Blog 1: Power and Fashion
Julia Crews’ Lecture on power and fashion presented how fashion is used as an act of power in many forms, as well as power within the fashion industry. I found the discussion on how people have used fashion to reflect their power to be the most interesting part of the lecture as this had a connection to my chosen degree, costume. This idea that fashion is used to convey themes and ideas reflects how costume reflects many aspects of a performance including; characters, settings, and themes. In this lecture Julia Crew discussed how royalty used fashion to portray their power, through the elaborate, expensive clothing and jewelry they would wear. Through the use of fashion royals have reflected their power of wealth. I felt the explanation of how fashion is used by royalty, military and politically to be very interesting as it is a concept I had never really considered or thought about in detail.
The discussion on power within the fashion industry was also very eye opening as it highlights how such a small group of people could hold so much power over a huge money making industry. However in this lecture power was explored from many angles as it raises the question of who really holds the power? The power of the media explores the effect of social media as an outlet for the fashion industry through advertising, influencers and promotions, and as most people have some form of social media so the influence of fashion is far reaching therefore the media has a lot of power within fashion. This lecture also brought in the idea of the power of the consumer, as we are the ones who buy clothing and provide the money for this industry, does the consumer hold the most power and if so do we have the power to affect the more unfavorable aspects of fashion? This then relates to another interesting part of the lecture of how power has been used to critique the fashion industry through protests. Fashion has also been used with power in protests, for example messages printed on shirts, or a shared uniform of sorts to portray the idea of a unified group of people supporting an idea.
To conclude, this lecture I felt related most to my degree but also interested me the most as it looked at so many different examples of power within fashion and power against fashion. Because this lecture explored power and fashion from different angles it really raised a lot of questions I hadn’t considered and pushed me to think more about my own power as a consumer but also the power of fashion through how I dress, how its advertised to me and the power within the industry as a whole.