A History of
Fashion Fetishes & Body Ideals
for Chinese Women
It is undeniable that, in the past, China's patriarchal society objectified and exploited women. Whether it was being forced to endure the brutal footbinding process during the imperial years, or facing limited access to the public sphere during the Republic era, females were restricted to and defined by their physical potentialities - child-bearing, beauty, and home-making - rather than their individual thoughts, rights, and beliefs. In this essay, I argue that despite the numerous changes China's undergone since its age of dynasties, the patriarchal mindset of those periods still endures. My approach: Trace the unrealistic body standards impressed upon Chinese women from past to present. An accompanying presentation (snapshots below) narrates my findings in an "exhibition" format, with each chapter of historical analysis opening with a list of objects I'd display if I were to host a museum event for my project.
INDUSTRY
Fashion / Retail Arts / Culture Consumer Goods / Lifestyle |
SKILLS
Essay Writing Historical Research Thesis Development Powerpoint |
CONTEXT
Washington University in St. Louis Material Culture in Modern China - Final Project - Fall 2010 |
Beauty ideals for Asian women are very different from those for Western ones. Some are polar opposites - just consider America's obsession with tanning, versus China's black market for toxic skin bleaching products. But the overall Eastern sentiment places Caucasian features (i.e. double-lidded eyes and a refined nose bridge) on a pedestal.
Consume
Social Gaps and a Dead American Dream: Tyler Durden’s Lessons to the Common Man
A close reading of a cultural text (Fight Club, the film). In this paper, I offer a critique on modern consumerism by exploring the identity crises and avenues of alleviation sought by the film's characters. Are class hierarchy and an unequal income distribution the chief reasons behind the sense of social disillusionment felt by so many people? If so, how can the issue be solved? Are mass destruction and vandalism the only effective communicative channels between the rich and the poor? Doesn’t the American Dream teach that hard work will always eventually reap rewards? Why do many not live to see such gains, then? Could we have been fed falsified versions of an unobtainable goal... a "dead" American Dream?
INDUSTRY
Film Consumer Goods / Lifestyle |
SKILLS
Essay Writing Film Analysis Thesis Development InDesign |
CONTEXT
Personal Essay Winter 2009 |
Camo Immortal
The Legacy of the Print as a Fashion Innovation
Today, the words “innovation” and “technology” often go hand in hand. But can we understand a fashion trend - the camouflage print - as just as ground-breaking? In this dossier, the pattern's cultural significance is defined from a historical standpoint - in short, my goal is to tell camo's story. Included, then, is a rich cast of characters (its early adopters, its reinventors, etc.) - and plotline (how both its meaning and use have transformed over time).
A study on...
Fashion
For artists and fashion designers, the camouflage print provides a wealth of inventive inspiration, helping them create provoking and unexpected designs. But fashion itself is a social process - what we see on both catwalks and sidewalks alike are results of active interplays between culture, politics, commerce, etc. - in essence, people. The print as a fashion innovation, then, is also the outcome of constant information exchanges between various social systems, both within the fashion world, and between fashion and other subcultural structures. Indeed, outside of the fashion industry, various other groups have planted their stakes in camo culture: scientists, psychologists, artists, militaries, students, musicians, celebrities (to name just a few). |
The Diffusion of Innovations
Sociologist Everett Rogers describes the Diffusion of Innovation as “…the process in which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the members of a social system." Much of this dossier's analysis is based on the remarkable concepts and ideas from his book. For instance, he notes that innovations can fall into one of three categories (ideas, practices, or objects). Thus, what makes the print so spectacular is that although its physicality appropriates it to fit more into the latter genre, it is still ultimately a manifestation of an innovative idea - specifically, the one fomented by early scientists, artists, and armies to take the concept of perceptual game play from the natural world and adopt it for their own purposes. |
INDUSTRY
Fashion / Retail Arts / Culture Consumer Goods / Lifestyle |
SKILLS
Essay Writing Historical Research Thesis Development InDesign |
Although the dossier was written and compiled by me, its accompanying Legacy Map was the result of team effort. The map's main goals: (a) illuminate how the print's reinventive ability is a key driver behind its rapid rate of diffusion; (b) portray how an innovation influences and is influenced by the outer world; and (c) engagingly recount the historical narrative of the print to viewers. To illustrate how the innovation operates within our whole social system, the map was created via a "treble-line" approach, with the timeline of our main scope of interest (the print's evolution in the fashion industry) sandwiched between two "sub" chronologies (its transformations in the military world and general culture). We felt that this would be the best way to capture the important relationships within and between timelines.
Writing Across Media
Portfolio
The output of professional writers certainly is eclectic: local, national, and global newspaper stories; special-interest magazines; corporate copy (newsletters, firm brochures, annual reports, etc.); PR (press releases, email campaigns, Tweets and #hashtags…) This course, a comprehensive beginner's workshop available to all undergraduates, thus covered all different styles of writing, left topic choice up to students, and asked us to give feedback on the work of our peers. The only requirement? Experimentation - the main goal was to help each of us find our unique voice through the written word. This portfolio contains the 8 short writing assignments from the semester: (1) A short article on myself; (2) An Op-Ed; (3) An objective piece; (4) An interview / profile; (5) A review; (6) A press release; (7) A script for broadcast TV / radio; and (8) A story pitch to an editor.
INDUSTRY
Journalism / Media Content Fashion / Retail Arts / Culture |
SKILLS
See Above List of Assignments |
Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty
The Aesthetics of Spectacle & The Body Politics in Fashion
A quick glance at the history of the visual and performance arts easily reveals how shock has evolved from mere technique to an agent of change. However, what grants fashion designer Alexander McQueen particular uniqueness as a shock artist is his medium of avant-garde expression: clothes.But perhaps the more important canvas of McQueen was not fabric nor cloth, but the female body. By analyzing his most notable runway shows, I seek to demonstrate how five themes of shock art can be grouped under one: the woman as the site of experimentation.
INDUSTRY
Arts / Culture Fashion / Retail |
SKILLS
Essay Writing Historical Research Thesis Development Powerpoint |
From the Records of Dr. Wong Quo
Ethnographic Profile
Shanghai, 2006. China's most populated city and the world's largest container port has transformed remarkably in just a few years. And these changes haven't left its inhabitants unaffected - in terms of livelihood, surroundings... identities. Evidence of Shanghai shedding traditional Chinese values can be seen in the clothes people are wearing, the Western films they're watching... and the appearance of numerous homosexual bars popping up along the streets. This transcript of a fictional interview between a man questioning his sexuality and a psychiatrist is based on historic fact.
INDUSTRY
Arts / Culture Consumer Goods / Lifestyle |
SKILLS
Historical Research Storytelling |
CONTEXT
Washington University in St. Louis Contemporary Chinese Culture & Society - Ethnographic Profile - Spring 2010 |
Dear Daniel:
I Wrote This For You
For the last 20 years, Narativ has been helping people and organizations become better storytellers and listeners. So when its CEO, Jerome Deroy, came to speak to my Portfolio Strategies class, we took his assignment seriously: "Use The Method to tell a personal story of your choosing." We were also given the option to include some visuals in our piece. My story: Heartbreak. My visuals: Color - each diary entry is accompanied by a simple swatch that reflects the palette from the memory. My inspiration: A similar assignment for a previous course. Results: Selected to present the piece to the class.
INDUSTRY
Public Speaking Communication Design |
SKILLS
Essay Writing Illustrator |
CONTEXT
Parsons the New School for Design Portfolio Strategies - Narativ Storytelling Assignment - Fall 2014 |
Other Projects
Since childhood, I've always had the need to channel myself through creative expression, and writing easily became a favorite go-to outlet. I just love how merely stringing a few words together can produce various outputs: essays (for any class), branding content, stories, commentary.., And how a writer's style must change with her intended audience: professors, consumers, self... Please click on the project's image to read its full description and see it in its entirety.