(read it all here)
Getting inspired in today's culture is no easy task. It's hard to be fresh when fresh has become a commodity, when happiness has become fashionshaped, and fashion has shifted from niche pursuit to easy-access shorthand for cool. Like pulling up your hoodie to get an instant toughness boost or feeling 10% smarter because you've got new shoes on. The old signifiers of youth style and culture - music, and particularly, fashion? have become easy-access.
In short, everyone has become fashion-able. Not fashionable, you note, just able to grab hold of this week's trends with a lunchtime purchase of some cheap white pumps or a faux cameo necklace. Super-hip stylist Christiane Joy claims to have almost dropped out of the global in-on-Monday, out-by-Wednesday fashion roundabout, preferring jeans, a shirt and less obvious signals to her style: a pair of sneakers customized by a hip friend, or pumps in just the right shade of blue. Perhaps that's the answer - subtle as the new black. It's an argument that old-school music purists have had with the Limewire generation since the first Napster file-swap happened. Forget the days when it took commitment to get music (ever thought about how hard it was for Mick Jagger to get those Muddy Waters records?).
Recognizing true creativity when you see it, nourishing it and encouraging it to grow, is the only way to beat the frightening forces of things like the pop idol machine, high street fashion factories and lookalike magazines and models. Do your own thing, keep reaching up for those high ideas and never look over your shoulder; because that's what being fierce and being creative, is truly all about.
By Emma Warren and Elizabeth McGrath of Electronic Beats
No comments:
Post a Comment