Thoughts on Fashion Photography and Real Life (A Reaction to Yolanda Dominguez's "Poses")

Images found here.

Yolanda Dominguez is a visual artist and performer from Madrid.  I ran across her work, Poses, from an interview of Yolanda Dominguez by a blogger here, and I thought it was one of the most interesting performance art pieces I have seen in a while.

Now, like I have already detailed in a blog post before, I am not a big fan of performance art, or at least the type which feels hokey or fake, or which intellectualize a concept too much, but upon execution showcases too little talent (*cough stupid abortion project cough*). However, I feel that Dominguez's work in Poses is an inspired exception to the rule, since it effectively managed to both shock and entertain people, while forcing them to think.

Basically, Poses is a series of performance art pieces set in several places in Madrid, where "ordinary" folk strike haute couture poses in the middle of an otherwise perfectly ordinary scene.  Some people consider it a depiction of the "indestructible superciliousness that is haute pose".  Initially, I just thought it was intelligent and hilarious.

I suggest you watch this video so you have a better idea of what I'm talking about.

My two cents:  Fashion photography has its place in the art world, notwithstanding the fact that a lot of "serious" artists tend to place it on a lower level of importance compared to other art forms.  This, however, is fashion photography's point: people shouldn't take it seriously.  It's made-up and imaginary.

Except people do take it seriously. Empirical evidence shows us that a lot of people (especially teenage girls) actually use these depictions, among others, to create a standard of beauty for women that, as has been shown time and time again, is neither realistic nor healthy. What Poses does, and does so effectively and brilliantly by pushing the idea to its extreme, is to show us how absurd this notion or perspective is. Fashion photography is essentially rooted in fantasy, and rarely has any point in real life situations. This art project shows us that it would be best to remember that.    

From Yolanda Domiguez's website:

“Poses” is a direct criticism of the absurd and artificial world of glamour and of fashion that magazines present. Specifically, the highly-distorted image of women that they transmit through models that do not represent real women and that avoid all those who are not within their restricted parameters.

These images are virtually the only feminine reference in the mass media and they have a great influence in both men and women when building our roles in terms of behavior and ways of thinking. 

Read more here.

A Little Vanity

When I was much younger, I never cared about how I looked. I chose clothes based on their level of comfort, with hardly a consideration for color combination or fit. I had no control over my hair; my dad was strict in that regard, and mostly he required us to wear our hair like a soldier’s crew cut: no mussing about, no fuss.

I think it was in college when I started treating clothes as something more than fabric to cover my body with. You could say that it was in college when I realized that life is easier when you look a certain part: people are nicer to you, and you become more confident. Maybe the second is a consequence of the first, which doesn’t really matter; bottom line, life is easier.

So I started developing a certain look that reflected who I was as a person, and which made me look more attractive than, well, how I’d look if I didn’t do anything at all. It took a while before I developed the confidence to start experimenting with fashion, and lately, I’ve become much more “progressive” with my sartorial choices.

I’ve also experimented with my hair, although I’ve developed a preference for jagged, uneven and spiky edges. I usually put Clay-Doh (Bench) or Goth Juice (Lush) to keep the style in place; the former, when I want a dry, matte, casual look, and the latter when I want it to look more shiny and businesslike.

I tend to be much more conservative in the office though, since I work in the law industry, which is an industry known for its less than liberal point of view. I don’t mind though, since in that context I usually just experiment with color (not too loud) and fit. My hair is still spiky and jagged, but I’m not budging on that one.

I enjoy dressing up. Some people prefer to wear casual stuff all the time, even when going out to dinner. I find that frustrating, because I prefer that when I’m going out to dinner with friends, we all look like, well, we are going out to dinner. I dislike seeing people who look like slobs when they are in another person’s company. For me, dressing up is a way of showing another person that you respect him or her enough to actually make some effort.

I’m one of those people who consider what I wear an extension of who I am, which, at first, seems superficial, although under closer analysis isn’t really. It is part of me, in the same way that what I write in this blog is a facet of my personality. It does not wholly define who I am fundamentally, but it is one piece in this large puzzle I call my life.

And to my dying breath I will argue that fashion is art, and though ephemeral, when executed masterfully, serves to deliver the same breathtaking magnificence embodied by the best examples of prose and poetry. I am not its most talented proponent definitely, but I don’t think it’s that hard to learn to appreciate its beauty.

Photo taken here.

Real Men are Illusions. Macho is the New Gay.

I remember a story my friend Chuck told me that happened in Facebook. He saw a former classmate from high school, and like any decent person who wanted to catch up, decided to add the guy as a friend. A few days later, Chuck received a message.

The message said that the classmate couldn’t add Chuck because the former had developed a“slight homophobia”. Chuck was first shocked, then angry, then mortified. He couldn’t believe that he went out on a limb to give this guy an opportunity to be Facebook “friends” and the guy gave him the electronic equivalent of a slap in the face. So, like any other person addicted to Facebook in the Philippines, he decided to update his status.

“I just added this guy from high school and he said that he can’t add me back because he developed a slight homophobia. I’m regretting the fact that I added him in the first place.”

A wave of sympathetic comments flew in from the “let’s get this guy and destroy him” to the “it’s good you’re being a class act by not going down to his level” type. I even threw in an insult or two. Besides, what is a “slight” homophobia?

(It reminded me of this piece a spoken word poet once performed, lamenting this generation’s lack of conviction when speaking. He said that every idea we posit is really an invitation towards a shared disbelief, and that every sentence we speak is really a question. I thought if the classmate was going to “develop” homophobia, he might as well have the balls to admit that it is definitely more than a “slight” one considering that he just insulted a decent gay man who tried to be polite.)

The number of sympathetic comments wasn’t a surprise, but it got me to thinking (as Carrie Bradshaw would have said): Is our generation moving away from and is in fact consciously rejecting traditional macho culture?

This reminded me of another conversation with my friend Mike. Now, Mike is a gay man, but outside of the fact that he likes Mariah Carey and having sex with his boyfriend, no one can tell he’s gay. That’s because he is a complete slob. (In case he’s reading this, he’s also very very intelligent. Love you Mike! We’re still friends right?) He confessed that he doesn’t take a bath everyday because he thinks it’s a waste of time. His longest run was two weeks, and he was only forced to take one because his roommates could no longer stand how he smelled. In fairness to him, he was suffering from depression then, but the not-taking-a-bath-regularly-thing kind of stuck.

I remember telling him that I used to think he had a gray pallor every time we went out. At first I thought it was a skin condition. I didn’t realize it was a thin coating of dust. I received a rather painful punch on the shoulder for my mouth.

I also told him that we’re already being marginalized for wanting to sleep with men. Why would you want to be gay, and then keep that aspect of traditional macho culture that makes straight men, well, icky? In case people haven’t realized it yet, straight men have been trying to look gay for the past several years (under the guise of the politically-correct term “metrosexuality”). Why be marginalized on both fronts: one, for wanting to sleep with men, and two, for looking like a dirty straight man?

I asked if he was insane. I got another punch in the shoulder.

There was this guy (whose name escapes me at the moment) who decided to jumpstart a movement that was a response to the feminist philosophy. He wanted men to re-take their manhood because he believed that the current cultural and social landscape has emasculated them.

Emasculated them. What a joke. (The first time I read about it, I thought the writer was being satirical.) The whole movement was an ironic WTF blip in the whole of human history. No one could take it seriously. The very concept of a real macho man is isolated, silent, unmoving: a lone wolf. How can they possibly do that as a group? By sharing their feelings of emasculation? Isn’t that what they were trying to stop in the first place; all this touchy-feely stuff? How does that work?

In the (admittedly upscale) school I used to go to, a guy can get teased by his other guy friends because he keeps on wearing pleated slacks. My older brother (who, it may be argued, is too straight, considering the number of girlfriends he had) is even more brand-conscious than I am. I know another guy, not gay, who will kill you if you touch his hair. These all used to be very “gay” characteristics. (In fact, you would have gotten beaten up and bullied for exhibiting them not too long ago.) The former macho men are now encroaching on what used to be regarded as “faggot (bakla)” territory; so much so, that it has actually become unfashionable to look like, well, what we used to call a guy’s guy, a macho man. Acting tough is now a liability: in all probability, people will laugh at you rather than applaud you.

And this general encroachment has had a ripple effect, and is starting to impact other aspects of our culture, particularly where the heteronormative and homosexual perspectives collide/intersect. There are examples now, like that of Chuck’s classmate, where straight men are publicly skewered for declaring homophobic beliefs. It’s still okay to be homophobic, our society says, you just can’t admit it.

(I mean, just look at My Husband’s Lover and how Filipinos have embraced the ideas it espoused and the themes it has embraced. That’s one huge effing leap for mankind.)

This made me realize that the homophobes, ironically, are now in the closet gay men used to occupy. And the idea is the very soul of karmic retribution. The world is moving towards a new direction, and if more gay men bravely step out of the closet, then we’ll have more space to stuff the homophobes in.

Featured photo taken here.