Though your personality is not fully your identity, it is a major attribute to it. MAJOR!

So if I’m going to illustrate models based on various personalities, it indirectly becomes a sort of celebration of personalities which cater to different identities.

To note: Though our styles in dressing hold certain insights to the personalities that we possess, it is not fully characterized until we bring into account of the way a person carries herself which is animated by our character. Our image portrayed to the world, thus, consists of the “outside” and the “inside”.

Therefore personalities can be found as similar, but not EXACTLY the same.

VERSION 1: My heart burning questions..

1. Would you agree that your dressing is a channel for communicating to the world about who you are? Y/N

2. Would you agree that you pick the clothes (colors, style, patterns) you wear because you feel comfortable with the image you see in the mirror? Y/N

3. Therefore, would you agree that we may consider our dressing as related to our personality which plays a major role in our identity? Y/N

4. In at least, and at most 2 words, which best describe your personality using the any of the following words.

Words: Cheerful, Emo, Feminine, Girlish, Boyish, Loud, Quiet, Sociable, Insociable

I am ____________+____________.

5. Describe your style in dressing in not more than 80 words: _______________________________________________________

VERSION 2: The refined version of the above..

1. Does your dressing communicate who you are? Y/N

2. Do you pick the clothes you wear because you like the way you are portrayed through them? Y/N (No, purely for practicality)

3. Does your dressing express your personality? Y/N

4. Write 3 words that can be used to describe your personality: __________ , __________ , __________.

5. Describe the your style in dressing. Provide a sure-set of description:

Hair style: __________________________

Face Makeup (include choice of colors): _________________________________________

Top: _________________________________________

Bottom: _________________________________________

Accessories: _________________________________________

Footwear: _________________________________________

Refer to Thoughts on Survey of Dressing Part 2 (Category: Thoughts)

Here’s another film called Flattering Fashions. The knowledge to acquire in this film would be good-to-know though not fully relevant to the project.

Call number: TT507F586f @ ADM Lirary

 What I gathered..

The Blink Test

• Look at yourself from a distance in a mirror. Close your eyes for 5 seconds and then open them. What’s the first thing you see?

*Train your eyes by watching people of all types of shape: Big, small, medium.

Shape

• When looking at a person from a distance, shape is the first thing seen.
• Controling the body shape controls what the body seen:

Lines

• Have the power to lead the eyes from one point to another
• Horizontal lines adds width making a person seem heavier and shorter
• Vertical lines adds height making the body looke more narrow
• 2 Vertical lines together creates more height than the ones further apart from each other
• Scarf and shoulder bag add vertical lines
• Pointed-toe shoes add lines too
• Diagonals are dynamic and suggest movement (Lengthens a person’s image when the slant is close to vertical and shortens when closer to horizontal)
• Curved-lines give a feminine appearance
• Top ending below the waist is fine for someone with narrow hips
• Top ending below the hips is fine for those with broader hips

Colors

• Bright colors on top calls attention to the face
• Bright colors may cause the directed attention to put “more weight” to the area
• Neutral colors(white, black, grey) matches anything
• Minohromatic dressing —> uninterrupted line

Balance

• Wide-leg pants adds width to lower body so it balances broad hips
• Boot-cut has a better slimming effect than straight-cut
• Good balance makes wearer feel at ease

Texture

• Layering gives depth to outfit, making it looks more polished
• Texture or patterns can create line

Proportion

• Golden mean
• Avoid outfits that are half 1 color and half the other
• Color has pleasing proportions when used in unequal amount

*Dressing well doesn’t mean following alot of rules. It’s training your eyes to recognize and apply principles of fashion.

“Beauty is an agreement. Every culture ties itself to a beauty loop. We point out what is beautiful to us and lean towards the tendency of adjusting ourselves to the closest form of it. In the process of receiving feebacks, we take certain measures and feed the ‘agreement’. Q: What is your ideal combination of physical(i.e. double eye lids, petite frame) beauty of women in Singapore?”

http://thebeautyloop.lefora.com/2008/09/11/the-ideal-physical-beauty-of-women-in-singapore/page1/#post1126076

According to the response, we can see how the ideal Singapore beauty doesn’t quite exist. The preference for certain beauties changes from person-to-person. So there are some more commonly preferred features but they don’t exactly point to the picture of that ideal woman.

Perhaps I should rephrase the question to “What physical features would you like to have on yourself?”

http://thebeautyloop.lefora.com/2008/09/29/what-physical-features-would-you-like-to-have-ando-4/page1/

I picked up a film, The Way We Dress: the meaning of fashion, which showed me my topic from a different perspective.

Call number: TT507W357 @ ADM Library

 What I gathered..

What is fashion?

• Fashion is adopted because it is what seems as appropriate
• Successful peer pressure
• A form of non-verbal communication and you have many things to say
• “clothing grammar”

• Not to say who we are but who we want to be
• Friends tend to dress alike
• Young people are still constructing their image so they experiment with different styles
• A way of testing the answers to the question, “Who am I”.  

Why and how does fashion change?

• Influential individual influence fashion
• Celebrity driven

How does fashion affects society?

• Upper class man wore wigs — Social status 
• Tradition of bridesmaid was due to the idea of fashionable women in the past who required attendance to put on their dresses.

How does sports influence fashion?

• The change in how we spend time
• Only the wealthy has leisure time
• “Casual” image was a recent invention
• People used to play sports in suits

How does fashion show social status?

• Fabric: Social standing, not free choice
• Americans took it from social standing to a freedom of expression

Why study fashion?

• Clothing is an identity kit: “This is who I am.”
• Fashion is a partial answer to question: “Who am I?”

It makes me think of exploiting thebeautyloop. Like lets encourage “who you want to be” or “who you are” with fashion.

Sounds healthy! Just a a side-thought.

This is a survey-interview. Each person is to spontaneously answer the question, “Who are you?”

The purpose of this is to recognize the trend of thought among the target audience.

Selection: Thumb

Here’s another way I would communicate the project using a string. The possible issue of reserving self-identity while seeking the ideal beauty is clearly depicted in the metaphor below. 

Read a book, Redeeming Beauty: Scared Aesthetics, briefly.

(I will update this entry.)

What I gathered out of it for consideration:

“Inasmuch as love grows in us, so beauty grows, since love is the soul’s beauty..” P10

“…the beauty of the soul which animates the body..” P9

That’s the effect of inner beauty.

Read an online article, On Beauty, by Frederick Turner and reprinted from Rebirth Of Value.

What I gathered out of it:

“..beauty is an illusion in the eye of the beholder, an eye preconditioned by social convention and economic interest.”

“People see (hear, touch, taste, smell) the beautiful, and recognize it by a natural intuition and a natural pleasure.”

“This ‘natural intuition’ is for us human beings activated, sensitized, and deepened by culture, that is, a natural capacity of the nervous system now incorporates a cultural feedback loop, and also uses the physical world, through art and science, as part of its own hardware.”