Linsey DuncanCostume Jewlery
October 6th 2008 14:14
I'm wondering what ever happened to fashion and its traditional connection with beauty. I think the problem is sex. Maybe I can blame freud for turning all desire into sexual desire.
The Actress I most admire is Audrey hepburne and I see her as the epitome of fashion and style. Along with Jaccquie Kennedy (Whose name I think I spelt wrong) and Grace Kelly they represent the classic look.
Film has always had a dual role as displaying the fashion of the time. Period drama's demonstrate how important clothes are in indicating what era one is in
(Although it doesn't just take dressing up in the clothes to get it right as some productions do. Something else is needed to bring the era to life, some attention to how people acted then or possibly just the conglomeration of all the details of the right music setting and turn of phrase. The BBC always takes me back in time, alot of American attempts have not. Agatha Christy manages to but I'm always left with a bitter aftertaste of dis-ease from the way in which the actors act in ways people do in modern times. I'm never sure if you can really assume under the surface of more conservative values these things were really going on just the same or if a different world view has entirely been left out of consideration in the reproduction.)
They used to have fashion shows in films and there are many outfits and fashion ideas that capture my imagination in many films I see. In film Fashion and beauty along with style remain synonyms. But the fashion industry itself seems to have dissociated beauty, or at least my concept of it from fashion. It's all about the bizarre and the weird or the overtly sexual.
It has not that beauty has been completely discarded. Vogue still has it's fair share of gorgeous pictures but another element seems to have been added to the mix (a dark element extending to horror and sadomasochism and an ugly element.). A postmodernist element maybe (whatever that term really means. I have studied it a heap but it seems to be so many things it can only be explained by pointing to an example.) I think it reflects how modern society has lost any grasp on subtlety and the art of implying rather than shoving in your face.
It is the Australian Program Make Me a Supermodel that has knocked me down this train of thought. Well an ad for it, I haven't been able to stomach more than a few minutes of any of the episodes.
They seem to have created an environment of exploitation, one in which eating disorders could easily be incubated despite their seeming focus on making themselves out to be all for healthy body image.
They shoved a camera in one originally too thin girls face every time she ate to prove she was eating and allowed another girls struggle to lose weight to be scrutinised and openly discussed in a way that made her dreadfully uncomfortable.
They criticised a girl for having the strength of mind to refuse to take nude photographs that made her uncomfortable and were really quite unacceptable. Most models who are photographed nude have anonymity.
Next week they have turned their scrutiny onto the relationship between two of the competitor's wringing every bit of sexual attraction they can get out of it. And it has all left me feeling rather nostalgic for the time when everything was under the surface.
I think the fashion reflected it to when an outfit does not reveal everything only enough to stimulate the imagination and when between the lines meanings were hidden that when heard out loud lose all their allure.
The more our society has exploited sex the more ugly, empty and dull it has become. So many actors, Singers, Models put so much effort into projecting sexy nowadays it evokes nothing because the effort you can here and see in their voice and expression announces it as performance and nothing more.
Some people exude charisma and charm, they could wear a nuns outfit and draw people to them. Catherine Zeta Jones for example. She is always beautiful and natural she doesn't have to try to be.
All the try hards parade their nakedness in a failing attempt to act what they don't intrinsically have. There are too many of these people around nowadays and it has cheapened beauty turning real diamonds, pearls or ruby's into costume jewlery.
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