youth tribes and fashion (case studies in singapore)
TRANSCRIPT
Contemporary Sub-Cultures
• Sub-cultural Style
• Appropriated Sub-Cultures
• From Other to Another
• Personal Study: Singapore
• Case-study: Mash-Up
• Marketing and Commodification
Sub-Cultural Style
Ted Polhemus
“Style isn’t just a superficial phenomenon but a visible tip of something much greater.”
“The tribal imperative is and always will be a fundamental part of human nature.”
-Ted Polhemus, Street Style
–Dick Hebdige, Subcultures and the meaning of style, page 23
“Subculture provides a way of handling the experience of ambiguity and contradictions, the
painful questions of identity. Each subculture provides its members with style, an imaginary coherence, a clear-cut ready-made identity which coalesces around certain chosen objects (a safety
pin, a pair of winkle-pickers, a two-tone mohair suit). Together, these chosen objects form a whole; a recognisable aesthetic which in turn stands for a
whole set of values and attitudes.”
DECODING ATTITUDES
Appropriated Sub-cultures
Case-Study: Postwar Japanese Sub-cultures
“It's not about the clothes....”
“It's not about the clothes....”
Hiroshi Narumi, Street Style and its meaning in Post-war Japan, page 423
In terms of social behavior the futen-zoku was not an active tribe. They did little beyond making appearances in their chosen locations. Looking vaguely at passers-by, members of the futen-zoku simply sat in public squares, parks, and in the underground passages of Shinjuku train station (Mabuchi 1989: 167). The Futen-zoku danced in clubs and listened to Jazz at night and participated very little in politics, art, shopping, or country life. In spite of the influence of the American Hippies, the futen- zoku was an urban tribe, that had merely appropriated the Hippie style.
“It's not about the clothes....”
Though similar to British Rockers and American Hell’s Angels with regard to motorbike riding, the bôsô-zoku were considerably younger than their European and American counterparts. The bôsô-zoku subculture also developed an original style of dress that was quite different from other biker looks. Though their appearances are quite diverse, behavioral similarities exist between the bôsô-zoku and the Punk subculture. Both were antagonistic towards the dull, middle- class character of society in the 1970s.
Hiroshi Narumi, Street Style and its meaning in Post-war Japan, page 425
FROM OTHER TO ANOTHER
DOCUMENTING AN ERA: iD
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SUB-CULTURES TO CATWALK
CATWALK TO SIDEWALK
Sep
LOSING OTHERNESS & MEANING
September 2013
Marie Claire Blog, 15th October 2014
SIDEWALK TO CATWALK TO SIDE WALK
IS NOT
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GHETTO GOTHIC
CONTRIVED ADAPTATIONS
SUB-CULTURES IN FASHION MEDIA
● VOGUE Italia's 'Hot Mess'
Vogue Italia’s “Haute Mess”
Cholas
Zoo
“YOU DON'T OWN THAT LOOK..”
Zoot riots in1943
PERSONAL STUDY
CLIMATE FOR SUB-CULTURE2006-2008
● RISE OF ELECTRO MUSIC
● INDIE MUSIC MASH-UPS
● NEW RAVE
● RISE OF SOCIAL MEDIA: BLOGGERS,FACEHUNTER, MYSPACE
● SCENESTERS, THE HORRORS, INDIE ROCK
● HEDI SLIMANE
● ANDROGYNY
.
PERSONAL STUDY: SUB-CULTURESIN SINGAPORE 2006-2010
● INFLUENCE OF BRITISH ROCK
● NU RAVE
● ELECTRO MUSIC
● LEGAL DRINKING AGE
● ART SCHOOL BACKGROUND
● GROWING ARTS SCENE: JUICE, CATALOG
● ART SCHOOL BUDGETS
● RISE OF MYSPACE, BLOGS
JUICE, December 2006
JUICE, May 2007
JUICE, June 2008
JUICE, October 2007
M.I.A. 2007-2009
DOWNTOWN NY 1980S
- Yuniya Kawamura, Fashion-ology, page 100
“…sometimes youth cultures create their own styles with their own definitions of fashions. I
would call this another type of fashion system. The sources of fashion are becoming
diverse, and a growing number of younger designers worldwide are emerging out of street culture and designing distinct street
fashion.”
”
RISE OF SINGAPORE DIYDESIGNERS
CASE STUDY: MASH-UP
MASH-UP SS 12 TOTEMANIA
SS 12 TOTEMANIA
SS 12 TOTEMANIA
DIPLO & MALUCA MALA2011/2012
MALUCA MALA
#SEAPUNK
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ATLANTA GOES TO ATLANTIS
AW 12 ATLANTA GOES TOATLANTIS
AZEALIA BANKS 2012
HACKERS AND CYBER CULTURE1990s
NDEBELE TRIBE
TRANSLATING INTO TEXTILES
S/S 13CYBER NDEBELE
ADOPTING SUB-CULTURES
● Chicano/lowrider culture in Japan
AW13 LOCOS IN TOKYO
#MASHUPDIGITRIBE A/W14
–vogue.co.uk
“"There's an exhaustion with trying to seem different. People are genuinely tired by the fact that to achieve status you need to be different from everyone else around you." You can see her point. Fast fashion and the retailer's ever-growing ability to track trends from street to runway and back again means subcultures can barely exist beyond the brands. Punk, indie, hipster - are all sold off-the-peg from Primark to Saint Laurent. Not only is youth
culture big business (LVMH profits are on a par with Google), it's everywhere.”
@SIBELONDEK
“To most, it would be generalised as what seems to be “vapour wave” or early 2000s, for me I’m just inspired by the youthfulness, being surrounded by post-modern art, boredom of
trends taking over the art of a culture so moving on to the next crazy thing that hasn’t been
done- maybe it’s being in NYC where being an individual is cool and finding “cool” in yourself.
We are almost performing an art piece of growing tired of what’s “new”, what’s “next” and going back to the 2000s where there was a nice
balance of technology and freedom.”
@SIBELONDEK
“I mean a lot of magazines has covered it or made some sort of “joke” about it. So probably
it’s going to move on to the next thing soon when it gets overdone and when F21 starts
displaying it.”
MARKETING ANDCOMMODIFICATION
Fashion-ology, page 77
“There is a view that the centralized fashion system has been replaced by another system, and
according to Crane (1999) fashion designers in several countries create designs for small publics in
global markets. Trends are now set by fashion forecasters, fashion editors, and department store
buyers. Industrial manufacturers are consumer driven, and market trends originate in many types of
social groups, including adolescent urban subcultures, and consequently, fashion emanates from many sources and diffuses in various ways to
different publics (Crane 1999: 13). At the same time, the distinction between production and consumption
is becoming increasingly hazy and blurry.”
–Fashionology, page 78
“In the second model, the innovators generally emerge from communities in urban areas that are seedbeds for other types of innovation, such as popular music and the arts. To be disseminated to a larger audience, innovations have to be discovered
and promoted. According to Crane (1999: 16), innovators tend to be small firms that are created by individuals who belong to the communities in which the innovations originate. If the style or fad shows
signs of becoming popular, large firms begin to produce their versions of it and to market it
aggressively.
”
Bottom-up Dissemination of Fashion
MARKETING &COMMODIFICATION
NEW LANDSCAPES
CODED SUB-CULTURES
TARGETING YOUR AUDIENCE
Estate of Mind, 2012-2013
THE K POP PHENOMENON
OS ACCESSORIES 2011-2013
BUTCHERING OF MEANING?...
● Business of Fashion, 6th September 2013
OR SUPERMARKET OF STYLE?
“This is not, however, a world devoid of meaning. Indeed, precisely the opposite.Those who shop at the Supermarket of Style know full well that every garment (a
'target' T-shirt or one with Queen Elizabeth II sporting a safety pin through hernose) and every accessory on offer (Hippy beads, Psychedelic plastic rings)comes as part of a complete semiological package deal. “ - Ted Polhemus
ReferencesHebdige, Dick. 1979. Subcultures and the Meaning of Style. London: Methuen.
Narumi, Hiroshi. 2010. Street Style and Its Meaning in Postwar Japan, Fashion Theory, Volume 14, Issue 4, pp. 415-438. Berg.
Kawamura, Y 2005, Fashion-ology: an introduction to fashion studies, Berg, Oxford; New York.
Polhemus, Ted (1994), Street Style, London: Thames and Hudson.
Websites:
The Business Of Fashion
DazedDigital
Health Goth: http://www.marieclaire.co.uk/blogs/547561/health-goth-the-latest-trend-you-ve-never-heard-of.html
Normcore Fashion: http://www.vogue.co.uk/news/2014/03/21/normcore-fashion-vogue---definition