ONLINE DOSSIER: ADELE JOY VARCOE »FEELING FASHION«
Varcoe, Adele. “Feeling Fashion.” PhD, RMIT University, 2016.
»proposition for a new kind of fashion practice employing ‘selfing’, scoring and drawing to interrogate, isolate and feel fashion through my body and the bodies of others.« (p.15)
»“the invisible elements included in clothing” (Kawamura 2005)« (p.15)
»If fashion can be understood as immaterial or invisible how does a fashion practitioner go about making fashion?« (p.15)
»This research aims to reveal, amplify and understand how fashion affects our social experience.« (p.20)
»Erving Goffman suggests that “the ‘true’ or ‘real’ attitudes, beliefs, and emotions of the individual can be ascertained only indirectly, through his avowals or through what appears to be involuntary expressive behaviour” (Goffman 1959, p. 14).« (p.20)
»“fashion does provide extra added values to clothing, but the additional elements exist only in people’s imaginations and beliefs. Fashion is not visual clothing but the invisible elements included in clothing” (Kawamura 2005, p. 4).« (p.23)
»Initially, fashion was “referred to as activities; fashion was something that one did, unlike now perhaps, when fashion is something that one wears” (Barnard 2002, p. 12).« (p.24)
»This practice-based research sits between two key areas of enquiry:« (p.26)
»“today’s participatory art … tends to value what is invisible: a group dynamic, a social situation, a change of energy, a raised consciousness.« (p.26)
»“clothing and dress are the raw material from which fashion is formed” (Brenninkmeyer 1963, p. 6). While my focus is toward the immaterial and social affects of fashion in the western world, clothing and dress implicitly play a role in this« (p.28)
»It is the way in which people perceive clothing in relation to context, time and their personal experience that is of interest to this research.« (p.28)
»auto-ethnographic approach which “seeks to describe and systematically analyse (graphy) personal experience (auto) in order to understand cultural experience (ethno)” (Ellis 2004, p. 12)« (p.30)
»This chapter discusses emerging experimental fashion practices that work with audience participation. These practices are discussed in relation to my own practice, participatory art and theatre practices. This chapter further positions my work between fashion and art and discusses the crossovers and possibilities that this intersection enables.« (p.44)
»Breaking down the boundary between model, visitor and designer blurs the roles we play in the creation of fashion.« (p.46)
»Without people participating, this world cannot exist. Similarly to my work, without participation the work does not exist.« (p.46)
»“today’s designers are no longer searching for an ‘authentic’ style that references their origins; their main concern is to critique the present fashion system” (Teunissen 2014, p.14).« (p.48)
»Marchetti and Quinz’s exhibition Dysfashional (2007), Knights SHOWstudio’s Fashion Revolution (2009), Jose Teunnissen’s The Future of Fashion is Now (2014)« (p.48)
»“every piece of clothing provokes a relationship. For me the piece is about relationships. Within every garment there’s a whole new friendship, a whole new kind of energy that strikes up” (Swinton 2015).« (p.52)
»“maybe the interesting thing about clothes is that people live in them, and that there’s nothing else really to be said, and so it’s trying to trace that and concentrate on that, and to honour our clothes, rather than Coco Chanel or Napoleon or anybody else. Actually our clothes” (Swinton 2015).« (p.52)
»This performance visits a very intimate space that highlights the kinds of emotions related to clothes, reminding us that they are part of us and our identity as “these (touches clothes) … become the vehicle that is more than just a body but all the complexity of our human(ity)” (Marchetti 2009).« (p.52)
»Knight says, “it is my belief that fashion is completely capable and should be expressing political thought” (Knight 2009)« (p.55)
»Bourriaud describes alter-modern as, “the experience of wandering in time, space and mediums … it is like a dream catcher of what modernism is to come” (2009). It is a new movement that is not concerned with the past, but with the future. Teunissen takes this further by asking the question, “alter-modern designer who asks questions about the future: where are we headed in society?” (2014, P.17)« (p.56)
»The Future of Fashion is Now suggests that the contemporary fashion designer is more concerned with politics, society and community. She says, “the photo or outfit will no longer suffice; the contents and meaning of the work must also be explained by means of the revealed thought and construction process and the background stories. Performances, films and installations are the ideal media for this work” (ibid). This statement suggests that fashion is taking a turn and other mediums such as performance, installation and video are expanding but also blurring what a fashion practitioner does and what the future of fashion might look like.« (p.56)
»These methods give me tools to explore the presence of fashion within social relationships.« (p.58)
»Participatory art invites people to participate in the making of a work.« (p.63)
»Fashion could be considered to be the ultimate form of a participatory practice as fashion is created through participation from a community and without it, fashion cannot exist.« (p.66)
»These methods do not so much make fashion but bring about a way to feel the immaterial, invisible qualities of fashion.« (p.66)
»In his book The Fashion System, Roland Barthes presents a number of equations where he sums up the garment, the way it is worn, the location and the way it is perceived by others such as, “Cardigan * Buttoned * Races = Dressy” (1983, p. 30). If this structure (Garment * Way it is worn* Location = The way it is perceived) was to be applied to the jumpsuit the equation might look something like this: Jumpsuit * Skin tight * Office = WTF?« (p.72)
»Most of Debord’s techniques involve working with people in everyday life to “deface things to show their true colours” (ibid). Psychogeography is a term defined by Debord as “the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals” (ibid). It can also be defined as “a whole toy box full of playful, inventive strategies for exploring cities … just about anything that takes pedestrians off their predictable paths and jolts them into a new awareness of the urban landscape” (ibid).« (p.72)
»These projects aimed to explore how fashion affects the social relations between people by drawing from my everyday experiences and working with large groups of people.« (p.78)
»It is through another’s gaze that I become aware of myself.« (p.80)
»Goffman suggests that “sometimes the individual will act in a thoroughly calculating manner, expressing himself in a given way solely in order to give the kind of impression to others that is likely to evoke from them a specific response he is concerned to obtain” (1959, p. 17).« (p.82)
»“What we actually see and react to are not the bodies, but the clothes of those about us. It is from their clothes that we form a first impression of our fellow- creatures as we meet them” (Flugel 1950, p. 15).« (p.82)
»Virgina Woolf writes “there is much to support the view that it is clothes that wear us and not we them; we make them take the mold of arm or breast, but they mold our hearts, our brains, our tongues to their liking” (1928, p. 188). Although it might be that our clothes wear us, I believe that social interaction plays a role in the way in which garments shape us and we construct our identity and can extend our performance and perception of others through dress.« (p.82)
»As Varela suggests “who we are at any moment cannot be divorced from what other things and who other people are to us.” (1999, p. 10)« (p.82)
»Goffman states “the ‘true’ or ‘real’ attitudes, beliefs, and emotions of the individual can be ascertained only indirectly, through his avowals or through what appears to be involuntary expressive behaviour” (1959, p. 14).« (p.84)
»Clothing seemed to play a role in being part of the group.« (p.92)
»“Imitation … gives to the individual the satisfaction of not standing alone in his actions. Whenever we imitate, we transfer not only
the demand for creative activity, but also the responsibility for the action from ourselves to another. Thus the individual is freed from the worry of choosing and appears simply as a creature of the group, as a vessel of the social contents” (1957 p. 13).« (p.96)
»As Simmel suggests, “dress and other forms of fashion enable the modern urban dweller to balance the conflicting demands of social conformity with private desires for individuality” (1957, p. 13).« (p.100)
»It was being with the group, the majority, their friends and wearing clothes seemed to be less about the garment itself but more about the social experience.« (p.100)
»And to invite people to consider that perhaps we dress like others to belong, to be part of the pack, to avoid feeling alone.« (p.102)
»the thought of how others outside the group would perceive them provoked feelings of fear.« (p.104)
»It seems whether it is the millimetres of a blouse or a jumpsuit, perhaps one alters one’s clothes to alter the reaction from another.« (p.104)
»Is looking or being looked at part of why any of us wear what we do?« (p.108)
»“Although every image embodies a way of seeing, our perception or appreciation of an image depends also upon our own way of seeing” (Berger, 1972, p.10).« (p.108)
»Knausgaard describes looking or gazing to be one of the most powerful forces and that “only there do we exist for one another. In the gaze of the other, we become, and in our own gaze others become” (2015, p. 6).« (p.108)
»“She is not naked as she is. She is naked as the spectator sees her” (ibid p. 52).« (p.134)
»The reasons why people wouldn’t swap became more interesting than those that would. This question alone revealed a lot about the relationship we have with our clothes and why we dress the way we do. The conversations I had with potential swappers about their wardrobes highlighted how much they dress for a situation or the people around them.« (p.140)
»who are we dressing for? And why do the people around us affect the way we feel in what we wear?« (p.140)
»People who seemed attached to their clothes were not attached to the physical garment but to the person they were when they wore that garment. The way they felt around people while they wore that garment is what created an emotional attachment to that garment which suggests that it is through the presence of others that our wardrobe and identity is formed.
Handing over our wardrobe means handing over a part of ourselves.« (p.140–142)
»“normcore” […] “characteriszed by unpretentious, average looking clothing” (K-Hole 2014). According to K-Hole normcore referred to an attitude, not a particular code of dress. It was intended to mean “finding liberation in being nothing special” (2014).« (p.154)
»There is an awareness of dress that is shared between normcore and the jumpsuit in that dress does affect the perception of others towards you and this in turn affects you.« (p.154)
»However, I argue that the code of dress affects the attitude.« (p.154)
»“the clothes we wear have power not only over others, but also over ourselves” (Galinsky 2012).« (p.154)
»“Each individual has more than one role, but he is saved by role dilemma by ‘audience segregation’, for ordinarily, those before whom he plays out one of his roles will not be the individuals before whom he plays out another, allowing him to be a different person in each role without discrediting either” (1956 p. 269).« (p.168)
»Crane and Bavone suggest, “clothes both affect and express our perceptions of ourselves” (2006, p. 321). However, whilst my research has shown this, I believe that the perception of the self in relation to clothes comes about through the reactions and interactions with others.« (p.172)
»1. We imagine how we must appear to others.
2. We imagine and react to what we feel their judgment of that appearance must be.
3. We develop ourselves through judgment and of others. (2003)« (p.172)
»My actions, behaviour and perception of self was constructed by whomever others believed Jumpsuit Girl to be.« (p.172)
»Katz says “the individual depends on others to know him or herself. I must look to others to see myself, to know myself, literally to find myself. It is only through the responsive actions of others that I can, for example see my seeing” (1999, p. 315).« (p.172)
»Charles Cooley proposes the idea of The Looking Glass Self (1902) where he suggests that the self is made up of how others perceive us and that it is through others that the perception we have of ourselves is shaped … Perhaps this is how we learn about ourselves and who we are?« (p.181)
»the self is “taking the role of the other” (Mead 1967, p. 6) where one sees oneself as s/he imagines how others would see him/her. Perhaps it isn’t actually how people see you but how you imagine these people see you that these multiple characters are born. Which makes the self an imagined construct based on the individual’s interpretation of the self from another’s perspective …« (p.182)
»“today’s participatory art tends to value what is invisible: a group dynamic, a social situation, a change of energy, a raised consciousness” (2012, p.12).« (p.196)
»practice based research« (p.196)
»I found fashion exists in social spaces and perhaps without social interaction fashion cannot exist.« (p.196)
»Selfing, scoring and drawing provides a methodology to reveal the social affects of fashion through working with and reflecting on social interaction.« (p.202)
Varcoe, Adele. “Feeling Fashion.” PhD, RMIT University, 2016.
»Adele Varcoe is an Australian artist and designer who creates transformative experiences that explore the social affects of fashion, dress and clothes. She brings people together to construct participatory performances that explore the elusive nature of fashion.
Working with actors, models and the public Adele investigates how fashion affects the interactions and relations between us. She is interested in the behaviour fashion evokes and the role social interaction plays in shaping our perception of dress.«
Varcoe, Adele. “Adele Varcoe: About”, accessed 06/04/2021, httpss://www.adelevarcoe.com/about.