The direct source

As I continue to research why college students wear what they wear, I have realized that the question has changed just a little to why do we buy what we buy and are we forced to follow trends? This weekend I decided to talk with the direct source and visit a store and interview the person who manages the store and has some idea of what clothes are picked to be sold. In the New Brunswick area I noticed that there are not many places to shop for men or women. When in need to find a quick outfit for a party all girls end up in a store best known as Finale. The store is privately owned and the only Finale in the world. Being so it is up to the owner who is a male to purchase the clothes that the girls want to wear. There are three people who have a say in the clothes that are being purchased for the store, two men and one woman who has never been to the store. It his the woman's job to shop for the clothes based on what the owner tells her is in style. When speaking to the manager who assured me that the items purchased for the store are simply what is going to sale. They purchase the clothes from California. I told me that if they notice that something is not selling in the store they will not order it again and sale it for cheap until the item is purchased. If something is in high demand they order tons of them in differnet colors. They use a report system which helps them to decide what is selling and what is not selling. Sometime they purchase unique clothes that can potentially surprise the shopper or to help create new trends. Other times the owner purchases clothes that are similar to what is seen on the stars. The manager told me that they once had a shoe that was similar to one that Beyonce wore and and spider ring similar to what Rhianna wore. The prices are affordable for college students and they try not to purchase items that can be found in stores like H and M and Forever 21.

The above picture is me wearing a shirt that I purchased from the store Finale. I like the shirt because it was fun and unique. I ended buying the shirt after showing it to a friend who I was shopping with and she said"I could never wear something that bright and colorful". Finale does have pieces of clothing that are both unique and fun. Their accessories are extremely different and affordable.

University challenges personal expression

This weekend I read an article in The Chronicle http://chronicle.com/section/Home/5 ,which discussed the reaction on Black Colleges and the way the students dress. The focus of the article was Morehouse College, which is an all male HBCU. The article discussed how the university put in place several rules "forbidding students...from wearing women's clothes,including dresses, tunics, and pumps". After reading this article several questions came to mind and I wanted to get the opinions of my college friends. I posted on my facebook, How would you feel if your university decided to come up with a uniform or dress code, what would be the reasons you agree or disagree with a dress code? Many people responded that they would not attend a university with a dress code. One response that stood out to me was " I don't agree with wearing a uniform, I am a very fashionable person and my clothes reflect who I am. If I had to wear a uniform there would not be anything to distinguish me from the rest of the students on campus. Uniforms take a way from individuality and cause people to conform to one idea". This response stood out because I noticed that the person who wrote it values clothes and individuality. They believe that clothes make the individual and if we all were to wear the same thing then college students could not have their own identity. I then challenged his response by asking, what if the students had the opportunity to create the uniform/ dresscode? He states, there are no two people alike on this campus or any other campus, by enforcing a uniform or dress code the university would be forcing students to be something they are not. College is not a team. I would not want to be a part of the uniform commitee because I am unique and I do not want anyone dressing like me". After I posted the question, I started to think about clothes and how people associate particular styles of dress with race. The fact that the article was based on HBCU, I wondered if this same article could have been written based on Princeton Univeristy? Are black Universities targeted for a reason? I started to think about the Rutgers community and how it seems very diverse but are there particular fashions that we associate with race. On campus I noticed that there are a few pieces of clothing that any and every race own; ugg boots and north face coats. Is there a reason for this, i have no idea but I will make that an interview question. Typically all the males dress the same but for the women I notice that we typically purchase the same pieces but wear them in a different way. In the end, is it fair that a Univeristy gets to decide what the students wear? In someways are we all dressed in uniform because we tend to follow trends and shop at the sam store as our neighbor?

Commercial Trends

In my quest to find out why college students wear what they wear I have noticed that my original question has taken a shift. Week after week I continue to read fashion books and magazines, observe students around campus, post daily questions to my facebook and I realized that the real question is why do we as consumers buy what we buy? In my previous post I wanted to know who controls trends? Who is responsible for the decisions that we make when we walk into a store looking for a coat with buttons but instead they all have zippers. Are we forced to follow trends based on what is available in the store? In chapt. 3 of Breward's book "Fashion" which can be found at http://www.amazon.com/Fashion-Oxford-History-Christopher-Breward/dp/0192840304/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1257780556&sr=1-1 he discussses fashion as a professional industry. Fashion is "a system of innovation engineered to meet and encourage seasonal consumer demands and fulfilling a cultural requirement to define ever shifting social identities and relationships"(pg. 70). In other words the designers are forced to acknowledge the demands of the market place. Latey, people are blaming the recession as an explanation for the choices they make when purchasing clothes and other items. Therefore in a sense the designer begins to design clothes which require cheaper materials and those in charge of purchasing clothes for the store shop based on what the consumer can afford. The designer as well as the store have to accomadate the consumer. Still all in all the consumer can only purchase what is available and is then forced into a system that does not leave much room for personal style but forces the consumer to follow trends.

A DIFFERENT APPROACH

For the last three or so weeks I have been attempting to define fashion. Who would have ever thought that the term fashion, used on daily basis, would have so many different meanings. The first approach to defining fashion was to ask college students around campus. I would stop them in between classes on the court yard or in the student center and ask them to define fashion. I noticed that many people were in fact very shy and thought that there was a right or wrong answer or were just hesitant to answer. Once I realized this apporach was not working in my favor I tried to reach out to students in another way. I tried social networking and Facebook was the answer! Every couple of days I post a question pertaining to my project. I started with, What is fashion? Answers vary which makes the project even more interesting because I noticed that people challenge other people's opinions. A few responses were, "Fashion is not what you wear but how you wear it". "Fashion is not only confidence but knowing what works and what does not work for you". "Fashion is what you make it, it is a confidence within that you express by the clothes, hair, makeup and or accesories to compliment". Once I noticed that this aproach was working I started posting other questions. A constant debate that still exist is if there is a different between fashion and style and if so what are the differences? I posted that question and some responses that I recieved were, "Fashions are for the masses but individuality makes it stylish". "Fashion can be brought. Style one must posses. Style is already within each of us but fashion changes like the weather". In addition to posting questions on my facebook page I have been reading several chapters of Breward. Breward states that fashion has a "range of influences, it is not just artisticand emotional motivation but the effects of manufacturing and its technologies;distribution, retailing, marketing, and consumer demand; and the impact of cultural and societal change on the cycle of innovation and obsolence which characterizes the creation of modes and trends in clothing". What i got from reading Breward is that fashion is basically a process. It is not just the clothes that one wears but it starts from when the clothes are being made. Fashion exist because of demand and how it is being marketed. After reading Breward many questions came to mind. Are we as consumers be forced to be fashionable? Are people fashionable because of trends? Who controls trends of clothing?

BEYOND THE UNIFORM

If I told you that the picture to the left was the Rutgers University Volleyball team would you believe me? Often we associate and identify people based on the clothes that they wear. Members of the team assured me that there is more to them than the uniform. If you see them on campus wearing their team outfits you would associate them as the volleyball team but each person has a unique style that makes them an individual. One member stated "Style is what you make it, fashion consists of trends that we put together based on what is in at the time". She goes on to mention that even though she is apart of a team and they are required to wear uniforms it is sometimes possible to put a twist on the uniform. I went to a volleyball game yesterday to support my roommate and while watching the game I could not help but to notice the many differences on a team. Some girls wear their hair pulled back while others wear their hair with a braid and a ponytail, some wear headbands. While hair and accesories help to make out who is who, the way they perform on the team helps to distiguinsh each player. You begin to associate them not just as number 15 but you put a name to the uniform; Victoria known for hitting the ball over the net and scoring points everytime she is in the game, while wearing pink wrist bands. In addition, even when off the court these girl have style which make them an individual. When not in season the girls are able to wear the clothes that best fit their personalities. They shop at stores like H&M, Forever21, Hollister and American Eagle. Therefore there is something to a team beyond the uniform. Each individual person helps to make up a team and though they are one on the court they are very much different off the court. It is often hard to get away of associations when being apart of a team but it is up to the individual to add a twist to the uniform. For the team the uniform represents business. They are in a winning state of mind. They look foward to Monday's when they do not have practice and can wear their "regular clothes".

Fashion and Identity

On my quest to find out why college students wear what they wear, I have been reading chapters from several different books about fashion, the history of fashion and so on. This week I read chapter 10 of Cristopher Breward's Fashion. Chapter 10 entitiled, Fashion and Identity traces the history of Fashion and how it relates to identitiy. It talks about how fashion has emerged over time and how people adapt to certain trends based on where they live or how they identify themeselves. Breward writes,"In the drift towards anonymity and alienation that followed the rise of industrial capitalism and urbanization, the comunicative power of clothing emerged as an important tool, both for guranteeing a sense of belonging and as an aid to identification"(pg.217). Breward also discusses how "fashion can communicate individual passions and authentic cultural meanings as effectively as it contrives to disguise or mould them". When reading this section the first picture that comes to mind is Muslim people and how you can most likely identify a Muslim based on their clothes. Or even a uniform. Many businesses and schools have workers and students wearing uniforms so that it becomes easier to identify them. In relation to college students, fraternities and sororities have colors and symbols that help outsiders to identify them. Generally you tell that he or she is apart of this organization because they are wearing this. In the same token Fashion sometimes expresses who we are or what we group we want to be associated with. People who tend to play in rock bands generally wear black, metal chains, ripped jeans and so on whereas someone who is an artist might wear jeans with paint on them with bright colors more of a funky look.
In addition Breward also discusses the "teenage pheneomenon" and the Subcultural Theory. He talks about in the 1950s and 1960s how teenagers would come up with ways to be more creative with their clothing and drift away from trends.They would come up with "deliberate ways in which like-minded groups mark their differences from the dominant culture and their peers by utilizing the props of material and commercial culture". Somehow society always found away to "redirect the original subcultural challenge back to the cycle of trends associated with western consumer capitalism"(222). Though many people try to associate their outfits as unique by adding an accesory generally many college students folllow trends. When conducting interviews I noticed that more than half of the students that I interviewd own a pair of uggs and read fashion magazines that "inspire" their choices in clothes. Many of us have become controlled by consumer capitalism and the constant need to buy what is popular or what the stars are wearing. People then associate us with the labels and refer to our clothes ex."thats the dress like Beyonce wore at the Golden Globe Awards" insead of "I like that dress on you because it fits well". Is it safe to say we are what we wear? Can you still have your own identity if you follow trends?

Freshman and the WHY's of Fashion

This week I had the opportunity to interview 5 more students for my project. Approaching people never gets easier however I noticed that some people are just as uncomfortable being interviewed as I am when I have to ask them questions. Interviewing students requires a skill of asking beyond the questions on the page. Thw why's of their choices. I got out of class a little early on Monday which was great because College Avenue was packed with students. I ended up approaching two female students who were sitting together. They decided that they wanted to be interviewed together. I asked them several questions from my list but the one answer that stood out to me was the average price they spend on an outfit compared to the other students that I interviewed so far. Another response that caught my attention was when I asked, Would you borrow clothes from your roomate? Not because they answered no but because one of the girls mentioned that her roomate is not fashionable. This leads me to my next few weeks of study along with interviews I will be reading the history of fashion and forming an answer to the question, What is fashion and what makes someone fashionable?

The students in the picture are freshman at Rutgers University.They each described eachothers look and agreed that the one on the right is Nerd European Chic and on the left Business Funky. They do not shop from ads nor do they shop often, Usually when they shop they purchase alot at a time. They both plan out their outfits the night before but sometimes their outfit might change and their mood changes. Through their clothes they are trying to express Individuality and Fashion.