Log 1

In researching and preparing for our final project, we have continued to research sociological literature on sociology of fashion, scheduled interviews, and planned out specific shots to film for our first few scenes.

Since interviews will guide our research and narrate our film, we started the interview process by creating an interview protocol and creating a list of people we would like to interview. Our interview protocol includes questions about the millennial generation as a whole, millennial fashion, the significance of fashion, fashion as oppression or resistance, and tying fashion to class, gender, and race. Our questions are fairly simple and open ended to allow the subject to go in depth in their answers.

When thinking of potential interview subjects, we were interested in interviewing people who dress in ways that follow aspects of the normcore trend. Specific types of styles that could follow this normcore trend include oversized garments, intentionally wearing “unfashionable” accessories like tiny sunglasses or chunky sneakers, composing intricate outfits with layers or intentional details. When creating a list of people we would like to interview at Bowdoin, we found that many students that follow the normcore fashion trend tended to be students of color. More specifically, they tend to be black male first years or sophomores. Why is this the case? Why do we perceive certain people as fashionable, or following the normcore trend, and others as not fashionable, or not following this trend? What do the people who follow this trend have in common? Why is there division in age and gender?

Although we do not know the answers to all of these questions, we believe this phenomena may be due to the greater accessibility that normcore provides to dressing fashionably. This division in style among Bowdoin students shows that different social classes and backgrounds access fashion in different ways. On the one hand, Bowdoin students who tend to flaunt their wealth through their style usually wear name brand clothes and adhere a “preppy” style. This may also be due to the college’s location in New England or the students’ familiarity with preppy clothes at boarding schools. On the other hand, Bowdoin students who come from less privileged backgrounds or who have lived in a diverse city, tend to dress in a normcore style. Georg Simmel writes, “fashions differ for different classes – the fashions of the upper stratum of society are never identical with those of the lower; in fact, they are abandoned by the former as soon as the latter prepares to appropriate them” (1957:543). Does Simmel’s statement hold true in the case of Bowdoin? Is this division also represented in the greater millennial population outside of Bowdoin? Is normcore only legible on certain bodies? How accessible really is normcore?

We also reached out to Professor Devgan to see if she would be interested in being interviewed for the film. As a professor in the sociology department focusing on media and technology, Professor Devgan can add an interesting sociological perspective on millennials and resistance through fashion and technology. Her expertise in media and technology will be extremely beneficial because the millennial generation learns about trends and information mostly through social media. She might be able to give insight into how these trends are disseminated, why millennials may use social media to express their style, and how this relates to millennials’ use of fashion as a tool of resistance. As we stated in our methods, we feel strongly about the importance of maintaining sociological methodology and presentation. In addition to our presenting our research positionality in the introduction, Professor Devgan’s perspective can help our film echo the traditional sociological structure by situating our research in current sociological discourse. Additionally, Professor Devgan is a young professor, possibly also a millennial, who has lived in various parts of the world. Her perspective will help expand our research to more than just the Bowdoin student body to include various ages and geographies when studying the millennial generation.

When figuring out the structure of the film, we decided that we wanted our film to show both our questions and the subjects’ answers to our interviews. We believe this will help show the validity of our research to the audience. This is important because we want our audience to know that we have well-constructed questions that open ended and not leading. This will help us stay true to the sociological method. I also sketched out specific shots for our introduction and first few scenes of our film. As stated in our methods, our introduction will state our positionality as researchers. We will do this by using the audio from Holly and I’s answers to the interview protocol and displaying us as students on Bowdoin’s campus. We will include shots of us assembling our outfit for the day, scrolling through Instagram, and walking on campus. For the second scene, we will describe the overview of the topic by introducing the millennial generation and the importance of fashion as a tool of resistance within this generation. We will do this by using b-roll of what normcore fashion looks like and photos and footage of social media influencers’ styles. Going forward, we will continue to storyboard and prepare for filming. Also after conducting our first interviews on Monday, we will regroup and figure out if there are any aspects we would like to change in future interviews.