What to wear during a thunderstorm???

First of all, did you guys see yesterday's thunderstorm?! Did you guys actually take the time go outside and look at it? Well I did, and it was an awesome experience. I was just chilling on facebook when the storm approached. It was not really in my interest because I have the "who cares" mentality for such occurrences. But my roommate told me to go outside to check it out because he seems to be blown away by it. So, as I approach the parking lot of my apartment, I was in shock to see the number of residents outside staring into the sky- admiring the beauty of nature. When I found a spot among the group of residents, everyone was very quiet and focused. So, I looked up into the sky. I, too, was in amazement. Not only was the sky beautiful to the eyes, it was also calming to the ears.

Now, I have another question. Weather. Does it affect the way people dress? Do people still dress for looks (in fashion) or for comfortabilty? This idea came to me when my friend keep asking me what she should wear during a thunderstorm. Yes, a thunderstorm. Um... I dont know. When she ask me that question, first thing that came to mind was she is definitly not asking if she should wear a raincoat or boots for a thunderstorm. She was asking what fashion she should wear. Since the weather in Davis is warm even during a thunderstorm, she was stuck in between the decision to wear a Winter fashion style clothing for the thunderstorm or Summer fashion style clothing cause of the heat.

In the book Fashionology, the author Kawamura, said that fashion is "the value added to clothing" (Kawamura 5) that is perceived in people's minds. Yes, indeed. Even though, I know fashion is important because it truly is a representation of oneself. But sometimes, how can people let fashion get to them even in the most extreme cases? Such as this case. Even a thunderstorm can bring out such a question, "what should I wear for a thunderstorm?" Fashion mentioned by Kawamura is indeed the "the value" it puts on clothing perceived by people. But it is funny how far people are affected by it. How much fashion means to them. How much they care about their phsyical appearance. Even enough, where just clothing is not enough.

People's opinions are very important. Therefore, I looked up a site where people express their own thoughts on this matter. The title of the question on the site is "How come people care so much about their appearance?" One said, "[b]ecause it's fun to get dressed up and look nice, it feels good to be noticed and admired, and it's a confidence boost." While another said "[m]oderation is the key. Dress nicely, cleanly, and classy, but don't let it be your primary occupation in life.". And a different member said "I don't care what I look like and I JUST DON'T CARE! " Hmm... while some loves fashion and phsyical appearance, some just care enough to look good and fit into the community, while others simply don't care.

So, I'm going to ask you a similar question. How much do you care about fashion and your physical appearance? And for my curiosity, what would you wear for a thunderstorm??

Here's a quick video of summer fashion. For winter fashion, you can look it up on your own.


-Ivan Lee (Blog #5)

----------------------------------------

Kawamura

Kaylierocks. How come people care so much about their appearance? Yahoo. 3 March 2009. 4 June 2009. http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/beauty/user-post-how-come-people-care-so-much-about-their-appearance-433035/

What is a man to do?

Was it inevitable? Have I been predisposed to such failure because I grew up in an age of heightened technology and telecommunications? These are the thoughts I ponder when I look at the course of my thoughts and actions over the quarter. All of my green-speak and virtue came crashing down yesterday as I for some reason compelled myself to buy a new dress shirt and tie. Sure, the new classiness was a multi-use function; it is for fraternity formal, graduation and subsequent weddings. Yeah, its pretty nice if I do say so myself, but that is far from the point. As soon as I took of the new threads for the night, I began to think why exactly I bought it. Why do we do such malarkey? Buying new clothes for ‘special occasions’ doesn’t seem quite rationale when you think about it. I mean, it would certainly be fine to look presentable in the same nice shirt and slacks. But for some reason, we tend to correlate the new, crisp shirt with being classy. I think we buy new because it makes us think that the people around us will approve of us more, thereby reinstilling us with a fluffed up fabricated self. Here, I find it interesting that I find myself reverting to high school mentality; especially since I am graduating in a week. Perhaps it is because I just got finished watching a new episode of ‘Glee.’ http://www.hulu.com/watch/73740/glee-pilot. This is an awesome archtype of teen fashion. Anyways, High school is all about hot trends. Why? The answer here lies in the topic of the week for this course which is institutions and networks. Through our interaction with the world wide media and peers, we get an idea of the newest acceptable perceptions. In Dorinne Kondo’s article, “The Aesthetics and Politics of Japanese Identity in the Fashion Industry,” we get a great sense of how the fashion and economic industry has a counterbalancing effect in east and west markets. New fashions have adverse affects on old fashion textiles and markets, which impact subsequent styles and marketing. Who knows, western, wool or a combination of both may make a huge comeback in the not so distant future? The consumption of trends is also illustrated in Claire Dwyer’s piece, “Tracing transnationalities through commodity culture.” Here, we see how transnational identities and interactions all revolve around the consumption of one pop culture. The commodity culture coincides to what is now and fashionable. Hence, it is a domineering influence amongst the teen populace. I am reminded now of McDonaldization in sociology, and how culture and fashion both use this force based in efficiency and popular taste.
http://ak.buy.com/db_assets/prod_lrg_images/880/204674880.jpg
We can make the argument that contemporary institutions and networks in fashion, economics and various other cultural products, have and will continue to use, the ideal of McDonalidization in order to mass produce an overly consumed persona. This is why we desire so much, and how conspicuous consumption comes full circle. Through this process, teens are socialized to subsist within the interconnected world of media and fashion in order to remain in the ‘cool’ group and be considered fashionable. So, while I will have lamentors remorse for a couple more hours and continue this walk of shame down the fashion runway, the new methods of how to be and sustain a green/compact livelihood will consume my mind tomorrow. Tomorrow begins the new endeavor; Fashionable or not…such a subjective perspective really is moot.

“Glee” Hulu Retrieved 30 may 2009. .
Dwyer, Claire. “Tracing Transnationalities Through Commodity Culture.” Class Reader, Valverde, ASA 189B Spring.
Kondo, Dorinne. “The Aesthetics and Politics of Japanese Identity in the Fashion Industry.” Class Reader, Valverde, ASA 189B Spring.
“McDonaldization” Google Images. Retrieved 27 May 2009. <http://ak.buy.com/db_assets/prod_lrg_images/880/204674880.jpg>.

Michael Silvernail
Blog # 5

Alo? Alo!

I'm currently working right now as I write this blog. So I got to thinking about what I can talk about in my final entry. And as I gazed to my right I saw a new brand in my store called Alo, pronounced aloe. The company's motto is "Define your GREEN". Their mission, according to their website is to "Create high performance, stylish lifestyle wear with outstanding function, designed and produced with minimal impact on the environmental elements alo stands for: Air. Land. Ocean. We provide customers with a choice that is respectable of the environment with out sacrificing fashion" (About Alo).



Considering the existence of this brand is brings up a whole range of topics I've read about in Kawamura's Fashion-ology, the one idea that pops out the most is that "production influences consumption, and consumption influences production" (Kawamura). Being green and creating this cultural where prioritizing the planet's future is not only a genuinely nice gesture, it's one great marketing scheme. We live in a world of recyclables, Priuses and repurposing. The goal is to avoid wasting as much as possible. The fact that they are creating their clothes through a green strategy makes them that much more appealing. That is production influencing consumption. People don't feel bad about buying the clothing because there is no guilt. The old way of being overly lavish and wasteful is gone. That kind of consumption has influenced production of goods. This, in turn, is the basis for the Alo brand.

Alo is a solid brand with a great upside, but nontheless, to buy their clothing may be going against the compact challenge. I'm not hating on their purpose or completely think it's a clever scheme. But everything has a niche. Alo is lucky that their niche also ensures success, at least in theory.

Cyril Torado #6

"About Alo" Alo.com. 3 June 2009. .

Kawamura, Yuniya. Fashion-ology An Introduction to Fashion Studies (Dress, Body, Culture). New York: Berg, 2005.

wonder girls in forever 21

So last weekend my friend went shopping, without me, and she sent me this picture. Both me and her are really into korean music and so when she saw this shirt she just had to send it to me. When I saw it, I was just shocked. When I got back home (we live together) we talked about it. Being Korean owned, it was no wonder that Forever would support their own artists. For thosewho do not know, the Wondergirls are a recently popular girl group in korea and they have a strong fan base around the world. I think they are coming out with an english album soon, but Im not to sure about it. But anyways, after our talk I got on my computer and I found an article that was talking about the shirt.

In this article it talked about how the shirt was not catergorized as a Wondergirls shirt, as matter of fact Forever does not mention them at all. Instead it labels the shirt as a "window shopping tank," but anyone who knows of hte Wondergirls can tell that is them. One of the girls on the shirt is wearing their signature outfit from their recent hit "Nobody." Although Forever did not label it as a Wondergirls shirt they are slowly introducing their culture to Americans. Forever is probably trying to encourage their cultural pride to their community (Parminder Bhachu). Forever is one of the most popular youth fashion stores, and its the best way to promote their culture. I would have thought they would label the shirt or atleast name the Wondergirls somewhere, but since they did not the shirt is like a knockoff. Actually on the website that I was reading, members of the site found the exact pictures that where copied. Since Forever couldnt get a real shirt, they had to make their own. Some people who commented on the site, stated that Forever was known for making Knockoffs. As a consumer of F21, I never knew this side. Maybe that is why F21 is so popular. I guess Wondergirls should feel flattered that a Korean-American wants to promote them in his store. It is a gret way to get publicity.

Another article that it reminded of was the "Tracing Transnationalities" article. It reminded me of it, because the owner of F21 was a Korean that immigrated to US. He is a transnational in the sense that he is a diaspora looking for a way to connect to the home country. Although he is in a new land or space, he still tries to connect back to his homeland. Not only is trying to connect back, but he is also sharing his culture to his new home. It's like he is trying to make a hybrid culture that suits him, and anyone else who is like him. He does this by commodifying the Wondergirls into a shirt, but not labeling it as a Wondergirls shirt. By doing so he is subtly inching in his native culture with his new culture. By labeling the shirt by an unknown artists, many Americans will be disdained from buying the shirt. People who buy that shirt, are usuallu people who already know who are on the shirt. However since it isn't labled as anything related to Korea, the shirt is just a regular "window shopping tank" anyone can buy it and enjoy it.

Jennifer Ma
blog #5
Claire Dwyer "Tracing transnationalities through commondity culture"
Parminder Bhachu "Designing Diasporic Markets: Asian Fashion Entrepreneurs in London"
Melissa A. Decker "Knockouts of Knockoffs: The Global Implication of Fashion Policy"
http://www.allkpop.com/index.php/full_story/wonder_girls_look-a-like_shirt_at_forever_21/

compact challenge: it doesn't HAVE to be the end...

As the last week of the compact challenge is coming to an end, I feel successful, but at the same time, unsuccessful. Although I failed a couple times and did buy some clothes, I feel like I did manage to save some money here and there. I stopped spending a lot of money on food and tried to cook food at home more. I also tried to stop buying clothes and I believe the things that I ended up buying, were mostly on sale and pretty good deals. I guess the main thing I would take from this challenge is just remembering how much I was able to save. It’s not even just the money I was able to save, but just knowing that I have tried to be more "green" in many different ways has made me feel really great about myself!

While this may be true, one main thing I noticed is that no matter how hard we try to save, people will always be consuming new things one way or another. That is just how we are. In "Fashion-ology" by Yuniya Kawamura, she talks about how there is a system in the fashion world and how everything connects to each other. There are the designers, fashion professionals, and the consumers which together, make and keep the fashion industry happen and stay alive. (page 105) It seems as if even if we, the consumers, were to stop consuming, the designers and fashion professionals could still work together and attempt to make fashion happen, but no one would be consuming these things. However, because of how the media and others portray fashion, there is no way that everyone in the world would just completely STOP consuming. Fashion and the consumption of fashion is such a big role in everyone’s life. No matter how much people say they’re going to stop shopping, they usually end up shopping sooner or later. This is pretty true for me. In the beginning of the compact challenge, I was set out on my journey to not buy new clothes and stop buying food as much. However, by like, week 5, I was back to going shopping and buying things. Although I didn’t buy a lot of things, or I only bought sale items, I noticed that no matter how hard I tried to control myself, I still got sucked into the idea of fashion and buying more clothes that were considered "in" by everyone around me.

I also noticed that fashion isn’t just something that is happening in our city, state, or country. It’s something that is happening EVERYWHERE in the world, even in the places that we least expect it. In a book by Sandra Niessen and colleagues titled, "Re-Orienting Fashion," they discuss how "fashion is a global phenomenon…" (page 243) Fashion isn’t something that just involves some people. It’s something that involves people everywhere around the world. Whether we are a designer, fashion profession, or consumer, we are all part of fashion no matter where we live. And even though everyone’s fashion style may be different, it all comes together some way or another.

Although these six weeks and the compact challenge are coming to an end, I hope that I don’t just start spending money like crazy again. I hope that I actually learned something from these past weeks like how to save money on things and not buying as much things, how to become more green and eco-friendly, as well as not using as much paper towels as I used to. Just because the class is over doesn’t mean I have to stop the compact challenge. Hopefully I’ll continue to spend my money wisely, learn more about being environmentally friendly, and continue learning about fashion and the different ways it affects people.

Steph Hirsh

Blog #6

image 1: http://www.ecosherpa.com/images/logo_green.gif

image 2: http://www.ecosherpa.com/images/logo_green.gif

Kawamura, Yuniya. "Fashion-ology." 2005,2006. pages 105-108.

Niessen, Sandra, Ann Marie Leshkowish, Carla Jones. "Re-orienting Fashion." 2003, 2005. pages 243-265.

Britney of Asia

People are easily influenced; when they see something appealing and everyone is wearing it, they will buy it. It's that "MUST HAVE" mentality. With celebrities also heavily influencing the direction of where fashion is going, it is no wonder why people are spending so much money! They all want to look like their favorite celebrity and it is NOT easy and cheap to look like one of the top celebrities.

I've been extremely bad at my spending even before this challenge. I slowly got better but eventually relapsed. Ever since I got interested into the Korean wave, I find myself dressing more and more like the Korean celebrities! Though I did write a blog about plastic surgery craze (I learned that it is mostly prominent in Korean celebrities) and the Chinese notion of the body as attire (Ko 93), I am ONLY limited to clothing and my attempt at skin whitening through papaya soap (though against my will). In addition to clothing, I have recently gotten into piercings and have accumulated about 6 piercings: 4 in my ear and 2 on my face, so jewelry is the "IN" thing for me right now. So what do I go do? I buy more piercing jewelry!

I signed onto yesasia and bought a total of three items. Although the most expensive one was a book written by a Korean hip hop artist when he attended Stanford, the other two were jewelry inspired by BoA and Super Junior. Though I do consider Super Junior to be quite fashionable, they are a bunch of guys that do not really influence my sense of fashion (though I do find them more girly and prettier than me). BoA, on the other hand, appeals to my fashion taste since she is cute, petite, and an awesome performer.

But this girl is probably loaded since she's been a performer for so long. I could not possibly afford the type of jewelry she actually wears. But what caught my eye were these BoA-styled three-point earrings that were not only pretty but they were BoA inspired! Even though I have NEVER seen BoA wear these types of earrings, the word BoA stood out and I bought them instantly. I didn't even bother translating the description from Hangul to English. It wasn't until after the order was confirmed that I regretted it... but ONLY slightly.

BoA styled earrings that I have NEVER seen BoA wear? Sounds kind of sketchy. Though they were only $13, it made me think back to the "Knockouts of Knockoffs" article. I have no idea who made these earrings and what they do with the profit. It just goes to show you that "consumers are more inclined to purchase 'sophisticated and authentic-looking' counterfeit designer merchandise because these products are available at a fraction of the price they would pay for the original" (Decker 165). With my untrained eye, if you were to put the real thing and the imitated thing next to each other, I would not be able to tell which one was which! But I now know that Koreans have some high quality fake items.

I'm not sure whether these is inspiration or imitation, since Decker also mentions that there is an increasing line between the two (165). I guess I'll just have to wait until I get my items in 2 weeks.

Christine Erfe blog #5

Resources:

Yesasia.com: BoA style earrings

Ko, Dorothy. The Body As Attire: The Shifting Meanings of Footbinding in Seventeenth-Century China. Class Reader.

Decker, Melissa. Knockouts of Knockoffs: The Global Implication of Fashion Piracy. Class Reader.

Reclamation of Youth

As a child, every minute of every day seems incredibly long. All you want to do is what the older kids get to do. You look at adults and see their privilege and begin to wish that you had a job, that you could cross the street to see your friends, and that you didn’t have homework all the time. As you get older, time just goes by faster. But once you realize that you want time to slow down, it only goes by faster.

With the end of another school year looming ahead, all of these realizations come rushing to my head as I try to figure out where the past three years have gone. Every year of college goes by so quickly. It's no wonder that people try so hard to reclaim their youth. This is especially apparent in Japan and the rise of “cute fashion” (Kinsella 225). Sanrio, which began in 1971, started becoming extremely popular with girls and women in Japan. It primarily produced “fancy goods”, which sold “stationary, cuddly toys and gimmicks, toiletries, lunch boxes, and cutlery, bags, towels, and other personal paraphernalia” (Kinsella 226). This trend has carried over into American fashion, as celebrities, such as Paris Hilton, have popularized Sanrio, particularly Hello Kitty.

Sanrio is a way for aging youth to reclaim their younger days. I am one of these aging youth, trying to hold on to every bit of my childhood, even though I took it for granted when I was younger. Buying Sanrio makes me feel like I can reconnect with my younger years … all part of the consumerist culture. I can’t fully reclaim my youth by spending money, but I can pretend!
However, it’s time to slowly move on. Thanks to remembering the compact challenge, I have yet to give in to Sanrio’s ploy to make me believe that I can reclaim my youth. :P But I won’t say that it hasn’t been difficult.

Courtney Lorca
Blog #4

Works Cited

1. Kinsella, Sharon. "Cuties in Japan".