This semester I am fortunate enough to participate in two coordinated independent studies on body adornment and modification throughout history and across cultures. As part of these independent studies, I will be writing (relatively…sort of…okay, not really) short blog-worthy articles on my findings. Posts will be located on my primary, general arts blog, located at http://shaunart.wordpress.com because of this project’s academic nature. However click-through links will always be provided on my cosplay blog, located at http://shaunartcosplay.wordpress.com when the content of these posts are relevant to cosplay, costuming, or historical clothing of any kind. Which will be the case most of the time.
With my research, I aim to answer the question, how and why do people alter their appearances in a quest for beauty, sex, and status? I will research historical and current mainstream trends which may include, but are not limited to, hair, lips, makeup, clothing, undergarments, and shoes, and their relationship to fashion, status, sex, power, and culture. In addition, I will explore counter-culture trends such as corsetry, piercings, and tattoos, and how these trends influence the mainstream.
I want to gain an understanding of suffering for beauty and the willingness to endure pain in order to achieve a particular aesthetic; not to mention the willingness to endure the financial burden that all of the physical upkeep puts on our society and on societies across the globe.
The business of beauty is rich with images, and I intend to use the information I gather to inspire and inform the artwork I create in my second independent study, which is a studio course. I don’t know what kind of artwork I will be creating just yet, but if you like clothes and historical fashion trends, you are sure to enjoy it. Though I always include supplementary text with the posting of new work, reading these research related posts will give you an even greater understanding of the work that I will be making, as well as provide you with some entertaining facts that are relevant to your life today.
