One of the greatest skills I’ve learned for trend analysis is the daunting task of recognizing patterns from art fairs like the Armory Show put on every year in NYC. An overwhelming task for sure, it’s a great way to understand just how important art shows are to trend forecasters. Art often provide the seeds to a cultural, creative or commercial trend and is a great resources for insight into the cultural pulse.
Camouflaged Identity has become a theme that keeps popping up ever since my trip last year to the show. This trend focuses on an omnipresent existence, whereby an identity is challenged between uniqueness and belonging.
In an earlier post, I posted the work of Cecilia Paredes. She camouflages herself within two-dimensional, floral patterned environments. Paredes explores the boundaries of blending and vanishing into a background – disguising herself with paint to challenge the notion of identity, belonging and displacement.
And more recently I came across the campaign for Polish street wear label Dream Nation
A few days ago Cheryl Cole revealed her version of “Girl on Fire” at Cannes Film Festival 2012. She literally looks like she is coming out of the Red Carpet she stands on.
In a culture where creativity and self-expression have become the social currency, the automotive industry has taken this trend on and brought it to new heights. Here are just a few examples:
Mustang has recently released a wonderful execution of this trend with their Mustang 2013 commercial. Here, the car changes depending on who see’s it, implying that everyone has their own way of perceving and expressing. Concluding with the tagline: “Everyone has an Inner Mustang. Unleash yours.” Personally, I love the little ballerina in the end, who changes into the Black Swan as she sees her reflection in the window… she sees another side of herself that only the Mustang could’ve brought to her attention.
In France and Italy, Fiat revelas their campaign: “Fiat 500, 500% You.”
And last year the Honda Civic released their campaign: “To each their own”.
Perhaps it’s brand manager’s attempt to create a push toward the Millennial consumer, who experience self-expression and creativity as a highly mobile activity. They are in constant flux of their identity all while driving through the tension of individuality and belonging.
As American Honda Motor Co. states in an article for Dexigner.com:
“The challenge with this campaign is to get Gen Y to give Civic credit for being inventive and cool. To turn some of these perceptions into thinking of Civic as well-designed, trendy and technologically advanced. We want to talk directly with our target by tapping into their appreciation for ‘collective individualism’ -addressing the diversity of Civic drivers while also engaging them around their common interests,” said Joe Baratelli, EVP, ECD at RPA. “The five different characters keep it entertaining and set the campaign apart. But, just as importantly, reveal that there’s a Civic out there for everyone.”
“The confusion of gender identity has been a staple of movies since Marlene Dietrich first put on a top hat and tails…there’s a playful side to how performers like Dietrich wittily, subversively, take on gender, which acknowledges that it is a construction.”
“The female warriors of an earlier generation were vessels of maternal rage; grown-ups weaponizing their protective instincts.”
The girly girl who can kick ass…’Girl Power’ is the 90’s
But the new millenium brings gender in-flux, evoking a constant tension of identity containing multiple selves that move along the gender spectrum between male and female at any given moment.
“What’s interesting about pop-culture heroines like Katniss — and also Lisbeth Salander of “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” — is how many different and contradictory gender codes they absorb. Lisbeth is a feminist avenger, an antisocial nerd, a survivor of abuse and an avatar of autonomous, polymorphous sexuality….David Fincher’s recent movie adaptation of “Dragon Tattoo,” she was also pretty clearly a male fantasy, to be ogled and exploited by the cool, predatory gaze of his camera.”
“Katniss is carrying the burden of multiple Identities…she’s an athlete, a media celebrity, a warrior, a sister, a daughter, a loyal friend, a potential girlfriend…she embodies different roles at the same time, and this is what makes her feel new, while American cinema still characterizes females in a single type (mother, girlfriend, victim).”
“Katniss doesn’t shift between masculinity or femininity; she inhabits both, which may mean that neither really fits.”
“The Hunger Games allows a universal identification that is rare, or maybe even taboo.”
The armed princess, here “Snow White” looks more like a killer Joan of Arc than a Disney archetype.
Widespread confusion about what contemporary gender norms might be and whether they should even exist is what makes these movies so interesting and so open to interpretation. Attempts to decode non-gender norms have been popping up in comedic roles as well, see this post.
What’s different about Katniss’s character is that you’re not just rooting for team Peeta or team Gale (much like the Twilight’s main soap opera attraction, team Edward or Jacob). That’s not her main objective, because frankly she has more important things to worry about and that makes her even more heroic and completely aspirational.
Tech City Central (by STML). Yes, that’s a purely-decorative QR code fascia.
The QR Code decorative aesthetic made me think of this:
Swedish based fashion designerNhu Duong, JPEG collection. Using vivid digital prints on modular system of dresses, she manipulates images from amateur photographs found on the Web and digitally compresses them, to become pixelated, the final image turns into sublime geometric displays of color. Printed on silk these romantic color-field images are juxtaposed with monochrome neoprene material. via Trendland
“The jpeg collection uses vivid digital prints on a modular system of dresses. The collection calls into question notions of representation, linearity and functionality in favor of noise, chance and playful experimentation.” - Nhu Duong
The new aesthetic is somewhat nostalgic of the 90’s when gif-art was the expression of figuring out the cool new thing that was the personal computer. It may just be a passing fad like bell-bottoms in the 70’s or UFO skater pants in early 2000 but nonetheless it’s happening now and it’s a result of the digital aesthetic. We’ll see how long it lasts…
Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, dedicates a fashion spread to fruit as the element of inspiration for the style of the moment. Food & Fashion is a proliferated trend at this point. Moschino featured life sized pasta and tomatoes in their window displays, while Barney’s featuring Top Chef’s in theirs, and even Lean Cuisine has honed in on the trend with their Culinary Chic campaign.
Using fruit in particular as the main inspiration this season signals a need for slowing down. We’ve witnessed the culture of “slow food” rise and now this trend has blown in the wind of the fashion industry.
“This season fruit is back, in prints and patterns that are voluptuous in their rounded orange-and-apple combos, and fresh in their association of nature’s abundance with simple clothes. Whimsical and funky, this sweet message is also part of a deeper belief that style has moved too far into the concrete jungle of an urban setting; and that fast fashion needs to slow down, stretch out under an apple tree in a grassy spot and linger.”
From the Slow Movement there is an arising trend of Slow Perception. Part of this movement, like the slow food movement is allowing the material to slowly digest.
ikono produces unique films on artworks, art collections, exhibitions and art events, presenting them to the viewer as they are, without any added narratives or sounds that could interfere with the visual experience. Each video slowly pans over the artwork, with no added fluff so that the viewer can experience true contemplation.
A primarily visual trend, another manifestation is the breaking down of one image in succession, like this:
A film camera by Lomography that takes four sequential panoramic shots on a single, 35mm photo.
Madonna’s album cover takes on a similar aesthetic, symbolizing her iconic talent for reinvention over the years and the many selves she’s portrayed.
Or the historic way of laying out of a single frame to show a succession like the Galloping Horse by Eadweard Muybridge. Photographed in 1878, this now famous image, proved Leland Stanford’s theory that horses had all hooves off the ground. This first image also claimed to be the very beginning of the concept of a motion picture.
Much like the overall trend of nostalgia, this historic method of displaying succession has resurfaced today, deriving from our need for contemplation in an overstimulated world as we literally attempt to slow down our perception.
“Alice” recreated on Yooouuutuuube.com. A site that lets you post anything from youtube and it lays out all the frames.
Our Legacy clothing brand, Spring / Summer 2012 Lookbook
Maybe it’s also about our need to grasp a full story. To watch it all unfold in front of our eyes, letting it sink in, letting it digest. We’re just trying to break free from our current rapid metabolic rate of disposable clothing brands (Forever 21, H&M), repining snapshots, reading soundbites of information or posting that “amazing” quote. Maybe we just want to indulge, let it settle in and enjoy.
Maurizio Anzeri embroiders vintage photographs to create his ’photo sculptures’. He says he is driven by a passion for the photos, which then turns into obsession. In doing so he creates something that lives in the present and rescues the photos from a life of nostalgia.
Which reminds me of this album cover…
and this one…
And that reminds me of Prada:
Toying with the notion of what is Reality and What is Fantasy, Prada intoduces “Real Fantasies” 2011 / 2012 Lookbook with a video collage.
…Which is basically the same concept as Santigold’s Disperate Youth Youtube video, a moving image collage.
Which reminded me of this post by Patty @Scratch MTV: Teenagers, Living Collage. It’s no coincidence Santigold’s single is called Disperate YOUTH.
“Jon Savage’s unique entry point to this material was through his experience with the London punk rock scene. As a young journalist in the 1970s, he saw young punks buying thrift clothes from the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. He saw them using safety pins to reassemble relics from previous youth cultures into something startlingly new. He termed this impulse living collage”
”Animated gifs are the first artform of the internet, and they are in some way the future.” - member of the New Aesthetic
“Animated GIFs in the ’90s used to be kind of hokey,” said Weir, who became obsessed with the looping visuals while cranking out banner ads last summer during an internship at a Los Angeles ad agency. But the technique of embedding a single image file with hidden “frames” timed to create the illusion of movement has become a promising artistic tool. “Because of faster, fatter internet pipelines,” he said, “you can create much bigger, more interesting files.” - Wired Magazine
Animated gifs is the attempt of humanizing the internet - the attempt of merging the physical and virtual. This is why stop motion graphics is seen as a hot topic of artistic expression and brands now are implementing this once “hokey” expression as a new form of meaning.
From a brand example, check out this Dove Chocolate commercial:
