AREWRITE THISS !!!! My Final Major Project for Fashion Media Practice & Criticism (UAL) involved creating workshops, in local communities, to enable an alternative art education.my main concern was new ideal body type that had hit advertising. Brands, such as Victoria’s Secret, started to present beautiful, slim yet toned models. These girls eat, they had a curvier figure, they play sport - a combination of the life many of us want to live, combined with the ‘heroin chic’ skinny us females have been compared to for the past however many years. As an athlete, and first-hand admiration of these gym bunnies, I recognised two main problems with this new promotion. The first being the unhealthy ideal of over-exercising as well as new forms of extreme dieting. The second issue had base
around feminism and gendered sports.
Being involved in skateboard culture led into exploring the creative side. Fashion brands, such as Supreme and Palace started to become popular in street-wear, particularly through their unique art collaborations. These brands work through a close-knit group of friends, who had slowly worked their way up retail. Whatever each individual brought to the group (whether it was photography, styling, video) a lot of these skills had been self-taught. Both these brands target young, males but with a growing female audience, why were they not being targeted? Talking to members within this sub-culture, Vans seemed to target both audiences. Keen on the client, further research led me into their community-focus, including creative space House of Vans
House of Vans’ ethos hopes to inspire and engage their audience in to a creative spirit. Researching this venue, an article about the cost of art education and then understanding how this implemented of classism changed the focus. In a time of increasing tuition fees, particularly for art and design students, this issue seemed more relevant to what I had previously suggested. The projects’ aim was to create a no-cost form of art education, through workshops, at House of Vans..
