Blog 1: Well-being

I attended the lecture 9 ‘Well Being’ talk delivered by Jekaterina Rogaten and it made me appreciate how much the acquisition and wearing of my clothes has contributed to my sense of well-being. For example, the ‘feel-good factor’ I derive from wearing a particular label or material against my skin has not being something that I have been able to articulate in terms of well-being before this lecture. For me, it was just a buzz, which led me seek out the fix of buying more clothes again and again. Now I realise that this buzz I was experiencing had a positive impact on my mental health. Conversely, I certainly register more feelings of anxiety since I haven’t been in the financial position to buy clothes on a regular basis because I am a student. However, this lecture has also taught me that well-being through owning/wearing fashion is not only or primarily achieved via the act of purchasing; it can also be achieved through observing fashion; be it in magazines or on people in the flesh (i.e. where I compliment a person on their look). Wearing something nice, even though I have owned the piece for many years, can generate the same feeling as when I go out on a shopping spree.  As a stylist, this encourages me to produce fashion images for motives other than purely to sell clothes. I can make people feel good by just looking at fashion in the same way someone might feel good about looking at art, for example. Why should fashion be all about wanting to buy something? Most people can’t afford an original Picasso, but they would still relish an opportunity to see one, right? When we a retrospective on punk, say, at the Met, or look at the work of a designer like McQueen at the V&A, we’re not standing there thinking, ‘My God, I wish I could own that piece’. But this is what I believe most people think when they see a fashion image that they like in a magazine. There needs to be more opportunities to see fashion as a form of art outside the traditional museum context as well as more understating of the well-being producing power of fashion in the same way as art. André Leon Talley once famously said in a documentary about Christie Turlington that fashion is not art, but I disagree. I see the body as a blank canvas that can be adorned in a way that is beautiful or is not beautiful, depending on the skills of the person putting the look together. Someone with a strong eye and an appreciation for texture, colour combinations, layering, silhouette and a sensitivity for what works on a particular body shape or skin colour can create magic in the same way as an artist. Indeed, that person is an artist in my opinion and their work should not necessarily have consumption at its core. I’m not denying that consumption is important. Of course people need to get paid from designer to seamstress to stylist, but I just think that the well-being producing effects of just appreciating fashion should not be downplayed to the degree that is currently is.