Our project is called 'Structure and Attatchment' and it is meant to be in mono, meaning single colour. Jeong Mee Yoon is an artist who photographed her daughter Seowoo amongst her sea of pink things, from dolls to dresses to stuffed animals. She then began photographing little boys and girls amongst their colour-coded belongings in a quest to better understand how gender shapes our lives from such a young age. This included the 'Colour Project' which was red and blue themed. As my chosen colour is Red I felt this 'mono-ing' of a whole shoot in a single colour was a really interesting take. However there is a always a story behind contemporary shoots like this, the innocence of her subjects begs the question: is there something "natural" about these gender norms? Is it just socially acceptable to love pink as a little girl, and blue as a boy. Yoon finds that craze surrounding pink and blue affects almost all children; mass-marketing has become a universal language. Yoon stated on her website "Today, with the effects of advertising on consumer preferences, these colour customs are a worldwide standard."
The project explored the trends in culture and the differences in children's taste, but also the parents. Is this gender stereotyping of colour influenced by the parents, nature versus nurture, or is it simply personal choice. This kind of work raises many moral issues, such as the relationship between gender socialisation and identity, or even the globalisation of consumerism. This idea can be easily related to Jeremy Scott's most recent collection designed to look like Barbie, the trademark doll.
Much of the collection kept to the traditional hot pinks, with flirty style and bouncy blond locks, this collection was a perfect example of what every little girl dreams to look like. What intrigues me, is in the current age of feminism and politically correct media, how this slipped to become a craze.
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