By Heather Vaughan,
May 29th, 2008 at 5:00 am
(Uncategorized)
We all know about social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace ( and its fashion specific page: MySpace Fashion), but are you aware that there are now a plethora of professional networking sites to help you with your career goals ?
Here are three sites to help expand your networks, and therefore your career and research potential:
LinkedIn is a good, general place to maintain an online resume, look for jobs, connect to others in your field, etc. It’s also one of the largest and most widely used.
A new networking site geared specifically to the fashion industry is HauteNet. Launched in January 2008 by invitation only, and sponsored in part by FIDM, its appeal is the apparent exclusivity and connections to key personnel in all aspects of the fashion field (including fashion media and journalism). I’m currently testing the reliability of that implied promise.
Finally, and tangentially, there is GoodReads. More than just a networking site, it is a site for avid readers (or in my case, researchers) to look for new books (based on recommendations and reviews from friends, or themed groups). I’ve started a book group on the site specifically for those interested in Fashion History Resources (complete with a discussion group, books to read, etc).
Have you found these or other networks helpful?Until next time,
Heather
www.fashionhistorian.net
3 Comments
By Heather Vaughan,
May 28th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
(Uncategorized)
The black-and-white scarf, alleged to be symbolic of a keffiyeh, a traditional headdress worn by Arab men is now purported by FOX (of all places) to ” symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad.” More here
-Heather
www.fashionhistorian.net
Monica Added: I’d like to write more about this topic later, but I want to direct you toward a post I wrote for WT quite a while back on this exact issue, pre-Ray’s ad being nixed. It is also a brief post, but directs you toward an interesting site called Orthodox Anarchist which describes some of the issues involved with the scarf debate.
Comments
By Monica Sklar,
May 28th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
(Uncategorized)
The end of finals and then the holiday weekend have kept me really busy, so I know this is sort of old news which I have been meaning to post and haven’t had a moment…
Not sure how many of you already read about this via Boing Boing or other sites-but I thought I’d point you in the direction of the piece they have written about how the group Gnarls Barkley’s latest video pretty much ripped off the photo shoot Lagos Calling, which is a shoot WT posted about a while back and many of you wrote and spoke of your interest in.
I’m all about the merging and mixing of ideas in fashion, music, and culture in general, but biting people’s ideas is sort of cheap. Also, the photographer clears up any question of whether the images are African people who actually do/did dress this way, or whether it was an artistic piece, and in fact, it is the latter. I had cleared that up with some Internet searching around a while back, and have to say I was a bit disappointed as the notion that the shoot was images being of people in their daily wear, rather than styled, was somewhat intriguing. However, I applaud the photographer and stylist for being imaginative and the shots are totally inspired. I can see where Gnarls would be influenced, but at least hire the same team them rather than just calling them up for ideas and then proceeding without them.
I spent handful of years as a wardrobe stylist for bands, fashion photo shoots, and related projects and I know I would be irate if my idea was stolen like that. I know you’re supposed to be flattered, but really a stylist’s or photographer’s vision could (at times) be seen like words on a written page or notes of a song-it’s a complement sure, but also a form of plagiarism.
Check out the Boing Boing piece for the details.
Comments
By Monica Sklar,
May 28th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
(Uncategorized)
Great news from blog front!–Coutorture picked Worn Through‘s piece on Japanese footwear as a Must Read post to highlight on May 20. Check it out. If you’re not familiar with Coutorture, it’s a fabulous site that showcases a variety of fashion perspectives from their own writers, stylist, and photographers, as well as highlights interesting posts from fashion and dress blogs, and, provides links to more of those blogs than any other site. It is the go-to place to find out what’s happening in the fashion blog world, from both a reader and a blogger’s perspective, since they also have sections related to improving one’s blog.
Thanx again Coutorture!
Comments
By Monica Sklar,
May 26th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
(Uncategorized)
Check out these images of people who try to look like celebrities. Pretty interesting to see them all together, and to see some taking things to a relative extreme. It’d make an interesting research study to look at why some people are simply influenced by media and celebrity, and others want to actually reproduce the images onto themselves with little variation. The line in between is probably really blurry. Might be good to then compare to people who are into retro or other “looks” where they reproduce a time or a concept and it’s all about being flawless. In a recent conversation with a friend we were talking about whether people who are 100% any style are fabulous in their commitment, or shallow in their lack of diversity and at times modernity (when it comes to the retro thing). The image I’ve got is of Rod Stewart fans, but for some reason more than one of us when seeing this immediately thought Barry Manilow fans. Not sure why…
Comments
By Monica Sklar,
May 24th, 2008 at 8:35 am
(Uncategorized)
Since it’s a holiday weekend I’m not really up to posting anything in depth, and also, if you can believe it, I’m still working on a term paper, as I had one class that runs through May. Anyway, I did want to direct you toward a fun set of images that Harlo sent me. There’s a new book called Planet Shanghai which includes images of pajamas as daytime outerwear as a big trend. Check out “The Year In Pictures.”
2 Comments
By Monica Sklar,
May 24th, 2008 at 8:28 am
(Uncategorized)
Christina said in her comment that the Japanese shoes from a few days ago’s post reminded her of the flurry of attention a pair of Marc Jacobs heels received recently-so I thought I’d post some images in case anyone hadn’t seen them. 
Comments
By Monica Sklar,
May 21st, 2008 at 5:42 pm
(Conferences and Calls for Papers, Uncategorized)
To add to Heather‘s post about conferences-at that Costume Society of America (CSA) conference right now some of my work is being presented. I am on a research team studying the black leather jacket, and we were accepted to present a poster session at CSA which we entitled: Regalia from the road: Looking beyond the black leather jacket. My research partners are Marilyn DeLong and Kelly Gage for that portion of the project, and Juyeon Park is an additional co-author on another part of the project. They are in New Orleans this week presenting the work for us. I’ll keep you updated as we continue this project and hope to present further sections at more conferences, and then publish the overall conclusions.
Comments
By Heather Vaughan,
May 21st, 2008 at 9:00 am
(Conferences and Calls for Papers, Uncategorized)
Going to and speaking at academic conferences is one of the best ways to network, test your research and find work in your field (including book projects!). Though opportunities to speak at conferences specifically geared towards fashion history and theory are rare, its important to find those niche’s where your research will fit. The Costume Society of America is holding their annual symposium in New Orleans this week, where papers on all aspects of costume will be presented, along with workshops, panels and field trips (the theme this year is Looking Beyond the Mask: Disguise, Identity, and Costume).
To hold you over until next year’s location and theme are officially announced, here are some other upcoming conferences/calls for you might consider to help build up that resume:
International Journal of Regional and Local Studies
Fashion and Body Image (NEPCA)
Researching New York 2008, an annual Conference on New York State History
Until next time,
Heather
www.fashionhistorian.net
Comments
By Monica Sklar,
May 20th, 2008 at 11:21 am
(Uncategorized)
A coworker sent me these photos of a shoes that are supposedly all the rage in Japan right now. The Japanese are never ones for subtlety when it comes to their fashion trends, and these shoes are certainly filled with enthusiasm. I used to have a black leather pair that had the inverted horse’s hoof heel, and then I saw Jane Weidlen of the GoGo’s was wearing them and talking about them on Rock and Roll Jeopardy on VH1 maybe 5 years ago. They made awesome prints in the snow.
I also was super into platforms, and had many a pair, including one pair that I had “built” on shiny red Airwalks in 1995 in NYC. There was a tiny cobbler’s shop on St. Marks Place which turned regular athletic shoes into dance-club visions. You could pick your colors of rubber and the style you wanted them to look like. So in typical ‘me’ style, I did black and white stripes–they were about 8 or 10 inches high. You paid by the layer. It was pretty rad.
Actually, for my wedding in 2004, I brought the look back by wearing Sketchers white platform sneakers under my dress. They were maybe 4 inches of platform which was fabulous. No one could see really them, and they let me take off the uncomfortable heels and dance up a storm. I promptly sold them on eBay as wedding sneakers and they went immediately.
So check out these beauties. Certainly there is a fetish element here that I could have written about, but I’ll leave that to your comments.
10 Comments
