see how I could use the information in my work, but I’m glad i’m learning about them because they are very interesting and I have learnt a lot about different peoples perspective on what art is. We also have 2 hours of study sessions before or after the lecture, some of these I have found to be so interesting and I have really got into them on the others some haven’t been so interesting. One that I found really good was with Cath, looking at applying theories to images and objects, I really enjoyed looking at different images and then evaluating them by understanding how meanings are communicated simply by creating a table. I didn’t use to be very good at analyzing art but after the study session, talk about my art work and others are a lot easier now that I know what to look for using these tables. The table is made up of 3 columns, 1. desribe 2. analyze 3.  academic theory.

That is just some of the things we did in the first term, I will know for the future to keep up to date with my blog so I can look back at what I have learnt and so all of you can see what I have been doing and maybe learn something

Stay tuned for term 2