Holiday Brochures

RCA Prospectuses (Photos: Nathaniel Dafydd Beard)

Having a bit of a clear out this week I came across an accumulation of some old RCA prospectuses, gathered over time, mulling the options as to whether or not pursing a research degree would be a good idea. Coincidentally, I also had an e-mail from the college press/marketing department asking if I'd like to be a featured student profiled in the new prospectus. Am usually quite happy to be in the background just getting on with things, so was not looking to be ''profiled'' in any public way, but in answering questions about my expectations of the course and my feelings about how it is now I am actually here, turned out to be a good chance to reflect on my time so far at the RCA.

Time flies here fairly rapidly, and already the first year is over and we are well into the summer recess. Unlike some of my colleagues, I won't be taking a ''real'' holiday this year, since have given myself several tasks to complete over the summer, combined with full-time working commitments to my ''money job''. But like flicking through a a glossy holiday brochure, a college prospectus offers perhaps much the same experience. It's never quite as glossy as the brochure would have you believe (for non-UK readers, British tour company brochures are notoriously misleading...oops, did we forget to mention the 6 lane highway between the hotel and the beach?). Yet as I reflect on my past experiences over the last year, one of the stand-out aspects has been the supportive nature of my fellow researchers in the School of Fashion and Textiles, a small miracle in such a competitive field, and one I wasn't entirely expecting. All our projects are distinctly different, which no doubt helps, and whenever we meet up it's always intriguing to hear about the latest developments, the successes, and the dilemmas. Helping out a friend this week with writing their own statement for application to a course at a different institution also reminded me of the need we all have for ''cheer leaders'' as I call them. That is, those people on the sidelines, whether family, friends or colleagues, who are there to support you during both the dark, doubting times, and are the there with words of congratulations when things are turning out just the way you hoped. While it is always wise to take the promises of ''holiday brochures'' with a pinch of salt, it is also important as a researcher to keep an open mind, as you never know when some chance conversation or watching the progress of a colleague can help in inspiring or motivating your own work. As I am finding out, the role of the researcher is certainly that of a self-initiator or self-motivator, but a little help from those around you certainly goes a long way.

Fashion Victims

Photo by Guy Bourdin

As part of my research into the Fashion City, and looking at practices within the fashion business, The Guardian newspaper published an interesting, if dis-heartening, article last weekend. Entitled ''Fashion Victims'', the focus of the article was on the tough conditions faced by those working in the ''glamorous'' industry of fashion. Rather than looking at the appalling conditions of factory workers in developing countries, which perhaps no-one can now deny happens, instead this article focused on a situation much closer to home: that of the fashion intern.

For many aspiring fashion designers looking to get a foot-in-the-door, the fashion internship, or work placement, has become a rite of passage. Working un-paid, or on the basis of receiving ''expenses'' for travel, has become a standard practice here in the UK. As this article high-lights, for many a start-up fashion brand this kind of labour is not just a temporary option, it is often essential to the running of a fashion brands operations, particularly in the build-up to events such as London Fashion Week. In particular, having the experience of working for a smaller firm has the advantage that as internee you are often given greater levels of responsibility, working on aspects of a business that can make a real difference. Yet this article investigated much more alarming practices, not at a start-up firm, but that of a well-established and internationally-known name, that of Alexander McQueen. While it might seem rather disingenuous of The Guardian to focus on the operations of the recently deceased McQueen, it certainly focuses attention on a ''hidden'' aspect of the fashion industry that is not widely known to the general public. Currently, in the UK interns, i.e. those working in unpaid positions, can only be ''hired'' for one month, with flexible working hours and conditions, i.e. days and time worked is to be negotiated, so for example a student could work 2/3 days to fit in with study or paid work commitments. After this time period, the firm who has contracted them must draw up a contract and pay them the minimum rate of pay as set by the UK government. Yet according to the example in the article, some interns have been expected to work beyond this time limit, with no pay, and often working 12 hour days, 6 or 7 days a week. While astonishing that this can happen in 21st Century London, it is, unfortunately, not entirely surprising.


Photo by Guy Bourdin

A few years ago, as this article also highlights, I too was interning, with experience of firms in both the fashion and cosmetic sectors, where it was not unusual for interns to outnumber actual, full-time employees of the company. In this situation, you do begin to wonder if this is really ''normal'', or indeed sustainable practice, not to mention begin thinking if such ''experience'' gaining is really so worth while when you are not getting proper recognition for your input i.e. payment. For instance, during one placement it happened that one manager and my fellow intern had a day off, and the other manager was sick, so I was expected to effectively be ''in charge'' of running the PR office for that day, and while, luckily, nothing came up that I wasn't able to manage, it was the day when almost the entire cohort of UK top-glossy magazines called up to request information or product samples. The subsequent monetary value of this press coverage from this day ran into thousands of £s, all good ''experience'' (there perhaps isn't an editor I now couldn't handle), but it does make you think twice about how it is possible that it can be ''okay'' for you to do a job for free that other people get paid (a significant) amount to do. There is perhaps no easy answer to this solution, particularly for those who come from less ''privileged'' backgrounds who cannot afford to work for free, in-definitely, in the hope of getting hired for a ''real'' job. Yet seeing as this practice is very much considered a ''rite of passage'', with many I have spoken to in the industry stating they have all had to work unpaid at some point, it seems there is little incentive for changes to be made. Yet it seems that rather than interns completing an internship or series of internships with the incentive of a gaining a paid job, it seems as if many firms are happy to rely on an ever changing pool of fresh and naive aspirants wishing to gain ''experience''. Yet the very nature and quality of this experience needs to be addressed. It seems that once again the fashion industry is having the mirror held up to reveal its warts and blemishes. Rather than turning away from its responsibilities, perhaps it is time for the industry, including colleges, fashion designers and brands, and relevant bodies like Skillset and the British Fashion Council, to band together and look again at how to improve and regulate the fashion intern schemes, perhaps through a bench-marking system.

The Science of Scent

Yesterday, I went to attend a lecture at the grand-sounding Royal Institution of Great Britain, a place that has been a leading centre in scientific research in the UK for more than 200 years. The lecture I attended was part of their public programme, and the talk, The Science of Scent: Adventures in a creative mind, was the third and final lecture in a series on thinking about the developments in smell, held in conjunction with Procter & Gamble (P&G).

Led by Will Andrews, a fragrance evaluator for P&G, he began by stating how the aim of this lecture was think about the idea or image of fragrances, or smells, and to introduce how this process happened. He emphasized that while the development of a perfume is very much a design process, it is not an art, but rather an expert profession. The training process to be become an expert perfumer takes several years, not least due to the complexity of learning the various components that go into making a perfume. In particular there is the need for perfumers to get to grips with the vast number of ingredients that a perfume can be made of, which runs into the thousands, both natural and synthetic, and their potential to inform the making of new perfumes through their infinite variety of combinations. While working with odours or smells is very much an inward process, necessitated by the need to work with perfume ingredients in an isolated way, Andrews explained that the ‘’design process’’ of perfume is similar to others, such as graphic or textile design. In particular, the development of a ‘’reference point’’ for commencing the development of a new perfume, where certain influences are more potent or relevant than others. For fragrance in particular, however, the ‘’memory’’ of certain odours, such as though from childhood, like certain fruits, or the perfume your Nana used to wear, are especially relevant reference points. As so many smells are associated with particular experiences, there comes the challenge of how to develop such a compelling memories or ideas into a wearable fragrance. For example, Andrews mentioned how many people like the smell of petrol, yet this is not an odour you do not necessarily wish to wear on your skin.


Lecture Theatre, RIGB, London

In developing a new perfume for a fashion brand Andrews identified the three main challenges all perfumers face in creating new ones. We each of us have personal emotional responses to certain odours, finding some repugnant and others comforting. The perfumer, however, needs to remain objective in the selection of ingredients. Secondly, and perhaps surprisingly, Andrews stated that there is no universal measure of odours as such, that is it not possible to count the total number of smells, and nor can smell be calibrated in the same music can, which can be measured in terms of decibels for instance. In addition there is no specific language of odour in our culture, which compounds the difficulty of describing odours in words objectively. To get around this problem every perfume company develops their own base or structure of referents. Andrews made reference to the wine tasting ‘’wheel’’ developed by Ann Noble in 1990, which has held to combat a similar problem in the wine industry. Similarly, P&G makes use of its own wheel of table of odour types, broadly divided into male and female, with ‘’male’’ odours being on the more woody or aromatic spectrum, and ‘’female’’ odours tending to be in the floral spectrum. As Andrews noted, even though scent is not gendered per se, there is no such thing as a 'female' of a 'male' odour, societal conventions developed over time dictate that is has become gendered. In developing perfumes aimed at women or men it remains as useful division for those working in creating new perfumes for fashion brands.

In gaining an insight into how a perfumer works on developing ideas for new perfumes Andrew had brought along colleagues from P&G Prestige, who included senior perfumer Jose-Maria Velazquez. Originally from Mexico, Velazquez explained how those smells and odours from childhoold remained important references. As a professional perfumer with 20 years experinece he explained that even today he was perhaps only familiar with only half the potential kinds of smells there are, including both natural and synthetic. Although there is a definite structure to learning the processes of perfume development (Velazquez began his career as a chemist), it was emphasized that a creative flair was just as important as technical know-how in the role of perfumer. In illustrating how and where perfumers develop their inspiration, Andrews spoke about how one perfume had come about through a perfumers idea to combine the odour of the forest in the Acadia National Park, on the USA's Eastern seaboard, with the odour of the Atlantic Ocean, on which the forest pines fall into. In the same way that fashion designers seek inspiration in places or through experiences, so to does the perfumer. For Andrews, the partnership of fashion and perfume acts as the perfect platform, describing scent as ''clothing without a physical form''. He mentioned the example of the original Hugo Boss fragrance as a highly successful example of this.


Hugo Man Green

In concluding, Andrews described how developing a perfume can be compared to working on a film production. Even though perfumery may, on the surface, appear a solitary occupation, working on fragrances in a laboratory, the reality of creating a new perfume with a fashion brand is very much a team effort. In the Q&A that followed the lecture he briefly referenced the differing concepts of smell in the Western and Easter traditions. While scent-wearing in the Europe developed as a way of covering up the noxious smells of both personal body odour and the urban dirt of the city, in Asia, the traditions are very different, although there was no time to elaborate on this further.

With the main lecture over, the audience was divided up into three groups, and we had the opportunity to hear further from the P&G Prestige perfumers about the process of putting a perfume together, and specifically the ''layering'' of smells. Velazquez led the group I was in, and it was certainly interesting to hear about the challenge he faced in developing a perfume which replicated the odour of leather. During his talk we were offered samples of the five different smells that were used at differing times during the process, from initial samples from original natural and synthetic smells, through to a more polished scent. Even as a non-expert perfumer, it was intriguing to note the significant difference between the natural and synthetic smells. While I am sure P&G were revealing no real 'secrets', we were informed that this new leather-like perfume designed with men in mind was in fact a 'sneak preview' of a forthcoming perfume for an un-named fashion brand.

Links:

The Royal Institution of Great Britain: http://www.rigb.org/registrationControl?action=home

P&G (UK and Ireland): http://www.uk.pg.com/index.html

Hugo - Hugo Boss Fragrances: http://www.hugo.com/

Boss - Hugo Boss Fragrances: http://www.boss-fragrances.co.uk/mens-fragrances/boss-bottled-night/?lc=gb

Uniform Freak

New Uniforms for KLM Royal Dutch Airlines by Mart Visser, launched Autumn 2009/Spring 2010. Image courtesy KLM Corporate Communications.

Am currently in the midst of researching and writing an article on new developments in fashion curation. One of the strands I am looking into is the development of the Internet as a tool for fashion researchers and curators. As I have written about briefly before, the websites of museums and galleries are now being looked at as a way for general members of the public, and scholars, to access archives, sometimes purely as a ''quick reference'' guide, and some with more detailed descriptions of artefacts and close-up pictures. Both the British Museum in London and the Museum at FIT in New York are examples of this. In taking this to the next stage, however, using the website as an exhibition site or gallery space, as with my own Fashion Souvenirs project, is perhaps the next stage in this development.

Surprisingly, most museums and galleries seem to utilise their website purely for promotional purposes. One example that differs from this though is Uniform Freak, a collection of air stewardess uniforms collected by Cliff Muskiet, an airline and uniform enthusiast, so much so, in fact, he even works for KLM. In the same spirit as my own project, the Uniform Freak site is both an exhibition and a valuable archive of a particular, niche type of clothing, one that is overlooked by more main-stream collectors of clothing or dress. Uniform Freak's collection is certainly extensive and impressive, with 921 uniforms from 383 airlines (and growing!), from from big-name national carriers like BA, KLM, Lufthansa and Quantas, to small regional and charter airlines, to new low-cost carriers, like Martinair, Easyjet, Tyrolean and Azzura Air. Several 'extinct' airlines are also represented, like Sabena, Cross Air, BOAC and Pan AM, a valuable resource in the presentation of the glamour of air travel, as represented by the air stewardess, in past eras. The photographing of each uniform on the same mannequin provides a symmetry and cohesion to the overall display. Understandably, Muskiet is very protective of his collection, so images of the uniforms are not downloadable directly from the website, but it certainly offers a valuable visual reference of an overlooked aspect of uniforms and dress, and perhaps provides a clue as to how fashion curators can develop and make best use of the website as a viable exhibition or archive space.

To view the Uniform Freak collection visit: http://www.uniformfreak.com

For those interested in other travel-related/flight attendent blogs the following are highly recommend for their informative and entertaining content:

http://www.stuckattheairport.com - Check out the Souvenir Sunday rubrique!

http://hpoole.wordpress.com/ - Heather Poole's Another Flight Attendant Writing, one of the best and original FA blogs

http://anotherpassportstamp.blogspot.com/ - Tales from inside and outside the cabin of a Frankfurt-based FA

http://www.theflyingpinto.com/ - For everything you ever wanted to know about being an FA

Quote of the Month

Bettina Ballard at work in the studio, photo by Nat Farbman

The fashion world is akin to the political world – a good place in which to exert power, influence people, and give expression to the ego. Like political careers, fashion careers are open to talented, personable amateurs who often rise to fame meteorically, only to fall with the whims of fashion arbiters. Fashion, like politics, is an ever-changing picture, with its own fluctuating foreign policy, its moods of isolationism, its factions, its jealousies, its internal politics. Even the words for fashion success have a political ring – king of fashion, fashion arbiter, leader, dictator – not a single, soft, gentle, feminine noun amongst them. The fashion world is no place for timid dedicated souls; it is a field for strong, determined egotists who have an innate desire to impose their wills on the world – wills of iron disguised in rustling silks and beautiful colours.

Ballard, Bettina, 1960, In My Fashion, London: Martin Secker and Warburg Ltd. pp:v

This month's quote comes from the preface of Betina Ballard's autobiography In My Fashion. This book is an intriguing insight into Ballard's experiences of working in fashion journalism for Vogue, tracing her journey from humble assistant to Edna Chase in 1930's New York, to fully-fledged Fashion Editor, perching on a gilded chair in the Parisian salons of the grand haute couturiers. In particular, this quote pithily summarises some of the internal workings of the fashion world, noting wryly the steeliness underneath the so-called frivolity of those who succeed within its confines. In my research of the fashion city it is intriguing to note how many 'key players', such as fashion editors, fashion school department heads, designers, PR's and boutique owners, influence the fashion cultures of the cities they operate in. For Ballard fashion is very much a business in which it is these characters, those that act as decision-makers (and who too, inadvertently, fuel the businesses' dose of gossip and intrigue), actually 'make' the industry what it has become.

William Kentridge

As great as it is to have the opportunity to immerse yourself in a specific field of research, in my case fashion culture, it is still necessary, indeed, sometimes vital, to step outside of it. In part, this a way to 're-charge the batteries', so to speak, and on the other hand it also offers the opportunity to reflect on the research question(s). Yesterday's Q&A between artist William Kentridge and author Marina Warner, orgainised by the Amination Department, proved to be a case in point. It's always intriguing to hear about other people's working processes, and Kentridge proved to be a generous and enlightening guide into his own work, from scrappy, quick drawings, to polished animated film. Kentridge showed us both a finished film, his well-known Tide Table, as well as excerpts of film showing his working practices, including much in relation to his looking at how the body moves in motion through space. Much of this discussion provoked much 'food-for-thought' in relation to my own intial foray's into filmmaking, particularly Kentridge's explanation of working through 'accident'. Certainly much of my own recent experience of film-making has felt like that, feeling my way through the darkness. It seems that even for the seemingly very accomplished film-maker the 'accident' remains very much a part of their working process, leading to more intriguing possibilities, or the development of a body of work that might not already have happened. For a little insight into Kentridge's working process, and excerpts from Tide Table, see the short film above made by SF Moma.