The Worn Fashion Journal Party, the politics of fashion shows. by risa
Between Sonia, contributing editor and cover model, being featured in this Rockabilly documentary; and myself, contributing editor and one time cover model, doing a little model-walk action in the consistent variable project fashion show and preparing to launch Indyish; and Serah-Marie (editor in chief) getting interviewed on CKUT and the CBC morning show this weekend, I think this Worn fashion journal thing may be starting to generate some actual buzz!
Much like the first CVP vernissage, the spirit of the second CVP party was joyful and raucus. A team party, though complicated, can be awesome. Props should go to Terminus for planning and paying for it, to Clayton Evans for curating it, and to Serah-Marie for making the party happen.
Worn, like the CVP, is interested fashion, creativity, opinion and communication. Given exactly the same materials, what will people in different cities, with different interests, choose to make? Looking at the CVP projects you get wide eyed, and you even get to feel like a bit fashion judge/connoisseur- questioning the crafts(wo)menship on a this one; or attempting to interpret the message in that other one, which seems to be made for a stylish Grecian midget with no arms.
There were only 12 projects this time, not 42 like last time, and people didn’t keep them on for the whole night. But still, the diversity was pretty paradigm shifting. Backstage, the models ate sushi and passed around a small bottle of brandi and a cheap bottle of wine to keep their courage up. I imagine this is similar to the giddy seriousness of preparing for battle. We even put on special gear, and tied each other into things (like my second outfit: the wonderwoman corset) and got quiet right before getting sent out. The main difference, I guess, would be that we got to laugh, and make people laugh, and walk to the beat of that great song- Spirit in the Sky, while drawing attention to something that had been made by someone in the crowd. Generally, more of a love-in then battles are, I imagine.
I wonder if people in Darfur or Jammu could do a CVP what they would make? What materials would makes sense? What would people try to communicate with fibers and other materials while in a terrorized state? Not the same things as we communicate from inside the security of our freedom of speech and social fabric, I’d wager. Would the nervous, happy laughter of the fashion show still happen? What about the dancing with reckless (goofy) abandon afterwards? Would the Arab militias that torture these regions allow such an event to take place? (Am I doing injustice to the subtleties of affiliation involved here by lumping these groups together as “Arab Militias”?) Peeking from dark corners, would the young men and women who get caught up violence-justifying ideologies (whatever their cultural or religious foundations) see a current of something lovable and human in a CVP crowd, or just sinners not worth saving or speaking to? In our own history- in the U.S. and here in Canada and in the UK – have there been times where we couldn’t have held a CVP party? Or- what seems more likely- have there been times where the critical questions raised inside Worn’s lovely pages would have drawn negative attention from the powers that be? Oddly, our buttons are probably the most directly scandalous. Though “Gender is so over” was, at first, just something I thought was funny and tightly ironic and good to say about how much more complicated humans are then the binaristic concept of gender allows, it has taken on a life of it’s own, appearing on Worn T’shirts and even in a woven art project by Serah-Marie. And I wonder if it would have made it past the heavy anti-gay bias that once plagued the press in Canada. To compliment my list of unanswered questions here, I’ll point you to another, even more fascinating list. Here is a list of banned books online, that I think would make an interesting starting point for more questions about when and why ideas seem dangerous and get disallowed.
One thing’s for sure- that launch party was some fun. club lambi is hot in both senses of the term, and the interior has that happy hybrid feel- dirty hipster meets vintage posh- that suits the Worn style so well. The music was delicious, different, danceable – studded with favorites for singing along too, and forgotten gems to help you rock out.
Speaking of rocking out.. if you like, read part2 of this piece called The Difference between rhetorical and organizational revolution is in the code…
Leave a Comment