Log 4

This week, Holly and I wrapped up filming. We concluded with an interview with Anu Asaolu. Her interview was especially intriguing because she is actively engaged in the topic of fashion on Bowdoin’s campus. Unlike other interviewees, and had definite answers about the role of fashion in oppression and resistance. She has already put a lot of thought into fashion at Bowdoin and also wrote a few articles on fashion for the Orient. Just a few days before we interviewed Anu, she organized a fashion show with seven other students celebrating fashion at Bowdoin. She mentioned her inspiration for the event came from her desire to demonstrate how fashion at Bowdoin is very salient to a lot student’s identities. The show was divided into five sections: urban, preppy, going out, athleisure, and Ivies. One thing Anu mentioned about curating styles for the “urban” section was how people’s connections to big cities influences their style on campus. She asked, “What does it mean to be on trend in a Bowdoin context?” I think this question is salient to our research in that it points to the complexities of fashion and the tension between place and fashion.

It is interesting to think about fashion, trends, and luxury in the Bowdoin context and its connection to authenticity and legitimacy. On the one hand, Nick, a white male, tended to opt for distressed and DIY clothes as a way to save money and be comfortable. His favorite shirt was worn inside out, made with sharpie and scissors with slits down the front. On the other hand, Anu, a black female, was influenced by her late father to always dress for the occasion and to never leave the house looking shaggy or like a “bum.” She talked about the trend on campus to dress chill and comfortable. When she first arrived at Bowdoin, she felt pressures to underdress in order to fit in and would receive negative comments if she dressed up slightly more than the rest of her peers. She talked about fashion and its connection to respectability politics, especially in her Nigerian household. Other students of color that we interviewed also mentioned respectability politics and feeling like they need to dress in a more put together way in order to hide their backgrounds and be seen as respectable. In this way, fashion for students of color is legitimized through coherent styles and nicer, luxury-type items. For less marginalized identities, fashion can include clothing that may be representative of a lack of resources, such as Nick’s torn DIY shirt.

In Anu’s interview she characterized millennial fashion as “re-embracing what people tell you what not to wear” and the influence of social media in giving people agency to accomplish this. She emphasized the importance of originality, standing out, and looking cool while also having confidence. She talked about this terms of millennial trends such as colors and see through clothing. For instance, she mentions colors as a millennial trend and describes how, as a black, dark-skinned woman, she was told not to wear certain colors growing up. But with social media, many dark-skinned models and influencers wear colorful clothes that resist the rules they were told to follow. Another millennial trend she mentioned is see through clothing. She described it as a way to show yourself in your own way. With all genders wearing mesh shirts and participating in the “free the nipple” movement, bodies are desexualized and seen as a medium of art. She also claimed that social media has changed fashion because now, people can comment directly on a designer’s work. They can either approve it and say it is fashion or disprove it and say it is not fashion. Through social media, nearly everyone has agency and is currently curating what fashion is.

This next week Holly and I will start editing the footage. We will be visually coding the interviews and cutting the footage into certain themes. It will be interesting to go through all of the interviews now that we have talked to many different students and people on campus. We will begin our analysis of our research and will figure out the best way to include our analysis in our project.