'ONE SHOULD EITHER BE A WORK OF ART, OR WEAR A WORK OF ART'

Tuesday 12 May 2015

 Following the hand in this morning, there are a couple of things I would like to have done a little differently. I would have liked to have known my question to before going to Paris Fashion Week. This would have allowed me to talk to any Peacocks and observe them in detail. It would also have been beneficial to attend London Fashion Week 2015, from information gathered from the interviews, there is more emphasis on the 'outside' event, networking and Peacocking. Finally, on the topic of research, I would have liked to carry out a second round of questionnaires based on the results and outcomes of the first round. This would be possible if there was more time to conduct the case study as I could have attended Paris and London Fashion Weeks in September 2015.

However, this is still a piece of work I am proud of. I'm proud of sticking with my initial thoughts after I doubted them and finding quotes to support them. I was surprised at the amount of quotes I found and the ease of finding them, one I knew what I was looking for. I discovered that I enjoy researching and writing about social elements of society such as social roles and subcultures. Knowing this will help me in finalising a dissertation proposal for next month.

The librarian, Rosie Sellwood mentioned in my tutorial that I could be one of the first people to write about Peacocking as a theory. With this knowledge I want to work on this study further to make it as good as it can be with the motive to get it published.

During the process of this study, I have noticed changes in myself. Six months ago I never would have imagined going to Paris alone and asking people I had never met to help me with my study. Now I wouldn't think twice about doing it again. I think this is partially down to growing up with Falmouth being my environment but I feel like going to Paris gave me the push out of my comfort zone I needed to feel comfortable with myself.

Wednesday 6 May 2015

After a meeting with Rosie Sellwood in the library last Wednesday my points in my discussion were made clear. Talking through my points for my discussion with someone else made them so much clearer and understandable in my head, I was starting to think they didn't make any sense, or at least only to me. My problem was that I had my points about peacocking and networking but I couldn't find any academic references to back my points up. Rosie suggested that I use a similar scenario in different discipline. In terms of pea cocking, I am going to compare that scenario to that of subcultures and the transition of certain groups such as Punk and Goth into mainstream society. Within this point, I can predict that as with subcultures, peacocking behaviour will become part of fashion events. Rosie also sent in the right direction when searching terms in the library. I had exhausted all versions of 'peacocking, fashion, paris fashion week and identity'. And I accquired 15 books to look for across Tremough and Woodlane libraries.

One theory that I'm particularly interested in, in terms of fashion is subcultures and their relation to peacocking. One particular useful quote I have found is, 'clothing is used to affirm membership to social groups and personal identity' [Barnard, 2002].

In many ways I'm glad our event and two thirds of 250 are over so I don't have to worry about it and can concentrate on 240.



Barnard, Malcolm. Fashion As Communication. London: Routledge, 2002. Print.