Fashion: Constructed Image: Fashion research- Vogue

After the pitch the group went to the library to look further into the fashion side of our unit, Suzi showed us where the collection of Vogue magazines were. We chose to look at the magazines which dated from the early to mid 60s; this helped us to not only explore the fashions but also the materials, colours as well as hairstyles & make-up of the era.

The magazines advertised their clothing as well as giving their readers tips on hairstyling and make-up & other related fashions such as furniture, decor & accessories which has been helpful in looking at for enhancing our sets design.

 

Some of the fashion images in the magazines are quite simple while others are fashion shoots with a narrative, again these images show this power struggle between male & female characters often with the female being more dominant not only as a character but as the figure in the image due to use of scale & mainly colour.

Use of colour to create dominance

 There were also advertisements helping to highlight the dominant style of shoes for females in the 1960s, this being quite low heeled with a pointed toe, this style is also featured in some of the above fashion images:

During the pitch, the male fashion was brought up and although he won’t be the main focus of the shoot we have started to consider whether he will be wearing a simple suit or something more themed to help the audience to deduct who he is within the narrative. We have begun thinking whether he may possibly be part of the hotel staff; the manager, receptionist or even bellboy or whether he could be an unsuspecting accountant or lecturer- someone who has been roped in to stealing the documents which then supports this idea of a weaker male character with a stronger female presence. We have also started to consider material, possibly looking at tweed inspired by these pages in Vogue:

 When looking through the magazines I found sections in several exploring Eastern culture as inspiration for fashion, these mainly included photographs of different fabrics, patterns and textures which could help develop our ideas when choosing the fashion.

When I got home I decided to look for modern Vogue magazines on the internet which were based in Eastern countries that would relate to our Asian Peruvian model. I found examples of Vogue China, Japan, North & South Korean editions from between 1990 and 2012. I also tried to focus on magazine covers that display work which could have been inspired by 60s fashion helping us again to narrow down our search of the sort of fashion & hair style and make-up we will be looking for. Some of them feature Asian models while other covers feature famous Western females:

Vogue China

 Vogue Japan

 

Vogue North Korea

 

 Vogue South Korea

 

 

 Now that I have done this research I will take it to the group in our next meeting and continue to discuss what sort of fashion we wish to portray in our image. Jonathan questioned how glamorous our female model would be in this sort of scenario however we believe she would be an empowered, sexualised dominant female who has come into this grotty environment. The reason for the chosen hotel room is because spies would be trying to work undercover and unnoticed therefore would meet in unsusepcting places.