“The Myth of Style” by Sophie Woodward

Fashion History and Culture Tuesday 20 November 2012

What happened?

“We should … be living in an age in which the way in which people dress stands as a testament to the individualism celebrated in our ear … an era of remarkable sartorial expressiveness, richness and heterogeneity. Something is wrong though. This doesn’t seem to have happened” (Hill 2005: 67). -- Andrew Hill, London flaneur on street style.

High Street vs. Vintage, “Alternative” retail.

The “High Street” refers to mass-market retail. So not designer boutiques, Neiman’s or Barney’s but more mass, such as H&A, Gap, Banana Republic, Areo, Abercrombie, Macy’s, Urban Outfitters, etc.

MFO – Mass Fashion Observation – or the empirical research carried out for this project, in this case a project called Fashionmap in Nottingham. 700 photos of street fashion taken on the street and in bars over a four year period.

Problems with Polhemus’ (Street Style author and

curator) definitions and mapping of street style.

“Overly reductionist;

Imposing external categorization which may not concord with the participants own self definition” (Evans 1997).

“The aim is to arrive at an understanding of street style that neither champions it as the locus of fashion innovation, nor reduces it to the workings of ‘fast fashion’ and the fickle consumer that implies,” Woodward, 86.

The big conflict: Sub-culture vs. Mainstream

Sub-culture: Example: Punks – authentic, do-it-yourself ‘innovation’ resisting conformity of the mainstream. The Punks are mythologized as heros.

Mainstream: sterile and conformist. The UK high street and chain stores dominate the

culture. And with “Quick Response” QF point-of-sale technology, a “consumer-pull” system is in place (as opposed to a Fordist “manufacturer-push” system) where consumer demand drives the supply chain. This means that consumption has become more democratic; retailers only make what is selling, instead of pushing “Nehru” jackets onto the market.

Fig. 1: she’s slightly different, but noting like the fashion templates of Polhemus’ book and V&A Museum show “Street Style.”

All about “marginal differentiation” and show a “myth of fashionability.”

So let me ask you, as fashion-media professionals, what does that say about the market for fashion media and the market for fashion products?

Fashion Fashion in Slow Times…

“We now live in a world where allegedly fashion is faster than ever, as lead times shorten, and the process of renewal of styles in the high street happens at an ever increasing rate. Despite this, when the results from the MFOs year on year are considered, what is striking is the ways in which many styles and fashions evolve far more gradually,” Woodward, 93.

It’s about how things are mixed and matched – the ripped denim mini-skirt – it’s always been there, just matched differently. These subtle wardrobing/styling adjustments mark the individuality…very small things…never the head-to-toe costumes that reside in myths..reality on the street is very conservative and slow changing.

Fig. 2 and 3

“What these two examples make clear is that these women value items that they know no one else has. In contrast to the conventional understanding of subcultures (Gelder and Thornton 1997), these new forms of style groupings do not emphasize wanting to completely repudiate the styles of the mainstream,” (Woodward, 98).

Read highlighted quote page 98. All about “aggregations,” not sub-cultures neatly defined or “neo-tribes.” Style convergence, not self-sufficient silos, which while make a fashion book or museum exhibition nice to curate, does not reflect fashion reality every day on the street.

What is a myth? Barthes’s idea of de-politicize vs. re-politicize

“However, this understanding of street style arises out of a mythologized history of street style and by positioning current clothing styles as a culmination of such historical trajectory inevitably impoverishes them,” (Woodward, 99).

Does the Sartorialist, then, add to the myth of street fashion? Also, why are we drawn street fashion photographs?