Fashion Isn't Pretty
Hey fashion people...Or fashion haters (I'll admit that was me).
My first dabble in fashion was when I was about five. My Oma (Grandma) is the very traditional type of person. A woman needs to know how to cook, clean, care for her children and husband along with having to know an idea about how to sew. I sat behind her antique treadle machine that was held together with baler twin and canning sealer rings thinking about what dad was up to.
Oil, grease and a wrench were more interesting. I wanted to get out and help fix the swather or what ever machine was needing work done on it. Fashion, besides drawing, I loved to draw, just wasn't my thing.
After high school, I had my sites set on attending Olds College and taking their ag. mech. program. I made an appointment and the day that I was able to go down for a tour, they were highlighting the fashion program. Lets just say plans changed after that.
The beginning of the school year in the Apparel Technology program was a train wreck. I waltzed in wearing the only style of clothing I owned, steal toes work boots, jeans and a hoodie. Saying I stood out from the heals and designer clothes wouldn't even begin to cover how it was. I wanted to crawl under the table or even march right back out saying I messed up and was supposed to be in an entirely different building.
Fashion is cut throat. I learned that very quickly. First thing my teacher said to us, looking right at me, 'learn the rules so you can break them.' Jean Paul Gaultier and Alexander McQueen are perfect examples of just that.
With my Apparel Tech degree in hand, I've learned, fashion isn't pretty. It's not just designer clothes that models wear and haute couture. It's everyday clothing. It's what got us to where we are today in the sense of what fabrics we wear, the styles, and uses of clothing (no it's not just to keep you from being nude). Yes there's the run way fashion, but there's the mechanics fashion, the snowmobiler's fashion, the teachers fashion and the everyday fashion.
I want to dive into an academic approach to fashion. The why, where, how and who's of it. Trust me, it's not all about who wore it better. Fashion is much more than that.
(On a little bit of a side note, this is my current work station. As you can see, fancy is by no means needed. I don't have overly that much money currently, as I am a student, to put into my sewing equipment, but as you can see, something is much better than nothing and you'd be amazed with you can actually do with these older tools.)
