proposal

The proposal

Harriet Lawson

U57 LO3

For Richard Evans

Theme – identity 

Format - fashion

Stereotypes in fashion

My inspiration for this idea came from hearing a lot of comments on young peoples fashion choice and people linking the clothes that they wear to what kind of person they are e.g. people in tracksuits are seen as chavs. I feel like a lot of young people have many stereotypes towards people of the same age and I am interested to see if any of these stereotypes are real or just made up.

Scenario

I will be looking at how fashion and identity go together, to me identity means the way that people can tell who or what something is and it also means how people are recognised for who they are.

I am going to use different peoples fashion choices to see how their clothes match their identity. I will find out what stereotypes are matched with each fashion type and try to find out if the people conform to the stereotypes. To do this I will ask my peers to name some well-known stereotypes of people and what it is that makes them get put into these classifications of people. I will then look for these stereotypes of people and photograph their fashion with labels attached to their clothes with key words referring to how they are seen or labels of how they actually think of themselves when they wear their clothes along with taking pictures of people in town where the clothes would normally be seen. I also have a second idea for my work, which is to take photos of people holding a white sheet of paper. I will then write the stereotype related to that person over the white paper in a text box using photoshop, I will have two versions of the image one will have a stereotype written over it and the other one will say how the person sees themselves and why they don’t conform to the stereotype. I will print my images on photo paper and layer them up so that you can pull back the first image reading the stereotype or name that they have been called in the past to then reveal the paper saying why they don’t think that they should be associated with that stereotype. My final idea is to have some of my peers tell me a stereotype or name that they have been associated with so that I can use the word with my photography to make my work more personal to the people that are involved in my work and I can show the people looking at my work that is issue is real and affecting real people. I will get some of my peers to hold a piece of blank white paper just under their face near their chest, again I will be using photoshop and a text box to write over the paper with the name that they have been called. I think this will be effective because having the name near the face of the person it will look almost like a name badge or label that they have physically been given. I will have also have a second version of each picture that will be slightly different because instead of the name that they have been called/associated with, the paper will read the response the person would say back to the mean names and stereotypes they have been called. I will put the 2 pictures next to each other to show how peoples stereotypes aren't always right. 

What is the intended goal?

My goal is to reach out to young people and teach them that most of the stereotypes they use toward other young people aren’t real. 

Target audience 

My work will be aimed towards young people between the ages of 16 to 20 as I feel like this is the age range where people become a lot more opinionated and judgemental. It is important for me to know the age range I am going to target so I can look into how I can make my work appealing for those people. 

Schedule and budget

My deadline for this work is the Friday the 16^th of January meaning all work including test shots and real completed work must be finished. In terms of budget all I will need are paper labels. 

Mission statement 

The reason I have chosen to do this topic is because I am passionate about getting rid of judgemental opinions and would like for people to be able to look like and dress how they like without hearing rude comments from other members of society.