the tech perspective

A blog by Stephanie

Fashion demands knowledge. But when you’re lacking, you either veer towards inquisitiveness or succumb to insecurity. Often, I’ve operated from a position of self-inflicted inferiority when sharing opinions on fashion. I have this constant worry about not being equipped to articulate the multitude of emotions and thoughts I have regarding fashion and the culture surrounding it — it often feels like too many ideas stumbling out in the most inarticulate ways. So, I turn to cultural thrills: poring through archived issues of System Magazine and Dana Thomas’ Deluxe, perusing the countless niche magazines and books in OFR Bookstore and learning who Cathy Horyn is. And as much as these things bring me joy, it’s just enough of a placebo to provide a smidge of shallow superiority; they don’t quite quell the weird hum of estrangement that I feel. It’s natural to long for participation in something you love but it’s difficult to know what your place is.

In these uncertain times I think a lot about what drew me to fashion in the first place. I’ve been deeply fascinated by clothes from a young age — they’re oddly satisfying. I would sit in front of the computer for hours, scrolling through Next and assembling outfits. Sketching extravagant dresses with silhouettes so ridiculous my felt-tip pens seeped through the paper. Writing stories about made-up, intelligent fashion icons (who also happened to be tech geniuses or aerospace engineers) on Microsoft Word and printing the pages to staple into books; they were projections of who I wanted to be.

In my adolescent, subconscious pursuits of becoming a Galliano-adorned Steve Jobs, my fashion avidity spread to science and technology. I became obsessed with interdisciplinary study as I worked towards studying Computer Science at university and with an, at times unbridled, propensity for imagination, I became increasingly curious in the ways that the world, and technology in particular, informed fashion. Beyond the business I’d later learn, I enjoyed the storytelling potential of fashion. It told the story of reality — fantastically embellished or grounded. 

Between tutorials and sessions in the Robotics Lab, I would daydream about making jewellery out of my dad’s old electronics, dresses that reacted to their environment, gold plated corsets with ports and sockets, until the ideas became entangled theoretically with my studies at the time. How recursion mirrored human creativity or how the incorporation of tech into clothes reflected our feelings towards technology’s permeation in our lives. The ideas formed incessantly and became such a distraction that I was opening my notes almost twice a day just to pour them out onto a page. It was only when I looked at my pages of unexplored thoughts that some of that early onset insecurity dampened.

It took me a year of staring at those notes to finally buy a WordPress subscription and start setting up this blog; it took almost another year to take the time to write a piece at the beginning of my third year of university. Perfectionism can certainly cause helplessly lethargic progress but this amount of procrastination was unfamiliar to me. Honestly, continuing to write started to feel like hitting a wall in my head. So I decided to start simple with this introduction — an editor’s letter of sorts — to unravel some of my frustrations.

Regardless of my desire to learn, I didn’t want to compensate for my lack of background in fashion by regurgitating the sentiments of the general consensus. As much as I try to ignore the orthodoxy of online spaces, it can sometimes feel like the only form of permission to engage with fashion: herald the right designers, read the right books, follow the right publications and creators. Not to be dramatic, but observing the drudgery of homogeneous fashion discourse can really erode the necessity for individual perspective. And now more than ever, it seems like we interact with facades, decorated with generically niche cultural signifiers to create the illusion of knowledge and ‘belonging’. What value would my words have if they only contributed to that cycle?

Thinking back on my life and my relationship to fashion, the time’s when I didn’t think I had to pretend to know everything is when I was the most inquisitive and my thoughts and ideas were their most expansive. Yes, fashion demands knowledge but there is true value when knowledge is compounded with unique perspective. A quote from journalist Lynn Yeager best describes it. When asked to share the best piece of advice she had received, she answered “If you’re interested in fashion, learn about everything except fashion”. If fashion is an entity in a constant state of reciprocity with society, then as contributors, seeing fashion through our varying interests and experiences is how the most intriguing ideas are born. 

So I want to embrace some of my estrangement. I want to have a place for unique interpretations, sharing new knowledge and most of all, leveraging my experiences and background in tech to re-contextualise my observations of the fashion industry. It might be hyperbolic at times, maybe even somewhat academic and perceptions may morph overtime but I have a few ideas to share and a lot to uncover along the way….

Enjoy!

-the tech perspective-