Today was the day of the gradient skies. In the morning, I saw the most exclusive rich blue sky, a sky-blue as it should be, then during the day the clouds merged to make a pinkish-orange theatre, as I haven´t seen for quite a while. Maybe it´s mainly because my view had cleared yesterday, as I handed in my thesis.
For the past two months, I have been documenting my research of timelessness in fashion. My supervisor, the first Dr. in Fashion Studies in the world, Philip Warkander pointed out right after I presented what I plan to research, that there is no such thing as a timeless garment (if you want to interpret fashion as actual garments, which, in the case of my thesis, decided to do - by which I was opposing most of fashion scholars).
Glossy mags may be full of tips for the must-have, timeless, staple pieces, that will never go out of fashion. But, when exacly did they come to fashion, if they can´t get out of it? They couldn´t just appear out of void. And, honestly, do you think you will ever be able to truly mark anything as timeless? That you would really wear it until the end of your days? And, talking timeless - until everyone´s days? Quite a question. Eventually, I had to skip the word timeless completely, as the fashion academia would not let such expression to be used in a scholarly material. It is an empty word, expressing something, that no-one can really describe, except on some philosophers, who tried to guess.
In my thesis, I was rather researching the contemporary relationship between fashion and time, while the focus was on the phenomenon of slow fashion. This phenomenon is, to some extent, opposing the traditional system within the fashion industry. Slow fashion proposes a challenge not only to the fast-paced system, but to the overall idea that fashion´s main driving force is the change in time, made apparent in the collection changes according to seasons. I was examining the principles of slow fashion upon examples of six Swedish brands, who are attempting to negotiate the importance of time as fashion´s driving force and to elongate the lifespan of the garments in various ways. Whether by using superb quality, durable materials; designing garments, that are not influenced by passing trends or taking practical steps to prove, that the garments produced have the potential to outlast the wearer. I was also looking at the impact on consumers and how can they contribute to elongating the lifespan of garments. The ooutcomes of the research are quite interesting :)
The topic is really complex and the biggest challenge was to fit a comprehensible text onto forty pages, actually :)
I have my defence on Monday and Tuesday, and I will have to prove, that my ideas are feasible for the academia, and when I am done with it, I will be able to apply them to my future projects. Happy happy :)
Wearing
BACK velcro dress
& Other stories leather clutch with Madagar silk scarf
