Wednesday, 7 August 2013

Conclusion

I think that fashion plants unhealthy ideas on women. Yes, it might be beautiful, but everyone is different and not everyone looks good because of various reasons. Just because a few people has their own perception on beauty doesn't mean everyone of us has to follow it blindly, becoming it's slave. (Plastic surgery, diet etc.) Our confidence has been getting lower and lower because we don't meet the requirement of someone else's standard. Why suffer because of what others thought? Why change because other people told you to?


Kanye West - New Slaves (L.A CHASE, 2013)

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Editorials for Regional Magazines

"Nu Renaissance Aristocracy"
Harper's Bazaar Vietnam, December 2012 (zemotion, 2012)

"Touch-me Tresses"
Elle Singapore, Feb 2012 (zemotion | Zhang Jingna Photography Blog, 2013)

"The Secretary"
Elle Singapore, July 2011 (zemotion | Zhang Jingna Photography Blog, 2013)

"Call Me Irresistible"
Harper's Bazaar Singapore, April 2011 (zemotion | Zhang Jingna Photography Blog, 2013)

The first photo is about aristocrat from the Renaissance period. Girls were more about doing housework and taking care of their man during that time. Editorial for second photo - Touch-me Tresses are romantic, but isn't there much more things to discover other than looking dolled-up and ready for Prince Charming's kiss? The third photo looks like she's seducing her boss while wishing he would save her from that paper clip. As for the fourth one, she's in her lingerie, calling someone. "Unapologetically high-drama looks to get hung up on." But why?
You have to look good no matter what you are doing. Even in your sleep.

Zhang Jingna shot these women beautifully, but it gave me a sense of these girls are submissive than the dominant. Is this what fashion is trying to portray around this region? That girls are suppose to rely on a strong/dominant person?

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Real Size Women

The concept of perfect beauty is always unrealistic in the fashion industry. It starts with sketches from designers - Long, skinny and out of proportion models.

Poster for Malaysia-International Fashion Week 2010 (Dylan Phuah, 2010)

Sketches from local designer - Tengku Syahmi. (Tengku Syahmi, 2010)

Then they proceed on designing their clothes with that kind of figure in mind. No wonder models HAVE to be skinny.

In an episode of Project Runway (2011), designers from cycle 9 started to freak out when they found out that their clients are "real size women". Hmm... So who bought their clothes if they didn't make it for real size women?

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Reading Material: Plastic Surgery

Reading material:
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Photoshop

Celebrities are part of the fashion scene. What they wear will be judged by fashion police and when it's time for awards, huge fashion brand sponsor them. They're often on covers of magazine, which are easily obtainable in Malaysia.

Before and After retouching. (Vivien Veil, 2011)

Britney spears doesn't look fat before retouched, she has body a normal women would have, but when Photoshop budge in, she has smaller waist, slimmer thighs and glowing skin. Now normal women are frustrated - Why can't they look like Britney Spears?

Retouched photo (left) of model Valentina Zelyaeve on Ralph Lauren Australia's website. (Daily Mail, 2009)

How Filippa Hamilton looks normally VS. Ralph Lauren ad in Japan. (Ms Morphosis, 2011)

Filippa Hamilton was later being fired because Ralph Lauren thought she was getting too fat. She's size 4. (Today, 2009)

Japanese model Tao Okamoto in Ralph Lauren's polo shirt. (CBS, 2010)

Madonna getting retouched in Louis Vuitton's Fall 2009 campaign. (Little Spotlight, 2010)

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Tuesday, 6 August 2013

If you're a Victoria's Secret model, you're perfect, and Every Girl wants to be You.


"To be a Victoria's Secret model, everything has to be just prefect."
"You have no idea - Every girl wants to do this, even if they pretend like they don't want to do it, everybody wants it."

That means - If you're chosen to be a Victoria's Secret model, you're prefect. Every girl wants to do this, so every girl needs to be perfect first. Even if you denied the fact that you like this, you're still wanting this. Girls might then think that guys like these kind of girls only, hence working harder to achieve a look like these models.

Current YouTube top comments on video above.
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Body Concious?

Models in the fashion industry are skinny.

Many people are respond to how Victoria Secret's models looks anorexic. (Neomoda, 2012)

Malaysia has Victoria's Secret, so their perception of beauty will be brought in. Is skinny in that way pretty?

Not too long ago, Melissa Field of Yahoo! New Zealand took an image of six women in a line-up, ranging from size 6 to 16, and asked people on the street whose body they thought was most appealing. (Medical Daily, 2013)

Women with size 8 from image above doesn't look fat, but fashion industry only want models less than size 4, the smaller the better. Girls I hang out with are constantly on diet - Even my mom does.

"I don't know what you expect me to do. There's nothing in this whole closet that'll fit a size six. I can guarantee you. These are all sample sizes - two and four." (The Devil Wears Prada, 2006)
Andy was being called "fat" when she started to work at Vogue editorial in size 6.

On the left: Size 6; On the right: Size 4. (US Weekly, n.d.)


On the other hand, Jean Paul Gaultier does use plus size model (size 20+) frequently.

Crystal Renn with Jean Paul Gaultier (Vogue News, 2010)

Beth Ditto and Jean Paul Gaultier (20 Minutes, 2013)


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Artifical Beauty

Xiaxue and Leng Yein - Two person that underwent plastic surgery and got popular by doing so.

Xiaxue - A very popular blogger from Singapore. She's so popular she got a car as sponsorship. (Xiaxue, 2013)

Xiaxue before plastic surgery. (Chatter Busy, 2012)



Leng Yein - Malaysia model who won several pageants.
She was Miss Pahang and Miss Malaysia 2003 finalist. (Leng Yein, 2013)

Leng Yein before plastic surgery. (Lowyat, 2006)


And then we have Ukrainian model Valeria Lukyanova who looks like a Barbie doll.

Valeria Lukyanova for V Magazine (The Huffington Post, 2012)

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Plastic Surgery

Because of people's perception of beauty being standardize by women on tv, magazines and billboard, women don't think they are beautiful enough to be compared to all these models and actors.

Bae Dal-mi never removes her makeup for 2 years because she wants to look perfect all the time and she wants to have plastic surgery on 10 different places. (Oddity Central, 2011)

"At first, I pushed back. I tried to fit in. I made multiple trips to Korea’s seemingly endless makeup stores, only to find there was no makeup for me: My skin was too dark. “No, no — very, very dark,” the saleswomen would say, fervently nodding their heads as they escorted me toward the face washes or nail polishes that I could actually use." (Perez, 2013)

In Korea, it's a common practice and if you don't look good or dress up nicely, you will be look down upon.

Here comes plastic surgery.

Plastic surgery advertisements in Korea are all over public places. (Daily News, 2013)

"The only thing you have to worry about is how to explain this to your children." (抓虱母相咬-ladisay, 2012)

In this article - Asia's ideal beauty: Looking Caucasian, Dr. Youn (2013) starts the article with how the mother of a girl brought her to his clinic and started to talk about how her daughter is ugly and wanted her to have plastic surgery. What causes this obsession of "beauty" in Korea? Does it starts with the idol groups and fashion models on tv?

Everyone is going to look the same if they are so persistent with being perfect.
They all look different before they had been given a "makeover". (koreaBANG, 2013)

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Use of Foreign Models from Local Designers

Jonathan Liang - Winner from Raffles International College Kuala Lumpur for Most Promising Designer Award in Malaysian International Fashion Week '09. Models in his website are all Caucasian. (Jonathan Liang, 2013)

Cycle 8 Winner of America's Next Top Model - Jaslene Gonzalez (left) and Katherine Nichols (right) from Florida with Tengku Syahmi at Malaysian International Fashion Week. (Tengku Syahmi, 2010)

Silas Liew (tongue in chic, 2010)

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Foreign Models

Uniqlo's billboard in KL.

As the Western country are the dominant in the fashion industry, Western models are widely used. Same goes to Malaysia, even for Japanese brand like Uniqlo.

Models in Kuala Lumpur Fashion Week - Dominated by foreign models. (The Wall Street Journal, 2013)

(Wanista, 2013)

With the popular use of foreign models, girls tend to look like them, or worship their culture - Instead being proud of our own. The popularization of Korean star also make girls reevaluate what is "beauty" to them. The fair skin, big eyes, pulp lips and slim figure.

(oKpopGirls, 2012)

As if, unless you have exotic features or you look like you're not local, you're not beautiful enough.

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Hijabsters

As my previous post about Muslim girls wearing tudung were being seen as fashionable in Malaysia, comes the subculture called "Hijabster". Because of Islam's dress code, Muslim girls were restricted with what they can wear. Hijabsters brings a touch of fashion onto what they can wear that goes along with the restricted dress codes.

 Hana Tajima on Elle World. (Alima, 2012)

But like hipsters, Hijabsters are always being make fun of.

Why is it that these "Hijabsters" (Yuna and Hana Tajima) can make a name for themselves in the Western country but not in Malaysia? We like to have foreign women on the billboards instead. Complying to one's religion seems is not hip, and since the restriction of clothing only applied on Muslim women, how does this affect them? Is it because of this that most Muslim girls to not wear tudung but be more fashionable in a Western sense instead?

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Saturday, 20 July 2013

Local Streetwear

Streetwear was started in the late 70s / early 80s with skating and surfing. And now, Malaysia has started to introduce this line of fashion as well.

Stussy, one of the first pioneer to start streetwear. (PTWSCHOOL, 2013)

The Swagger Salon - Streetwear from Malaysia. (The Swagger Salon Gallery, 2011)


Below are photos taken from each brand's official Facebook profile and Tumblr as online ordering is one of their main market. So, how does Malaysia's streetwear sell their products?

(Reunion X Respect, 2012)
(The Swagger Salon Gallery, 2013)

That way. Note that the primary customer for these clothes are men. These women are objectified to a point that they don't even have to wear the clothes they are selling. Yes, sex sells, a lot of brands from foreign country does that too, but do we have to follow these trends blindly? There's no message behind these "concept", unless you think Reunion and "taikor" (big brother) means half naked women.

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Wednesday, 17 July 2013

Malay Fashion?

When you type "Malaysia fashion" on Google, what do you get?


Screenshot from Google (Source: Google, 2013)

A collection of modestly designed Malay traditional clothes with a twist. These women dressed appropriately and still carry the identity of Malaysia / Islamic women. But do we get to see these kind of fashion in the public? Rarely.

Idols on tv always carries themselves with fashionable or branded clothing, but do they look like this:


Yuna in New York Fashion Week. (Refinery29, 2012)

No. Check out local fashion magazine or stores that are considered "fashionable", they don't carry poster with these kind of styling.

Being an indie singer in foreign country, Yuna still carries herself with the identity of Islamic women in Malaysia - wearing tudung. Even with that, she stills able to dress stylishly.

Mizz Nia during Shout! Award. (Running with Passion, 2010)

And then we have Mizz Nina. Unlike Yuna, she doesn't wear tudung. She also own Mizz Demeanor that sells casual wear.

Even though both of them are Malay, they carry themselves differently. Who's the more fashionable one? Yuna was able to attend New York fashion week and got photographed because of her outfit. Compared to Yuna, what Mizz Nina wears doesn't considered as "fashionable" in the fashion industry, but why does Yuna get less publication locally? We do have fashion shows that twists Malay's traditional clothing, but they are not advertised widely. Fashion industry in Malaysia rarely publish styling as such. Instead, we like to have foreigners on our billboards and magazines.

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Choosing Topic

Upon receive our assignment brief, I was a bit struggled with which topic to work with. Usually I would just pick a question immediately, but there are so many possibilities with each of the questions for this module.

Question 1: It would be interesting to compare advertisements of local brands in different languages since we have so many different races living in Malaysia. Advertisements with different language definitely brings out different messages because of the play of words and cultural background.

Question 2: I love watching movies so this should be an enjoyment for me, but I had done similar topic last semester.

Question 3: Having interest in fashion, I have always pay attention to different (mostly streetwear) brands. And then I thought about local brands - How do they present their products?

Question 4: Another clash of culture and taste - I these kind of topics. But what local soap opera have I ever watch? Will they be accessable online?

Question 5: What makes this artist famous? Why? How? What was he doing before he became famous?

Question 6: Taking photograph is one of my hobby, but everyone has been claiming themselves as photographers these days, even when their photos look bad. I'm an active Instagram user and I've recently came across an advertisement about selling your iPhone photographs as stock. What has this hobby of mine become?

In the end, I chose to do question 3, because even though it's just consist of local market, there are still quite a lot of different style portrayed. There's streetwear, there's fashion event and there's people that sew and design their own clothes.
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