http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/145755-sonic-youths-kim-gordon-starts-fashion-line
The impetus for this post is a combination of this article and a bit of development off of an earlier post. Patty and Stephanie brought up the music-fashion connection in relation to the soundtrack-teen identity formation connection. Patty mentioned that this might come up in the subculture week, but this is certainly worth addressing in relation to a much broader consumer culture context. There have been some very successful fashion lines connected to musicians in the past several years (I am thinking specifically about Gwen Stefani’s L.A.M.B line, but we could also include J. Lo’s children’s line, the Hilary Duff line, etc.), which can attribute much of their success to the fact that these lines seem like natural outgrowths of the styles of these musicians. This article from Pitchfork talks about Kim Gordon’s new limited edition jacket. I particularly like all the effort on the part of Gordon and Pitchfork to link the limited edition jacket to limited edition LPs and other musical side projects.
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I guess I am a bit overzealous with the blog this week...I just finished watching music inspired fashion go completely awry on Project Runway. Jerrel and Korto were acting as the voice of hip-hop style and screechy Kenley flounced around asking "is this hip-hop?" I'm also still laughing about how much the judges loved the "authentic" punk rock look created by Korto for Suede (Michael Kors loved the silhouette). What part of punk rock on the runway reads "authentic"? Given the way in which music-fashion has taken a high-end turn (e.g. LAMB) it seems like it wouldn't be much of a stretch to create something musically inspired in the "high-end" taste that the contestants and judges love so much. The judges seemed to want bigger and louder and the contestants seemed confused about what they were actually creating (the country look made Korto look like someone who was going to eat bbq - it wasn't glamourous enough). The episode abounded with strange stereotypes, and it was absolutely mind boggling that the only musical references that the contestants were able to draw on a somewhat random smattering of artists (Britney Spears, the Pussycat Dolls, Aerosmith and Dolly Parton).
I have not seen this episode of Project Runway and plan to TiVo it as soon as possible. Nevertheless, I do find the increasing effort to have music-based clothing fascinating. Music and fashion have been connected for a long time, but I would argue that MTV obviously helped connect the two even more. One thought I had was about the cinematic approach to music videos and how this plays into the connection between fashion and music on television. Most people who watch a lot of television dramas lately can attest to the increasing use of the 'music montage.' Everything from House to Grey's Anatomy to Gossip Girl has ended at least one episode with a popular song placed over a montage of the characters 'contemplating' or doing some 'deep thinking' about a situation that occurred in the episode. This cinematic practice, I would argue, is heavily influenced by music video techniques. Whether the music video actually had a mini-plot or was something as simple as George Michael's "Freedom" video, a majority of music videos are dominated by montage and multiple edits.
How does this apply to fashion? I feel as though once a popular song is placed over a montage of images from a television program it becomes something of a fashion show. Therefore, programs like Ugly Betty or Gossip Girl can put on something resembling a 'cat-walk' display of fashion that is connected to the music playing and the characters portrayed. This seems fairly obvious, but I think it works in a more subtle way on other programs that may not focus on fashion as often in their plot. For example, at one point you could go onto Grey's Anatomy website and see the clothing each character was wearing on any individual episode.
Just a little rambling. What do others think about this?
Sorry to be posting this a bit late. Just now catching up with all of the entries from the last week. I thought the most interesting twist with this week's PR episode is the complicated racial/music style culture mismatches that were going on. Korto had to dress "country," which visibly displeased her -- later, in a cranky voice, she yells at Kenley, "I'm about to get hip hop on YOU!" And Kenley, a retro-fashion expert, had to design a hip hop outfit for Leanne. Needless to say, Kenley missed the mark on that one. But, she later defends herself to the judges by saying that she didn't want her outfit just to be baggy pants-- she wanted it to look high end, hmmmm. Well, even if the show didn't address the issue explicitly, it was there just beneath the surface: that there is a racial component to the history of music and fashion. Okay, so this is nothing mind-blowing, but it did give me pause while watching this weak. Yes, Kate is right -- strange stereotypes were abound this week.
I realized that I didn't put the bbq line in quotes....that was a comment from Michael Kors. Just a quick response to Patty....I'm not even sure that the racial component was under the surface given how the episode was edited. Both Korto and Jerrel were asked to speak on behalf of hip hop, which seems to turn into a way of validating the observation that Kenley messed up. The dynamics between the contestants doesn't even include the comments from the judges, which were confusing at best, offensive at worst (e.g. the bbq line).
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