Threads: Playground Battlefield

Exploring the manipulation of children by adults in war torn countries and the effect on both the child soldiers and their child victims.

This is the trend which I have chose to carry forward and develop further, the next posts will build up to the final outcome looking at research references, fabric, colour, key shapes and finally a collection of 12 garments.

Threads: Accelerated Youth

About a year ago a video featuring 7-year-old girls dancing to, Beyonce - Single Ladies, caused controversy as many people thought both the outfits and dance moves were not age appropriate for the little girls. See video below.

This routine was performed at a dance competition and not meant to be shown worldwide, but now this particular video has 4,762,830 hits on youtube. That said there are programs out there which are public shown that raise the same issues. Toddlers and Tiaras, Dance Moms and other dancing and beauty pageant reality shows publicly display footage like this every week. Most recently reality show Dance Moms has hit news headline in America.
Click to view video of News Report. 
One particular routine shocked viewers as well as the Moms when they saw it was Electricity.

The outfits are very similar to those in the Single Ladies routine.

I myself danced for many years and had to wear some skimpy outfit like shorts and a crop top, but I think adding stockings with frilly knickers and top together with the heavy make-up and sexual dance moves makes it age inappropriate. Many people have similar view and yet it is still shown by the media and the routine came 1st at the competition. 

Threads: Accelerated Youth

Exploring the exploitation of children through the media and how it encourages them to grow up faster.

Threads: Memory Box

Dear Me: A Letter To My Sixteen-Year-Old Self


Dear Me: A Letter To My Sixteen-Year-Old Self is a collection of letters written by some of the most well known  celebrities; authors, television personalities, actors, fashion icons and sports personalities. As you may how guessed the letters they write address themselves as sixteen-year-olds. They give advice and reassurance and sometimes reminisce on memories that they had had by sixteen or that were yet to happen.

The website Dearme.org invites visitors to sumbit their own letters, what would you write in your letter to your Sixteen-Year-Old -Self.

Threads: Memory Box

Trend Two: Memory Box

Exploring years gone by looking at old photographs to provoke memories

Links from images:
Irina Werning
Young Me Now

Threads: CoCreate

Examples of a combination of musical genres as artists from completely different genres collaborate.

In 2004, Jay-Z (HipHop/Rap) & Linkin Park (Rock) recorded a whole album from this concept, Collision Course, taking lyrics and musical composition from each acts existing songs and combine them.
Numb/Encore

Artists also take a song from one genre and remix it to suit their preferred genre. For example Travis Barker,  most wildly known as a member of pop rock band Blink 182, took 'Crank Dat' by pop rapper Soulja Boy and remixed it to his own style.

I think these sorts of collaboration can have a large impact on society. The fact that because of these collaborations people who would perhaps never usually associate with each other, now know the words to the same song even though their greatest divide is their preference in music.

Threads: Co Create

A video using Yutaka Inagawa's work.



Yutaka Inagawa x Kenichi Okada from Kenichi Okada on Vimeo.

I also had a go at creating my own photo montage using a personal image and merging together the two faces. It helped my get a better understanding of the aspects to look for when combining images such as face shape and features.