Fetish Fashion

Fetishism has a long history including religious, anthropological, economic and sexual meanings. Today fetishism is characterized as a type of sexuality in which according to 'The Berg Companion to fashion', arousal is associated with a (non- genital) part of the body, such as hair, or an inanimate object such as a shoe. It is mainly men who have sexual fetish'sand there are thought to be different degrees to fetishism, from being aroused by a woman in high heel shoes, lingerie, leather and rubber to sadomasochism and transvestism.

(The avengers character Mrs. Peel 1960's)

Festishism was kept a secret in the early twentieth century and was contained to brothels or staging pornographic imagery but since the 1970's clothing fetishes have become an important role in fashion and culture. 

The image above is of a character from a T.V series the Avengers.  The leather cat suit was modeled on a authentic fetish costume. This lead to the image below of Michelle Pfeiffer in 1992.

(Michelle Pfeiffer's latex catsuit in 'Batman Returns)

(Vivienne Westwood, S&M fashion)

(Hemlut Newton. An influential fashion photographer in the 1970's)

(John Paul Gaultier)

(Dolce and Gabbana)

(Thierry Mugler)

(Gareth Pugh)

A great photographer... Helmut Newton

Helmut Newton was a German-Australian photographer who's 'provocative, erotically charged black and white photo's were a main stay of vogue.' He started taking photos after the war in 1945 and married 'Alice Springs' who was also a photographer and a former actress. They both photographed in the black and white style. It was this that attracted me to this first image of Newtons. 

Here is just a small sample of Newtons work.

First ever photo shop...

Today i had an introductory lesson to photo shop, why did i not know how amazing it was before now?! I have messed around on photo shop just cropping images etc but i have never been shown its full advantage. I am upset at past teachers for keeping me in the dark about this for such along time! The amount of different effects you can create is crazy but i think you can probably tell from the image i have produced that the 'opacity' button is defiantly going to be a favorite of mine! I had been home barely five seconds before i was downloading photo shop 30 day trial! I will be a photo shop nerd in no time! <3

FRENCH NEW WAVE

 THE NEW WAVE was a term used for a group of film makers in 1950s/60s. The most influential new waves were from the French movement in Paris. This form of cinema experimented with hand held portable cameras, editing and visual style. “New Wave filmmakers were linked by their self-conscious rejection of classical cinematic form and their spirit of youthful iconoclasm.” Wikipedia.


                                        

Along with the new way of filming there appeared a new way of editing, a inspirational film maker, Jean-Luc Godard started the uses of ‘jump cuts’, ‘mismatches’ and other editing processes that when against the ‘editing rules’. This emerged when one of his films ‘A bout de souffle’ was too long meaning he had to reduce it to just one and a half hour.

The new ‘editing style’ for the French new wave now did not conform to the editing rules, there were free styled shots, discontinuous images and insertion of unconnected material. Including shooting on location, natural lighting and improvised dialogue turning it into a more documentary type style. Although many French new wave film makers used their friends as the cast, Goddard and Beauregard and Ponti managed to show off Jean Seberg in ‘breathless’ and Corrine Marchand in ‘Cleo 5 to 7 Varda’ in a classical French aura. Both dressed in timeless outfits and minimal, elegant make up.


      

                                                   

A cinematic experience of catwalks

Today my lecture was based on film and a link was made between an auteur and catwalks. An auteur is "a filmmaker usually the director whose movies are characterized by a filmmaker's creative influence." A famous auteur, who goes by the name or Hitchcock, started off painting film sets in the 1920's, continued with his apprenticeship and later went off to Germany where he saw the work of F.W Muranu. His work shot to the top with his ability to create a story line with no dialogue. His use of orchestration, lighting, colour and dramatic make up helps to set the mood. It also helps to evoke emotion and create suspense. 

After our lecture we had a seminar to discuss the lecture and we found many aspects of Hitchcock's film making techniques were included in a designers plan for a catwalk. Both a designer and a auteur have the control of everything, they get to choose the best bits to show, the music and lighting, how much suspense is needed and even the models. 

Hitchcock had a specific type of woman that he liked to use with in his films, BLONDES, "blondes make the best victims. they're like virgin snow that shows up the bloody foot prints."  His obsession lead to the use of 10 plus blonde actress's, they were almost like his 'collection.' This, and also within catwalks, the choice of models is crucial as it could either make or ruin a show/film. In fashion, different skin tones, hair colours and body shapes do not match certain colours or styles which could make the garment look bad. Also many designers like their models to look alike so that the focus is on the clothes not the model. 

Doris Day

SUSPENSE is another love of Hitchcocks, he believes "there is no terror in the bang of a gun, only the anticipation of it." The build up, the use of music and lighting, waiting for the shot to be fired. Just like the opening of a catwalk, waiting for the first view of a new collection, right in front of you, could happen at any minuet!! 

Graffiti lecture

A lecture the other day got me thinking, why do artists create? is it for them selves? or for fame and money? Most artists we know or hear about are because they are 'famous,' but what about the ones who have great work but haven't 'made it big' yet? are they getting the gratitude they deserve? The answer is no they are not.

Our lecture was on graffiti, a talent that gets both bad and good feed back and from an artist myself i feel that everyone should get their place in the spot light thats why i was slightly annoyed that the name Banksy cropped up in our lecture but not Blek la rat, the godfather of stencil art. (A Parisian artist born in 1952.)

Blek la rat

I watched a documentary in august which was very eye opening about the world of graffiti and it appears there are alot of white lies that have been told. I found that Banksy isnt what he appears to be and that his work is uncannily similar to Blek la rats. Coincidence?

I recommend that you watch this documentary 'graffiti wars' which is linked below.

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/graffiti-wars

Banksys sudden rise to fame attracted allot of people to his work, his name was known everywhere and people fell in love with him. That's why i was so devastated that he wasn't 100% truthful about where his inspiration for his work came from. His work is very similar to Blek la rats, a hard working artist got blocked out of the spot light by someone pretending to be something they are not just to help their pockets. I think that Blek la rat seems to be in the graffiti business for the right reasons, because he enjoys it, not to pocket from it as he has never forced his work upon us all.

                                                Banksey

I feel that Blek la rats work needs to be shown to the world so he can get some gratification about his work, so he knows that people know the truth and that he knows we all appreciate his work.

If this was fashion it would be splashed all over the papers! Imagine a channel suit being copied with just a slight detail being changed! Their would be an uproar of angry fashionistas! There is no doubt about that!

Banksy and Blek la rat are both amazing artists but because of the dispute between these two im afraid Banksy is made the bad guy and like marmite you either love him or you hate him.