Having been a dancer for several years and a budding fashion designer, it has always eluded me why there is rarely a clear direct link between the two. Occassionally, dance dabbles in fashion, seeping in through sportswear and some flashy television commercials, but it’s rare to find any more depth in it. Fashion appears to found in dance, but most of this comes in the form of costumes for shows. My own experience of semi-professional urban dance styles only touches the surface of dance as a whole, and by no means is a fair representation of it, but it’s enough to have intrigued me to find out more. I hope to look at how dance and fashion compares side by side, looking at the differences and similarites. Why, from my point of view, is there not more of an overlap. I want to explore both, relative to each other utilising my own knowledge of hip hop culture. I expect to touch upon performance and costume, and my research will look into the history and backgrounds of such.
To begin with, I will look at each of the two subjects. Fashion is an extremely large subject with many sub-categories and can mean many different things, however in this essay I will take fashion to mean the popular clothing style. I will put emphasis on looking at high fashion as these are the leaders of their field. Fashion itself though, is not to be confused with clothing. Clothing is a part of fashion, but it is predominantly purely functional, for protection from different aspects of the environment. Fashion however, is primarily for image. It is a way to present individuality and personality. A physical mouldable form of expression. Designers wish to create works of art that can be worn, and this is wear clothing becomes an art form.
Dance can also be a ...
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Julie Bloom (2007) A Synergetic Pas de Deux for Dance and Fashion [Internet] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/05/arts/dance/05danc.html
Fashion Design/Costume Design [Internet] http://talentdevelop.com/fashion.html
Mike Ryan (2009) Sherlock Holmes’s Costume Designer on the Case of the Missing Deerstalker Hat [Internet] http://www.vanityfair.com/online/oscars/2009/12/sherlock-holmes-costume-designer-jenny-beavan-on-the-case-of-the-disappearing-deerstalker-hat.html
BOOKS
Bland, J. (2000) Honey Bee Dance. CSS Publishing Company
Turner, V (1969), The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure, Aldine Transaction
Schloss, Joseph G. (2009). Foundation: B-boys, B-girls and Hip-Hop Culture in New York. Oxford University Press
Thom, P (1992), For an Audience: A Philosophy of the Performing Arts (Arts and Their Philosophies), Temple University Press
Watkins, S. Craig. 2005. Hip hop matters: politics, pop culture, and the struggle for the soul of a movement. Boston: Beacon Press.
When looking at the landscape of Hip-Hop among African Americans, from the spawn of gangsta rap in the mid 1980s to current day, masculinity and an idea of hardness is central to their image and performance. Stereotypical to Black masculinity, the idea of a strong Black male - one who keeps it real, and is defiant to the point of violence - is prevalent in the genre. This resistant, or even compensatory masculinity, encompasses: the hyper masculinity rife in the Western world, misogyny, and homophobia, all noticeable in their lyrics, which is in part a result of their containment within the Black community. The link of masculinity and rap music was established due to this containment, early innovators remaking public spaces in their segregated neighbourhoods. A notion of authentic masculinity arose from the resistant nature of the genre, but the move to the mainstream in the 90s created a contradiction to their very image - resistance. Ultimately, this in part led to the construction of the masculinity defined earlier, one that prides itself on its authenticity. I’ll be exploring how gender is constructed and performed in Hip Hop, beginning with a historical framework, with the caveat of showing that differing masculine identities in the genre, including artists
In his book Hip Hop America, Nelson George states, “Hip hop culture is just another name for black ghetto culture.” Is this statement really true? If one examines the origins and subject matter of early hip hop, one will find that George’s words are, in fact, true. Hip hop of the 1980s and 1990s highlights issues faced in Black ghettos, such as drug problems, violence, and poverty. With this music, hip hop artists of the eighties and nineties bring Black issues to the forefront by incorporating important messages with simple beats; not only that, but hip hop also gives these issues a great deal of recognition.
Putman, D. (1990). THE AESTHETIC RELATION OF MUSICAL PERFORMER AND AUDIENCE. British Journal of Aesthetics. 30 (4), 1-2.
Negus, Keith. "The Business of Rap: Between the Street and the Executive Suite." Rpt. in That’s the Joint!: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader. Ed. Murray Forman and Mark Anthony Neal. New York, NY: Routledge, 2004. 525-540. Print.
Hip hop has multiple branches of style and is a culture of these. This essay will examine Hip Hop from the point of view of the following three popular music scholars, Johnson, Jeffries, and Smitherman. It will delve deeper into their understanding of what hip hop is and its relation to the different people that identify with its message and content. It will also identify the history of hip hop and its transition into popular music. In particular, this essay will focus on what hip hop represents in the black community and how it can be used as a social movement against inequalities faced by them.
This essay will discuss Fast Fashion and the Impact of Technology. I will focus on the different levels of the market, the effect of fast fashion on fashion design, how copying effects high end designer brands and the impact of technology on the fashion industry.
Fashion is a word that can mean many different things. To some it means what models wear on the runway. To others, fashion means the clothing styles that people wear on a daily basis. A good place to start this discussion would be to define what Fast Fashion is; it is the rapid conversion of design trends into multi-channel volume.
My essay is going to be a discussion on whether fine art, fashion and designers are linked with each other. On starting my essay I looked up the definition of Fine art, the term is used to distinguish the variation of creative art forms, developed by humans. Some of the many concepts which fall under this category are painting, drawing, calligraphy, sculpture etc. I agree that fine art uses lots of visually appealing methods which seem graceful, like calligraphy the work produced is quite delicate and pretty. The area in fine art which I seek to specialise in is fashion it’s an expression in today’s society which defines the popular trends and style within clothes, foot wear and accessories. I feel that many designers of today create outfits, as a way of expressing their difficult to understand innovations. Artists and designers are arguably alike due to using similar creative techniques, and media to plan and craft their masterpiece. Art has always been a main influence in fashion, without fine art the majority of the vast selection of patterns and clothes wouldn’t have existed in the past or even the present day. Take Yves Saint Laurent’s Mondrian dress, created in 1965. Yves Saint Laurent was inspired by the 1920s abstract geometric pattern painting of Piet Mondrian work. Yves Saint Laurent realised during the 1960s that the simplicity and the flat planes, were ideal for the developing sack dress. Later on Yves Saint Laurent’s dress was replicated many times due to being so popular. As shown by Yves Saint Laurent, The patterns on dresses and other fabric weren’t an accident made by the designer who created them. But in fact inspirations from artists work. I believe that fashion is built upon art and culture of an entire era, si...
Wilson, E., & Goldfarb, A. (2008). Theater: the lively art (6th ed.). Boston: McGraw Hill.
What is fashion and what importance does it have in people’s life? Is it hard to create fashion and who are those people who manage people’s mind and declare what is fashionable and what is not? Fashion started when people began to wear clothes. It was between 100,000 to 500,000 years ago. The way how people dressed indicated social status. Because of this fact fashion trends was established by royalty. In the 20th century when movie industry started to develop quickly, people began to watch how movie’s stars and celebrities wore. Despite this fact, people was mostly inclined on world leaders’ way of dressing. For example, princess Diana was setting the style although she wasn’t a fashion designer. Moreover “her iconic style continues to
The world of fashion is an exciting one and people have become a part of it (Jennifer and Kim, 2010). Fashion is a word that can mean different things, to some people it means what celebrities or models wear on a public event. To others, fashion means the dressing style that people can wear it for their daily basis. Understand the definition of fashion is a basis of discussing the luxury consumption (Jennifer and Kim, 2010). Tortora and Eubank defined fashion as a way of behaving or some things and must be accepted by many members of group (Tortora and Eubank, 2005). For instance, the way of behaving include a wide variety of activities, such as the words people speak, the clothes people wear and the lifestyle people have. The majority of a
Fashion is a style, which changes along with time. Fashion is mainly valued by females. Girls are always on the run to the mall to buy new stuff, which suits the new fashion. Whenever, something new comes to the mall, which is related to the fashion, girls will certainly crave this item. Fashion has changed as time passes but the girls will always crave clothing that is related to the current fashion. For example, in this collage a person shows that females like fancy shoes and heels. However, males are not addicted to fashion. Males are never interested in going to mall; they feel that this is boring. Males are more interested in formal clothing such as suits rather than buying fashionable clothing. For example, in this collage a person put a picture of a suit, which is not part of the newer fashion. Males understand that clothing is just a materialistic joy. This knowledge has helped boys stay away fro...
To begin with, I shall look at what fashion is; it is a currently popular style or practice involving clothing, footwear or accessories. It mostly refers to the current trends in looks and dressing style of a person (Cumming 234). In most cases, fashion is confusedly related to costumes; when a person talks of fashion they are seen to mean fashion in terms of textile. Fashion is seen to originate from the Western world and it is copied by other places. In this paper, we shall look at how fashion affects lifestyles and the group of people who are affected most. The paper further investigates how media is used to transmit fashion from one region to the other. Although it has been seen to affect people’s lives many people have different perspectives on fashion and dressing.
Clothing has been around for thousands of years; almost as long as the modern human has. At first, it served the practical purpose of protection from the elements; but, as life for early humans stopped being a constant struggle to survive, they started noticing how they looked and the concept of fashion began to take shape. These first few garments were typically dyed draped cloth that was pinned at the shoulder and/or waist. This was seen in many ancient civilizations around the world, Greek and Roman the most notable. Over time, clothing began to get more and more complex and formed to the body’s shape, eventually leading up to the tailored style we now have today. However, the sophisticated world of Haute Couture; or high fashion, can distinctly trace its roots to Paris during the mid-19th century. Clothing from there was thought to be superior to those from anywhere else, and women began to come from all over Europe just to buy dresses. This was probably due in part to one notable dressm...