Politics and Fashion | New Project

So today we started a new project, the combination of Politics and Fashion. Whether or not there is a link is something many designers have debated. But simply through looking at the catwalks it can be seen that there is. From Chanel to dressing Princess Diana. How people dress has always been important, and first impressions include what someone wears. Fashion can be related to almost any political issue, whether it's through expression for example 'H&m for AIDS' campaign, or the march Chanel did during one of their shows.

I aim to focus my project on Discrimination. I am unsure which category yet as there are so many to choose from. But as we have 3 weeks for this project, I will spend the next few days narrowing down until I pick a final idea that I am happy with, one that I feel strongest about. The main three types of Discrimination I hope to look at includes; Racism, Consumerism, Sexism, Feminism and Religion.

Today I focused on research and probing further into discrimination. Hoping to come across a particular topic that made me especially angry, this was to ensure that my work has emotion. This project is about expression and opinion, so I felt I needed to really connect with my chosen topic within politics. I decided to head over to 'Ted Talk's' a part of youtube where people can freely speak about any issue's they desire, majority are political but some are comedy. In particular I searched for the above 5 topics, and came across some brilliant talks. One particular speech from Zena Agha really interested me, she was a Muslim lady who was a feminist. She speaks about her first realisation of being a feminist and also her current views. Believing that being 'oppressed' due to her religion, sex, age etc wasn't going to stop her, something I greatly admire.

As well as general research, I looked into various articles about political issues in fashion and designers that combine the two. One article I found interesting was by Jemima Khan, who asked the question "does fashion even care?" which I think is really important, ranging from Westwood to Largerfeld the question provokes; is it just a publicity stunt, or do these companies care?
-  http://www.newstatesman.com/society/2012/02/interview-climate-fashion-hero