During the second week, street style served as a major source of inspiration behind our mock cover. In addition, over the previous weekend, one of our group members went to see a fashion exhibition with Yves Saint Laurent’s Smoking Tuxedo – providing us with more information on the history of androgyny in the fashion world/industry.
During the street style task, our group split up to take pictures of Londoners in their everyday attire. Silvana managed to find an amazing photo of an older man in all pink suit. I scoured the area looking for outfits that stood out on the street — using interesting patterns or a creative use of accessories as my guide. I also tried to look for any outfits that intermixed traditional masculine and feminine garments. In addition, in my opinion, I cannot express how much courage it takes to go up to people in the street and ask them if you can take a picture of their outfits AND have them pose/model for you. Perhaps in this age of social media, most people are flattered by this concept, but when you are approaching Londoners just about to board the tube and/or bus home on their daily commute, they are not always so open to the idea.
In class, we chose two photos to analyse: one of a younger man in all black and the other of the older man in pastel colours. Using the phrase “English Dandy” as inspiration in our comparisons of these two outfits, we took note of the evolution of menswear. Also noting how Instagram has changed the way in which in people present themselves in their outfits. We observed how jovial and open the older man looked in his photo versus the younger man who looked a bit to posed and self-conscious (i.e. when I asked him for his picture, he immediately took of his jacket and struck a pose of himself looking off into the distance). In this generation, street style appears to be about blending in rather than wearing statement making looks, using accessories to draw attention to your outfit).
We also noticed a trend of red argyle patterns in many of our classmates photo – echoing 80’s/90’s trends as well as foreshadowing what we would see as we went through catwalk trends for our mood boards.
Although our group had already decide on doing a Punk trend for our main shoot, after attending the Vogue trend lecture, we decided to switch to “Dark Romance.” Still adhering to our androgynous theme, we re-selected a photograph of actress Jodie Comer that complimented our new trend selection. As a group, we felt that this new theme represented a fresher take on the timeless concepts of social rebellion and/or anarchy.
Creating Vogue 