I was content with how our presentation went. It took a long time to organize both the videos and our thoughts. I was thinking a lot about the paradoxes that Simmel writes about fashion presenting. He writes about it as social obedience but also differentiation. I think that a lot of those contradictions are really prevalent in millennial use of fashion as resistance. All of our respondents had very complicated understandings of how their identity interacts with space. Our respondents identified expectations that comes with certain bodies in certain spaces. Yet, conforming to those expectations was sometimes just as much a form of resistance as defying them. Justin talked of engaging respectability politics by wearing a suit, while Syd talked about the power of wearing streetwear. Isaac talked about wearing a dress, while June talked about embracing femininity with clothes. Resistance through fashion is fluid. Respondents contradicted each other and themselves. However, their active decisions to take charge of how their bodies are interpreted in certain spaces, indicates resistance.
I was talking to a friend about my project, and we started talking about the very short bangs that white, female millennials have been sporting. She had seen a meme that joked that white women cut their hair that way to claim oppression. This got us talking about whether “ugly fashion” is a genuine expression of identity or a method for white people to marginalize themselves. By claiming oppression through fashion, whose oppression is erased? I really wish we had interviewed more white people that embraced this style. Our interview with Nick was not our most fruitful interview. He had very little to say about race, class, gender, or sexuality. This seems indicative that perhaps his fashion is not a genuine expression of self. It would have been interesting to construct questions that might better address this alternative use of fashion.
Moving forward, I think Kayli and I are in a good place. We began editing the final documentary and received useful feedback from our peers. Once we have made the documentary, we will determine if a director’s cut is necessary. It seemed as if the class really thought that our respondents speak for themselves. However, we are making some editing and artistic choices that I think we might want to make sure are addressed. We are spending a great deal of time pairing clips and deciding how to best present the information. I think it would be nice to have a way to explain our choices.