vineandmagic

[vineandmagic]

Fashion Narratives: Storytelling through Collections

Fashion transcends mere aesthetics; it embodies powerful narratives woven through every stitch, fabric, and hue. Designers use fashion as a storytelling medium, allowing audiences to engage with the deeper meanings behind their collections. This exploration can be enhanced through semiotics—the study of signs and symbols—revealing how garments communicate complex ideas and emotions.

Themes At the heart of each collection lies a thematic backbone. Designers draw inspiration from diverse sources—nature, history, culture, or personal experiences. For instance, a collection inspired by nature may utilize earthy tones and organic shapes, fostering a sense of tranquility.

From a semiotic perspective, these themes serve as signs communicating specific messages. Earthy colors can evoke sustainability, while flowing silhouettes might symbolize freedom. By decoding these elements, we understand how designers construct cohesive narratives that resonate with viewers on multiple levels.

Color and Texture Color and texture are vital in shaping fashion narratives. Each color carries emotional weight; red can signify passion, while blue may evoke calmness. Designers select colors intentionally to amplify the emotional impact of their collections.

Texture also contributes significantly to storytelling. A rough fabric can suggest rebellion, while silky textures convey elegance. These semiotic choices resonate with viewers subconsciously, eliciting emotional responses that reinforce the collection's narrative.

Take Alexander McQueen’s "Plato’s Atlantis" collection as an example. The vibrant, iridescent colors and innovative fabrics create a narrative of transformation, prompting reflections on nature and technology.

Silhouette and Design The silhouette and design of garments are crucial narrative elements, conveying ideas about gender, power, and identity. A structured blazer may signify authority, while a flowing gown evokes femininity.

Through semiotic analysis, we can interpret how these silhouettes engage with cultural codes. Fitted dresses may align with traditional femininity, while oversized designs challenge conventions, inviting viewers to rethink gender norms.

Dior's "New Look," unveiled in 1947, exemplifies the confluence of these narrative elements.

The hallmark of the "New Look" was its dramatic silhouette, characterized by a cinched waist, padded hips, and full skirts that flared out from the waist. This silhouette not only celebrated the female form but also signified a return to traditional gender norms after a period of more androgynous styles. It evoked a sense of glamour and romance, appealing to the desires of women looking to reclaim femininity.

The silhouette became a powerful symbol of the era, representing both a return to traditional femininity and a new phase of consumerism. It echoed societal expectations of women as nurturers and homemakers, yet simultaneously offered them an opportunity to express individual beauty and sophistication.

The collection can be seen as a response to the wartime ethos of practicality and survival. By reintroducing luxury, Dior challenged the austerity that had defined the previous decade, suggesting that beauty and elegance were not just frivolous but essential to the human experience.

By dissecting fashion narratives—through themes, color, texture, and silhouette—we uncover the semiotic codes that shape our understanding of clothing. Each garment transcends its material form; it emerges as a sign, inviting engagement with deeper meanings and cultural contexts. As we continue to explore the intersection of fashion and storytelling, we reveal layers of significance that enrich our experience of this dynamic art form. Fashion is not just about what we wear; it’s about the stories we tell.

References

BORDO, S. (2003). Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body (1st ed.). University of California Press.

ECO, U. (1976). A Theory of Semiotics. Indiana University Press.

Davis, F. (2013). Fashion, Culture, and Identity. University of Chicago Press.

[vineandmagic]

“Ew, your husband is a criminal.” “SO WHat? Your husband is a psychopath!”

Okay, it’s a clickbait, sorry not sorry. It’s not about marriage and actual husbands. I want to talk about fictional “husbands” and why we are so obsessed with them despite their diabolical crimes.

Let’s present Exhibit A. This is Yang. He’s one of the love interests in the game “Piofiore: Fated Memories” and its sequel “Piofiore: Episodio 1926”. The games have a mafia theme so of course our boy is a criminal. Not only that, he’s THE criminal. Kidnapping, drugs, human trafficking, murder, torture, sexual assault etc you name it. But he’s often the second most favourite love interest in all the popularity polls. 

He literally kills the girl here.

To make things academic, we’ll use uses and gratifications theory to explain why women like that type of men (in media). 

Unlike mass media concepts and theories that emphasize the media influence, uses and gratification approach explores how and based on which motives recipients use the media as well as which gratifications are obtained thereat. While some older theories suggested that the audience is passive and can be easily manipulated, e.g. magic-bullet and hypodermic needle theory, uses and gratification approach emphasizes positive motivation and active use of the media content that can gratify individual recipient’s needs. 

According to theorists, uses and gratifications can be classified into five categories related to five groups of human needs:

Cognitive needs – acquiring information, knowledge, understanding our social environment, curiosity, exploration;

Affective needs – aesthetic and emotional experiences, pleasure;

Personal identity – self-confidence, personal stability, integrity, social status, the need for self-respect;

Integration and social interaction – family relations and friendship, connection with the outside world, the need for affiliation;

Escapism – the need to escape, tension release, shifting attention from unpleasant to pleasant. 

It cannot be claimed with certainty that recipients are always aware of their needs and that they can articulate them. But the needs are there and it matters. 

So what are the needs behind those morally bad fictional men?

I think the most dominant (heh, dominant men) needs featuring in this phenomenon are affective needs and escapism.

About affective needs, people want to feel wanted and needed. And the need to feel wanted and needed is especially essential in a romantic relationship. Because a relationship is a tight-knitted social group that only has 2 members (most of the time). We, both men and women, expect to be the priority in that group. That’s why finding out our partner cheats is so hurtful. In Esther Perel’s book “The State of Affair”, she states that one of the reasons it hurts to be cheated on is it breaks the “bubble” of priority and makes us feel insignificant.

It’s a disease we want to avoid at all costs. But our society normalizes men’s infidelity. I won’t discuss it in this blog though. Because of that normalization as well as women’s social status in general, women often feel the insecurity of being inferior, being replaceable, etc. So in their fantasy (fictional men), that is an important need. Fictional men can kill or terrorize or be a sociopath, but they NEVER CHEAT. And they’re UTTERLY OBSESSED with their girl. It’s a power play. In women’s fantasy, they want to be the most important and to be pursued relentlessly is an expression of that need.

Being pursued relentlessly in real life is not a fun scenario, though. That’s when escapism comes into play. Like horror stories, some people are attracted to these types of characters because it’s a fantasy but with danger that is safe, or danger at a distance, it isn’t real. 

If we want to dive into the sexual aspect of this phenomenon, we can see the mix of escapism and personal identity needs. We’re more liberal than the past, of course, but there is still the social expectation of purity that is forced upon women. Women don’t get to explore and express their sexuality freely.

That’s why it’s okay for fictional men to be rapists. Rape does for a woman’s sexual fantasy what the first martini does for her in reality: both relieve her of responsibility and guilt. By putting herself in the hands of her fantasy assailant – by making him an assailant – she gets him to do what she wants him to do, while seeming to be forced to do what he wants. Both ways she wins, and all the while she’s blameless, at the mercy of a force stronger than herself. I just repeat what is said in the book “My Secret Garden” by Nancy Friday. It should be noted that no, women don’t want to be raped. It’s less about the act itself, but about the emotions that the story releases and the psychological satisfaction. It’s also a safe way for women to explore their sexuality.

So the take from the word salad above is no, women are not sick in their head by loving their problematic fictional men. It’s about their unfulfilled and repressed psychological needs. 

References

Katz, E., Blumler, J. G., & Gurevitch, M. (1973-1974). Uses and gratifications research. Public Opinion Quarterly, 37(4), 509–523.

Perel, E. (2017). The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity. HarperCollins.

Friday, N. (1973). My Secret Garden: Women’s Sexual Fantasies. Bantam Books.

[vineandmagic]

It's a representation, just not for what you think.

So there is this webcomic called "Heartstopper". It was made into a Netflix TV series. And it blew up. Even though the theme, the content, the art, etc etc is not that mind blowing or creative or “I must bother everyone around me to read this”, it’s entertaining enough. Until it was not. Not exactly a beef against the comic itself, more like the author is ridiculous. 

Basically, she put her own works in high pedestal (based) in comparison to other male-love-male predecessor comics (now this is not based or slay), especially Japanese male-love-male comics (yaoi), because there is no sexual scenes in her works and the other ones are sexualizing and fetishizing the gay community. And how it would be a bad representation of the gay community.

Let’s not talk about how she needs to read more and be less judgemental. The thing is, yaoi, or other MLM comics from other countries, doesn’t exist for the gay community (unfortunately, I know) or at least that’s not how it started. It was, and still is, mainly for the women. 

The question is, why are women-centered entertainment pieces about gay men?

If we want to be serious and scientific here, there is a theory called “uses and gratifications”. This theory asserts that people use media to gratify specific wants and needs. There are needs that need to be satisfied, and certain pieces of media exist or go viral because of such needs. 

Much of UGT research focuses on the gratifications that media does or should fulfill. This has resulted in a variety of typologies that classify gratifications into a concise set of categories. For example, in 1973, Katz, Gurevitch, and Haas created a well-known scheme of five social and psychological needs gratified by media use, including:

Cognitive needs, or the need to acquire information and knowledge or improve understanding

Affective needs, or the need to have aesthetic or emotional experiences

Personal identity needs, or the need to strengthen confidence, status, or credibility. These needs have both cognitive and affective components

Social integrative needs, or the need to strengthen relationships with friends and family

Tension-release needs, or the need to relax and escape by lessening one's awareness of the self

MLM media touch on personal identity and tension-release (escapism) needs. The difference between MLM media and other straight romance media is that the “feminine” lead is a male. More often than not, they are also the emotional anchor of the story, which may be the better term. Usually, it is also through the emotional anchor that women view the story. It is through their lens that women pine and swoon over and swoon for. In a sense, women take on the role of the emotional anchor.

Typically, straight romances are the same where the female lead also holds the emotional viewpoint. However, it is not the same as the fantasy is usually skewed by the male gaze, which is a power fantasy. By which I mean, the feminine lead usually gives up a part of their character to advance the love story. It is a trope that is told countless times. Sure it can be sweet but it can also be somewhat demoralizing if told numerous times.

Yaoi, or MLM media in general, is a queer storyline told through a feminine gaze with the understanding of gaining equally shared power in the relationship. No one outright gives up a part of their character in the story. Instead, the leads must learn to communicate and share the power dynamic between them. 

MLM is catered to a female audience, not only because most of its writers are female but, because it taps to a sensibility that is often neglected in straight fiction. By which I mean, the characters evolve to a mutual relationship that is often equal in all parts. There is no ‘perceived’ weakness or lack in either party.

The escapism aspect is MLM allows straight (usually young) women to safely explore their sexuality, without being involved. And I think the "detachment" in itself is an appeal. A straight woman can enjoy the story without feeling like the sexual object, or comparing herself to the female character, etc.

Overall, I just think we should look deeper into each piece of media we consume or is regulated on the internet. Finding out the purposes and messages behind the media is a part of media literacy. Please be literate. At least know who a certain piece of media is targeted to before calling everything a representation (it’s embarrassing). 

References

Abelove, Henry, Barale, Michèle Aina, and Halperin, David M., eds. The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader. New York: Routledge, 1993.

Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge, 1990.

Katz, E., Blumler, J. G., & Gurevitch, M. (1973-1974). Uses and gratifications research. Public Opinion Quarterly, 37(4), 509–523.