Identify Yourself
At yesterday's British Psychological Society Symposium on Identity, I met the King of identity research and someone I read during my MSc study, Professor Constantine Sedikides.
What a treat...It has been his work on self-concept that contributed to my investigation into objectification in fashion imagery. And yesterday was the day where I presented a selection of findings from my study supervised by Professor Carolyn Mair at the London College of Fashion. Nerve - shredding even though I have been public speaking all my working life.
A rather provocative screen but that's me all over
This lecture required scientific findings to be presented with flair so of course I put up some provocative images as you can see above.
And asked some provocative research questions!
We talked about Girl Gaze as an antidote to the current evaluative gaze that has sexualised women selling womenswear to women and it was great to take lots of questions. It was a kind of full circle moment when I later reflected upon my beginnings at i-D magazine 35 years ago and my pursuit of images representing an authentic representation of being human. No industry trends back then and no globalisation. And BTW...no one had ever heard of the word 'brand.'
One of my early fashion spreads for i-D magazine circa 1982 ish
Meeting the next generation of activists who will take things forward like Zsuzsanna below, spurred me on to continue the research on my book 'Calling all Disruptive Fashion Lovers.' There are some very exciting young minds out there who identified with my findings and believe as I do that applying psychology to fashion to provide insight into how we change things....is HOW WE CHANGE THINGS. I want to connect with them all!
