Hear/Say

Someone (or thing) once said: Creativity isn’t about being completely original. That’s impossible; instead, it’s about concealing the origins of the ideas you’re building on with the craft of subtlety.

… or something along those lines, more or less.

Hotel Moschino, Milan

Think about fashion, nowadays: with the absence of tangible cultural or political movements and the paralysis caused by bipartisan politics as well as the disguise of today’s media behind national values of objectivity and free press, it’s difficult to pinpoint reactionary phenomenon through aesthetic means. Flower power, black power, etc. are examples of these movements reacting against national war and civil rights oppression, respectively. Today, politics are much more ambiguous, and the agency of blame is hidden under the braided folds of economic, social, and political power. We also pick and choose specific symbols and signs to represent who we are as individuals: those in love with the hard 80′s, or the sweet 50′s, or maybe rebellious zoot suits of the 20′s. Personal style can also change by day as well as relative location: what makes it fashionable is the participation in the fluid and comprehensive exchange of these symbols, either decade by decade, sub/culture by sub/culture, or even persona by persona. Authenticity relies on the details– how much investment is apparent in the final effort.

via seaofshoes.com

Being fashionable becomes an experience, not merely threads, buttons, diamonds, and accessories. The story is imperative; the emotional effect of the aesthetic  makes the art. This is what distinguishes pieces from cheap knockoffs: shiny patent plastic gives off an entirely different vibe than a gold lamé leather. Like font: either every letter is sans serif, or it isn’t.

hedislimane.com

There is an air of snobbery about it, no doubt. A story is one version down to its punctuation– a comma misplaced is a sentence misinterpreted. Or an entirely different story altogether. Marshall Mcluhan’s “The medium is the message”: if words and language can only do so much to convey a precise emotion or meaning, we must work extra hard to get at least 50%  (this is a figurative, er, figure) of our exact thoughts across.

It’s easy to shrug off these silly young people as shallow, irrelevant, foolish. Maybe they are, if we juxtapose them with those brave efforts in Africa or tender humanitarian achievements in the hells of Haiti; but believe it or not, humans are all the same whether or not their resume congratulates them, and we live and die amongst each other regardless of color, socioeconomic status, education levels, or sex. A noble calling is only noble through humility, after all (sans sarcasm, a fond form of narcissistic self-expression)– and who is anyone to say that anything will make a solid difference? No one lives long enough to tell. So we each live our lives thirsting to show the world who we are, and how we feel– aesthetically or otherwise. Straining to be heard clearly and precisely, and unfortunately many fail, through the lack of means to communicate effectively for whatever reasons…

To recognize people’s potentials is real power; limiting them through prejudices and jealous whims only limits your own ability to work through walls others cage you in. Spend less time whining about their disabilities, because you’re sadly missing their wonderful talents, their beautiful stories… you’re not listening.

It’s what I need to work on, too.

Graceee