The Man-Boy and Heritage Men – Some Thoughts on Two Peaking Trends

image credit :http://www.porhomme.com/

This is the first post of what will (I hope!) be a series exploring  the cultural politics of heritagewear

For the past 8 to 10 years (probably a little longer than that) the heritagewear and the Apatowian man-boy have been two trends in menswear and popular culture that seem to have almost  completely dominated the mainstream (and some not so main-stream) cultural landscape (s) in North America.  These two trends are really just flipsides of  each other, the man-boy being the photo negative of the heritage man, but have come to articulate and perpetuate what are most likely anxieties about a world where white middle –class, young(ish) men can no longer take their traditional position in it for granted. At this moment, low paid manual labour and service work have become increasingly racialized and femininzed, being taken up, in far greater numbers by women of colour outside of the West than by white men within it.  This shift has had significant economic and political impact for sure, but its cultural impact is just as meaningful and fascinating.

Both trends are a kind of reaching back, the heritage man aesthetic is a reaching back to a nostalgic past and the man-boy is equally nostalgic, but much more individualized  and localized to a mostly fantasy version of male preadolescence. The man-boy trend has received a lot of attention lately, in part because it seems to be this strange and somewhat paradoxical admission of current economic realities where the pathways to middle-class and North-American adulthood are frustrated to the point where they no longer seem feasible, and a refusal to confront those realities.  In essence it is a strategic retreat, but one that has strangely solidified the privileged position of its adherents while simultaneously undercutting it. The heritage man has not received nearly as much attention, which is curious because Don Drapper, Mumford and Sons, and Sherlock Holmes (maybe the last reference is just me) have all become mainstream cultural touchstones at nearly the same levels as whatever character Seth Rogan played in any one of his films.  I’m defining  heritage wear somewhat broadly, and am using it describe a an emphasis on classic tailoring, clean lines that hearkens back to early and mid-twentieth century American and British menswear or menswear staples (for examples of what I’m referring to look here, here, and here). This definition is broad and incomplete, I know, but it’s really the nostalgic relationship to certain menswear looks, fabrics and accessories and how that’s tied with certain understandings of history, race, class and nation that I’m really trying to start to untangle here.

The heritage trend is especially interesting to me in large part because of who is taking it up.  While it could be easily, and somewhat reductively, argued that this trend makes sense as something that seems reassured and stable at time where almost nothing does or that it represents a seductive facsimile of American white male adulthood where it is possible to indulge in your most adolescent fantasies and still present yourself as an adult (see Don Draper, and Barney Stinson).  What complicates such arguments is that this trend seems to have a cross the board appeal, where communities or groups for whom this aesthetic once excluded is now somehow accessible and has been adapted in interesting and even radical ways. But what I find so interesting about the heritage aesthetic is that it has been taken up and reinterpreted in ways that  man-boyism (I don’t mean to make up words, but I am at a loss for what to call this) has not, and this flexibility seems to be at the root of its staying power.  And so what I find myself asking now is what is it about this trend that has made it such an enduring one, outlasting its most visible foil the man-boy?  Most importantly what is it that makes it so translatable and flexible, especially when part of its appeals lies in its perceived consistency? What does it say about the trend when Janelle Monae and fun.  are simultaneously adopting the look, in the same video no less, but  to totally different effect? And why have certain groups of fashionable women taken up the look so wholeheartedly where it is now its own aesthetic movement, with its own dedicated mega blog, Tomboy Style, in womenswear while also existing as a sub-genre within heritage-wear?  What does it say about gender when non-male body can take on a decidedly masculine look? And finally what does the persistence of such a look say about how those who take it up situate themselves within the histories from which these looks emerged? Where do they situate themselves now?

These looks once, for at least a select group of people, connoted an understanding of history and progress that may be analogized (bear with me, I am the first to admit that I am not the greatest at analogies), as an upward line on a graph, with maybe a few minor dips, but generally always moving upward at least for this select group of usually white, straight, and male people.  What does it mean to take up this trend now when history and progress are no longer understood in those terms? Currently I am working on a project on dandyism (the rebel cousin of the heritage man) as taken up by queer women of colour within certain North American African diasporic communities and nostalgia, and so these questions have been on my mind a lot lately.  The heritage wear trend, like the man-boy lifestyle, did not originally imply or was inclusive of a non-heterosexual, non-cisgender, not white and non-male body, and yet now it does or at least it has been taken up by people whose bodies and experiences are radically removed from these descriptions.  This post is really me working out ideas and so comparing the two might be a stretch, but even though the two trends might not be all that related I can’t help but wonder if they are and in what ways as well as to what extent they are?  While heritage wear has probably reached the apex of its popularity, the man-child already seems to be on a fast decline (if the latest dearth of Michael Cera, Will Farrell, Seth Rogan, and Jonah Hill starring films is any indication),  and so my question again is why?

*I know I only touched on queer and racial dentities and heritage wear here, but that is only because I think that that and femme tombyism that’s very much in fashion right deserve their posts for which this is just a set up.

The Street Idle Reviews Worn Issue15, “The Hair Issue”

Soon after my article “Authenticity at Jane and Finch” was published on The Ethnic Aisle, Jill, from Worn Fashion Journal, sent me a lovely email offering me a chance to review Worn’s latest and first issue published in its new compact  format.  I received the journal right before the holidays, and basically read it from cover to cover (as I have done with almost every issue since I was first introduced to the journal about a year ago).

For those of you unfamiliar with Worn, it is an independently run fashion journal that provides impeccably researched and beautifully written articles on everything to do with fashion, design and culture, from a feminist perspective. Having minored in Women/Gender studies and  now writing my M.A. on a topic in that field, that fact alone is amazing.  Better still  is the fact that the magazine was founded and is based in Toronto and pulls some of the best local up and coming and established fashion journalism and blogging talent around.

Issue 15, “the Hair Issue”, is absolutely excellent. The new thicker, but  nearly pocket-sized format has allowed Worn to offer more  in-depth articles and interviews, which is  definitely a bonus when covering issues as personal and yet socially implicated as hair. The issue kicks off with a deeply affecting article, “Off The Top of My Head,” by G. Stegelmann, which explores the author’s relationship  with her mother through a history of her ever evolving hair styles. Among the issue’s other stand out pieces, is a set of interviews with local fashion talents and fashionistas about their hair and hair inspirations, as well as another personal essay, “Hot Fuzz : Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Armpit Hair,” by Alyssa Garrison (extra brownie points to Garrison for incorporating the title of one of the funniest comedies ever realized into a piece about armpit and body hair).

Garrison’s piece actually took me back to my undergrad days when I basically ditched shaving my armpit hair for a few years, and wrote a paper about it for one of my Gender Studies courses. I got an A for that essay and so does Garrison for broaching the topic and for beautifully paralleling the mental shifts as well as personal experiences that led to her being more comfortable with her underarm and body hair with her experiences as a queer woman navigating queer spaces and relationships. I also must  highlight two personal favourites, the first being Serah-Marie McMahon’s interview with artist Winnie Truong, “Over-Growth,” and the second ”Strange Souvenirs: An Introduction to the Meaning of Human Hair Jewelry, from Victorian Sentimentality to Contemporary Art,” by Betsy Walters.

Ornament & Correction (2010)
by Winnie Truong

McMahon’s interview is quite the fascinating tour of  some of the artistic logic that motivates and inspires Truong to take up hair as her primary subject. Truong’s illustrations are otherworldly and are remarkable for their ability to take up a topic such as hair and unruly hair growth, push it to its extremes and still create something that is altogether mesmerizing and beautiful. Most interesting to me is how Truong describes her creative processes as becoming  ”more and more engrossing” as she focuses more on this subject. Truong explains that ” As I’m drawing more and more in my current series, I’m going deeper into all-consuming hair-type things, more focused on overgrowth than a sci-fi influence.  This overgrowth, and the consumption of it, reflects my obsession with the act of drawing itself.”  This obsession, Truong states, is increasingly apparent in her work which reflects both hair’s terrifying and uncanny aspects, but also its ability to provide ” a certain kind of comfort; you can hide behind it.”

Walters’, “Strange Souvenirs” is a concise and fascinating survey of the history of hair jewelry from the  late 17th century  to now.  The piece also contains two short profiles of contemporary hair jewelers and artists, Melanie Bilenker and Kerry Howley. What is most amazing to me is that what were essentially portable fashionable  memento moris or keepsakes from loved ones who had passed away have now,in the hands of artists like Bilenker,become a means through which to depict the most intimate and relatable aspects of everyday life. The intimacy of these scenes are only highlighted by Bilenker’s choice of material. Using her own hair, the artist  creates delicate tableaus of her subjects getting dressed or wistfully staring out of their kitchen window, or intimate parts of the human body like eyes, hands and arms.

Arms by Melanie Bilenker

Howley’s jewelry  pieces are more abstract in nature, but just as delicate and intimate.  Howley creates lace like neck pieces out of human hair.  Each piece is a painstakingly and hand made  one off.  Yet, as Walters notes ,” for all their fragile beauty, there is a hint of something sinister lurking in the necklaces finely wrought swirls and floral motifs.”

One of Kerry Howley’s hair pieces.

The theme of something eerie or unsettling hidden in the mundane or extraordinarily beautiful, is  pervasive  throughout the issue, and one of the reasons why  I count it as one of my favourites.  So from now until issue 16 comes out, please check out Worn’s ”Hair Issue”, which you can order from their website or pick up  at book retailers like Book City,  Another Story and Swipe Books.

THE BIG CHOP: A DISCUSSION ON FEMININITY, GENDER AND SHORT HAIR – PART 2

Happy New Year!

I started this series just before the holidays and so now that things have gotten back to normal I thought now would be a great time to post parts 2 and 3.

Just in case you need a refresher as to what this is all about and who the participants are, here is a quick summary:

With this series I hope to uncover a bit how some women relate their hair to their femininity and how they feel their experiences after having cut their squares with larger narratives about women, beauty, femininity and hair.

                                                                                     The Participants:

Teshini-“I am student at York University studying Political Science, Spanish, and French. Currently studying in Brussels, interested in international affairs, food, thrifting, and challenging most of the things that bother me about the society we live. Love music, art, dance, and film.”

Vivienne-“I am a nurse and I am currently studying project management. I love music, baking and the beach.”

Paula-“I am a 25 year old Canadian currently living in Wales doing my PhD in psychology with a focus on motivation towards healthy living.  I sail, I dance, I ski and like to be active.  I love food and find a certain stress relief in cooking it.  You can follow me on twitter @pfosc where I tweet about my PhD, living in wales and other random stuff that pops into my head and I decide the world needs to know about.”

Jess (a.k.a Sparrowqueen) -“Is a queer, 20-something glamourwitch femme and lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She just finished her Masters degree in Communication and Culture. She is currently applying for PhD programs and moonlighting as a burlesque performance artist. You can catch her on her  blog,  http://sparrowqueen.tumblr.com/“

Adwoa (the Street Idle)- Currently pursuing her M.A. in the Humanities, working and blogging at the Street Idle

Discussion:

3. How did your family, friends, partners, coworkers and/or strangers react? Did people change their behaviour towards you? (i.e.did you feel that coworkers/classmates started to take you more or less seriously?)

Vivienne: Ironically enough just after I got my haircut, a girl representing some store front at the mall asked me if I would like to participate in a modelling campaign for the store. It could have been complete co-incidence but, the fact is that it happened.

The moments right after I had gotten my hair cut, I felt very self-conscious. I felt as though people were staring at me and I kept thinking that they must think one of two things; a. that I’m a little boy or b. that faux hawks are on their way out and that it’s all about the undercut right now. That feeling dissipated quickly enough, but those feelings were there.

I would consider my dad to be fairly “hip and with it” in some respects but when it comes to aesthetics, I would consider him a fairly traditional, Indian male. His reaction to my haircut was “You look like a zombie.” Other parental figures said “While you’re young, you should have long, flowing hair. When you’re old, you’ll have to keep it short.”

Teshini: When I cut my hair the first time, my sister said I looked like a boy. I think my mother and father were okay with it. My coworkers and my friends took it a lot better than those in my extended family. My boyfriend at the time said he didn’t like it and cutting my hair reminded him of his mother (which was weird). At first I felt uncomfortable because I never had my hair that short in its natural state. I became a little self-conscious, but eventually got used to it, especially since my friends and coworkers actually loved it and appreciated it. I had one friend say, “This is much better!”

I actually noticed that the male population was not as interested as before, or there were times when I would be on the bus and guys would stare really hard, and I would look and they’d turn their heads. It was odd and funny at the same time.

Paula: I don’t remember any initial changes but I first started cutting my hair short about three or four years ago.  I have received many compliments over the years and if I did receive any [criticisms] either I did not let them impact my view of myself or they were very mild.

Jess: [First Time] My mum walked in midshave and started sobbing. She couldn’t understand why I would do that to myself or why I’d intentionally “want to be ugly like that.” I never regretted it, except for the fact that it was March and then my head got really cold. Also, I went to Austria and Germany three weeks later and some people thought I was a skinhead/neonazi. I guess I hadn’t considered the connotations outside of North America. I actually almost got arrested in Munich when I accidentally wandered into anti-Iraq war protest.

My dad and stepmum though it was rad. Most of my friends like it too. I also was kind of obsessed with Tank Girl at the time, so I thought it was badass. Years later I found out that everyone in my high school assumed I was a lesbian when I shaved my head. I was none the wiser and didn’t hear any of that gossip at the time.

Almost every reaction I received this time around was positive. I had a bit of remorse this time though, I felt like it was harder to hide behind my hair when I was having a bad-skin day or wasn’t feeling well health wise.

Adwoa: It’s funny, because when I went to work after getting my hair cut (it was a small to medium sized Afro before) people sort of freaked out about it, but in a good way.  They were all supportive, but they kept commenting on how “edgy” it looked and some people had no idea what to say.  Literally. All one co-worker said “Oh….you cut your hair…that’s a different look.”

Vivienne: I hadn’t told anyone that I was planning on cutting my hair so when I walked past the nursing station, the girls at work actually screamed when they saw me. They seemed impressed that I had the courage to do something “so drastic”. They all really seemed to like my haircut. One of my co-workers actually sought out my manager to show her my new haircut and my manager couldn’t get over it. She always compliments me on it. She also mentioned that it made me look more mature.

Perhaps others take me more seriously with my haircut but I don’t really notice a difference. To be honest, I am not overly aware of my new haircut so I wouldn’t say that it has given me more or less confidence. The one observation I did make however, is that everyone’s shock regarding my haircut made me realize that a lot of people I consider a part of my daily life, who I assume to “know me”, really don’t.

Teshini: I would say that I am always confident in the workplace regardless of how I look. I am there to do a job and to make sure I am efficient and effective. And I strive to make the overall work environment better, by challenging or suggesting ideas. In school, I feel that people might have begun to take me more seriously. I was more confident in class, although in general I do not speak only if it’s necessary. Some of my thinking may have shifted, but overall I think cutting my hair made me think a little bit more about life and what I want, not what people expect of me. So I think it made me want to challenge the continual regurgitation that school provided. I would say I was already serious, but I became more serious in the process.

4. Do you generally feel that having short hair is liberating or limiting or even an act of resistance? What do you feel (if anything) that you’ve had to give up? Or what have you gained?

Vivienne: I feel that cutting my hair was a liberating experience. I felt like I was breaking some type of conformity. It feels like I’ve been doing things the same way forever; I typically wear jeans and always buy solid colour tops so that I can mix and match pretty much my entire wardrobe. Even my shoes are black, brown or gold (for dressed up occasions). At some point though, I just got fed up. It started with a really colourful, patterned pant that I bought. They were so loud, my friend dubbed them my “swagga pants” and said, “You’re gonna need your swagger to pull those off!” Studded shoes followed the pants, the faux hawk followed the shoes and a nose piercing is going to follow that, albeit I had one from before. I’m tired of scrubs, I’m tired of being practical, I’m tired of “not giving a sh**.

It finally felt like I was showing people that I didn’t need anyone’s consultation or approval; that I could make decisions for myself; that I could do something out of the ordinary. I feel like I have gained a sense of self. I don’t know how a single haircut managed that but, here I am.

The story I tell is that, I wanted to be pampered and since I hate getting my nails done, and can’t handle massages, the one thing I wanted was to get my hair washed. And, being the practical person that I am, I couldn’t spend money on just getting my hair washed, so I decided to cut my hair, all of it.

The truth is that I went to a party and got hit on, a lot. And, not in the kind of way that makes a girl feel special. It was the, I’m drunk and horny, and you’re the only girl that isn’t married here kind of way. So, within the next couple of days, I got it lopped off. My assumption, though it might be wrong is that most men for a purely aesthetic value, prefer women with long hair. I figured if I cut my hair, I wouldn’t garner a second look, something in their brains would just skim right past me.

Teshini: Initially it was limiting, in the sense that I had no idea what to do with it. Wash and go? Twists? What do I do? Eventually it became liberating. I learned about my hair and what it needed, what I could do with it. It was really low-maintenance and saved me a lot of money. It became liberating because it was me, the hair didn’t define my personality. I was in control of my hair, not it controlling me. It just nice to know that all I have to do is wake up, rub my head, spray some conditioner mixed with water, rub my head again, and I can leave the house without staying in front of the mirror for an hour.

Cutting my hair was an experiment in learning about my hair. It was practical because my hair was damaged and needed to be revived. Eventually, it became a combination aesthetic and practical because I liked it and wanted to try “pretty” hairstyles with it and so forth. And then I cut it again, for practical reasons.

Paula: I think in a lot of respects having short hair matches really well with my personality as it dries faster and I typically have to put less effort into styling it. I did sometimes miss being able to braid it or style it for events. I do think short hair gave me a little more confidence about my appearance as I felt it looked better and had more volume short.

Jess: Shaving completely bald was different than my punk looks – chelsea and mohawks were aesthetic and fashion choices. I saw my complete shave as a bit of an anti-fashion statement, e.g. no fucks were given/I could care less what you think about me/I don’t you or anyone else prettiness

Adwoa: Yes. Generally, I feel that cutting my hair was a liberating experience and even a form of resistance. I am aware of how having natural and short hair is sometimes read by people as a political statement, but again this depends on who’s doing the looking. My current hairstyle is very short on all sides except for the top, and that’s a look that’s kind of everywhere right now. But my cut specifically originated as a men’s hairstyle, specifically, a fade, (but with a longer top) and that was what I wanted to emulate when I first got it cut.

I do wonder if sometimes it’s read as queer as well. Because this is a hair style that a lot of queer women I know and see in queer media have as well and sometimes a little gender bending.  I like that my hair is now read in so many ways. It’s read as subversive in some spaces, usually non-African/ black Canadian spaces, and completely normative in others, like African/Black Canadian spaces.

I like that my hair kind of confuses people, especially in the work place. I like that for some people maybe that my hair cut may be pushing the boundaries of what is considered professional grooming and hairstyling, Which I kind of love because I feel those ideas rely on/stem from  heavily normative ideas about gender and race. In that way my hair is tool of political resistance, but again most of the people I work with are not Afro/Black Canadians, and my hair cut might have been read differently if they were.

But, even though in many Afro/Black Canadian spaces very short and closely shaved hair is largely accepted and considered feminine, I have been told by hairstylists that cutting the top part of my hair so angular, is seen as a men’s haircut and masculine and rounding out the edges would make the cut more feminine. Though I’m not sure how widespread this idea is. I’ve only heard it from a couple of hairstylists and I have had at least dozen over the years so it could just be personal preference on their part.

*Illustration done for The Street Idle by Awuradwoa

The Big Chop: A Discussion on Femininity, Gender and Short Hair – Part 1

Recently I was asked by a good friend to participate in a survey on short hair, female baldness and gender, as part of project she was working on  for a Gender Studies course. The literature currently available on hair, as I’m sure you’re all well aware, is vast and overwhelming, and the topic has  seemingly been covered from every angle. But,  I have never come across a project that focused specifically on femininity, short hair and female baldness. In fact I loved the idea of broaching this well covered topic from this angle so much that I decided to rope in a few more volunteers and turn this survey into a round table of sorts.

As someone who has gone from having really short unprocessed hair to longer shoulder length relaxed hair back to short natural unprocessed hair again, I have always been curious if and how other women’s relationships with their image and how they they navigate everyday social interactions change once they decide to cut their hair really short. More importantly, I wondered how these changes fit into larger and dominant understandings of femininity and how that may shift within differing ethnic and cultural contexts.  And so I hope to uncover a bit how some women relate their hair to their femininity and how they feel their experiences after having either shaved their hair pr cut it very short squares with larger narratives about women, beauty, femininity and hair.

The participants come from a variety of backgrounds and each woman has recently cut her hair or grown it out. Short hair was defined as above chin length and each participant was also asked to submit a short blurb about themselves if they felt comfortable sharing. I have included the blurbs below as a brief introduction.

This was a really great experience for those involved and myself. I chose not to edit any of the response except in very few instances where some editing of grammar may clarify a point.  Each participant had a choice to answer as many or as few as the of the questions they wished. Most of the questions were taken from the original survey with a few of my own added.  I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I did putting it together and participating in it.

The Participants:

Teshini-“I am student at York University studying Political Science, Spanish, and French. Currently studying in Brussels, interested in international affairs, food, thrifting, and challenging most of the things that bother me about the society we live. Love music, art, dance, and film.”

Vivienne-“I am a nurse and I am currently studying project management. I love music, baking and the beach.”

Paula-“I am a 25 year old Canadian currently living in Wales doing my PhD in psychology with a focus on motivation towards healthy living.  I sail, I dance, I ski and like to be active.  I love food and find a certain stress relief in cooking it.  You can follow me on twitter @pfosc where I tweet about my PhD, living in wales and other random stuff that pops into my head and I decide the world needs to know about.”

Jess (a.k.a Sparrowqueen) -“Is a queer, 20-something glamourwitch femme and lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She just finished her Masters degree in Communication and Culture. She is currently applying for PhD programs and moonlighting as a burlesque performance artist. You can catch her on her  blog,  http://sparrowqueen.tumblr.com/“

Adwoa (the Street Idle)-Currently pursuing her M.A. in the Humanities, working, and blogging at the Street Idle

Discussion 

1. How related (for you) is hair and self-identity? Do you think that changes in hair/aesthetic necessarily reflect in internal change? (i.e. changes in political orientation)

Teshini: Hair and self-identity are much related. Hair can be an expression of one’s self, but it should not be the entire focus of one’s identity. A change of hair can reflect internal changes in individuals. Sometimes events happen in life that calls for a change in one’s hair style which can be reflective of an individual’s situation or it can just be a reflection of an individual choice that does not stem from anything remotely external or internal. Maybe the individual does it on a whim. It depends. For me, cutting my hair and letting it grow natural helped me figure out who I am, it was a catalyst for the changes I needed in my life.

Vivienne: I think having my hair short makes me feel more responsible for making my own decisions and choices, whatever they may be; whether I flake on someone, or whether I alert a doctor to a critical issue with regards to my patient’s health, or whether I pay my credit card bill on time. I am more aware of the decisions I am making and working towards decisions that make me proud and happy, not anyone else.

Paula: I definitely think my hair reflects a part of my personality in the regard that I don’t spend hours on my hair and I tend to choose low maintenance styles and this reflects my low maintenance/active personality but I don’t think changes in my hair necessarily reflect changes in my beliefs or personality. I honestly find this a hard question to answer because I have never really spent much time thinking about how my hair reflects me.

Jess: I think hair is a fun, relatively malleable way to express yourself. If you change your mind, it’s always something you can do something different with though sometimes

Hair as an aesthetic choice can reflect internal change. For me, when I’ve decided to shave my head (4 times now if you include my chelsea cuts and mohawks) it was usually a signal of the end of one chapter in my life. My most recent shave was symbolic about finishing my Masters degree and moving into a

new part of my life. I felt like I’d matured a lot over the last two years and needed to shed some literal and metaphorical weight (dreads are heavy). But sometimes the aesthetic doesn’t mean anything except for practicality, as much as I could try to play my most recent transformation off as some deep, spiritual thing it also came down to practicality – it was the hottest day of the summer, I was sweating like crazy and didn’t have the necessary funds to get my dreads professionally removed (which theoretically could have saved my hair to have been at least bob-length). My hair was also extremely damaged from constantly being coloured for many years. The practical solution in my mind was to shave it all off and give myself a totally fresh start. Also, total cost: $0, and it only took half an hour of my own time.

Adwoa (the Street Idle): For me it goes back and forth. When I was younger hair was more of something I had to maintain, and it wasn’t until I was in my tweens that I realized hairstyling could also be a great way for me to experiment with my look and express my identities (i.e  woman/girl, someone obsessed with clothes and fashion). And then it wasn’t until university that I really began to appreciate that there may also be socio-political meaning attached to how I choose to style my hair regardless of my intent, so I decided to embrace some of the potential political implications of having really short and unprocessed hair.

Now as someone who is in her mid-twenties, and who has become, I think, a lot more radical/queer in my politics, it is a lot more obvious to me how I communicate my political and other identities through my hair. But again, there is still a strong aesthetic motivation for how I style my now very short hair. I still want to look fly, but I also want my politics to be somewhat readable on me, and one way I do that is through my hair.

2.When you got your hair cut/shaved do you recall how you felt throughout the process? Did you experience feelings of regret or uncertainty?

Teshini: My hair was in a mid-transition phase before I cut it. It was relaxed on the ends and natural at the roots. I had my hair air drying and my mother came in and asked if I wanted her to cut my hair. I said yes. Initially, I was excited about cutting my hair because the mid-transition left me with slightly unmanageable hair (or I just didn’t know what to do with it). When my mother starting cutting my hair, my immediate fear was I would have no length. I keep telling her don’t cut too much. We argued a little, but once it was over I was happy that all the “dead relaxed ends” were gone. Now I was left with my real hair and I did not know what to do with it (my mother used to do my hair for me all the time, mostly blowouts before I was relaxed). That is when the uncertainty came in. However after 7 months of amazing length, I chopped it off again, with no regrets.

Vivienne: I have always liked short hair styles but usually don’t have the nerve to actually go through with a haircut so when an adventurous mood strikes, it’s kind of a now or never thing. This time was no different; I’ve been wanting to rock a faux hawk for years now and finally got one done last month. I have no regrets about the haircut itself.  My only “regrets”  I would say is that it is actually requires more effort to care for and maintain short hair over long hair.

During my consultation I recall the hairdresser constantly asking me “Are you sure you’re okay with it being this short?” I thought that it would have deterred me from committing to the faux hawk but it didn’t. I was a little surprised, admittedly, when she had finished blow drying my hair; I looked a dishevelled mess, like a pre-teen boy who had just woken from his sleep. Once she had put the product in though, everything was back on track. And, I did breathe a sigh of relief.

Paula: I was looking forward to a change in my hair. I was not happy with my hair being long as I felt it had no volume.  I think the first time I cut my hair my hair short it was an indication I was no longer a kid. I had a bit of a love hate relationship with my first haircut, I didn’t like the particular style (I looked like my cousin’s wife…It was a strange experience), but I loved having short hair that the next time I cut I spent some time looking for the perfect haircut that complimented my face shape a little better. I knew it was a good choice for me so it was not a matter of keeping it long but getting to experiment with different styles of bobs.

Jess: First time – [At] age 16, after I finished a 2 week run of a production of West Side Story. I thought I was being very punk-rock and rebellious. I felt really happy when I first shaved it, I thought it was a very freeing experience.

Almost every reaction I received this time around was positive. I had a bit of remorse this time though, I felt like it was harder to hide behind my hair when I was having a bad-skin day or wasn’t feeling well health wise.

It’s been interesting watching it grow in for the first time from a complete shave. My natural hair colour is a lot darker than I thought it would be. You also go through a few awkward weeks between a shave moving into a pixie cut where it’s basically at the same length and it sticks straight out of your head like a porcupine, but you kind of just have to go through it and keep trimming the sides and back and the let the top grow out.

It weird, I don’t entirely feel like myself right now (e.g. not a crazy style or colour). I want to start growing it out au naturel, but I’ll probably chicken out and colour it again soon. If it wasn’t so bloody cold, I might have shaved it down again (though not completely bald, #2 cut perhaps). I’m not a huge fan of natural hair colour, though I do really enjoy the freedom of a shaved head. It’s ridiculously easy to maintain and basically has very little maintenance.

Adwoa: I don’t recall any real hesitation about my decision beyond being worried that I didn’t have the right head shape to carry the look off (i.e. lumpy head, fat neck etc,). Other than that I was stoked! I was so sick of having to deal with relaxing my hair and maintaining (often it was an hour long routine before bed and at least half an hour in the morning, and I would have to sleep with a cap on) that I couldn’t wait for the big chop. Also, my hair was never really all that long. It never ever in my life reached beyond a couple of inches below my chin, maybe just above my shoulders, so I never really felt like I was making a huge sacrifice by cutting it off. 

*Illustration done for The Street Idle by Awuradwoa

The Street Idle X Twitter

The Street Idle is on Twitter!  If you like what you read here send me a tweet! Follow @thestreetidle

The Street Idle X The Ethnic Aisle

Hello!  I’ve got an article published on fantastic Toronto blog The Ethnic Aisle, so please check me out there.  It’s an edited and refined version of my “African Dutch Wax” post.

Shopping Locally: Pomp and Pageantry

Not long after I vowed to try to make more of an effort to shop locally, I received an invitation to a bloggers’ preview of new downtown Toronto boutique, Pomp and Pageantry.

This was my first invitation to a boutique opening/ media event, so I was pretty excited to be given the opportunity to check out the shop and interview its owner Shellie Willms.  The boutique  is located at 112 Scollard Street, right at the edge of Yorkville, and is sandwiched between upscale salons and spas.  The street is a very pretty and pretty quiet spot in the middle of one of Toronto’s busiest downtown neighbourhoods.

And yet somehow amidst the bustle, Willms has successfully created a space that is inviting, casual and yet sophisticated. A space where you would feel at ease and comfortable taking your time and getting a good sense of what the boutique has to offer which, after just one visit, I quickly realized is quite a lot.

The decor is hyper-feminine which contrasts nicely with some of the boutique’s edgier and more fashion forward pieces. During the interview, Willms expressed that she would like her clients to feel as if they are shopping in their “girlfriend’s dressing room.” And so everywhere there are little touches (like decorative teacups and picture frames) that nod to both the shop’s name and decor inspirations – high tea and girlish whimsy (think Alice in Wonderland meets Bloor Street west).

While giving me a tour, Willms also intimated that she hopes to create a bespoke shopping experience for her clientele and to foster an environment where women  can “ feel at most themselves when they’re in here.” To that end she has designed a line of blouses, Refined by P&P, to fit like they were custom made. Among its many perks,  the boutique also  offers clients personalized shopping services -clients can book one on one appointments on Mondays-  and high tea.

As for the clothes and accessories, the shop carries a range of contemporary and edgier fashion brands and is organized into four main themes, western heritage, Hollywood glamour, romance (characterized by more feminine pieces), and glam rock. Willms offers a good balance of statement and wearable pieces that would appeal to the sensibilities of  both the fashion forward career woman and mother and her trend savvy daughter.

One of the things that I loved most about the boutique is Willms evident passion for Canadian talent.  The shop is well stocked with pieces from Paris-based Canadian womenswear designer Tara Jarmon, Canadian luxury knitwear and basics label John and Jen (of Line Knitwear), and jewellery from Toronto based jewellery designer Dean Davidson.

On top of that, as a fashion blogger who blogs about plus-size fashion and body diversity, it was an absolute pleasure to learn that Willms aims to accommodate a range of body types and stocks clothes from sizes 2-18.

Another great feature is that Willms makes a serious effort to offer clothes and accessories that will carry a woman from work to evening. Willms pays close attention to the needs of the busy professional, and offers her sharp tailored pieces inspired by great European fashion houses such as Chanel. However, she does not forget the weekend warrior and offers great sparkly and sophisticated going out pieces and more casual, but still chic, lounge wear by labels like Love Zooey.

Some of my favourite pieces included a pair of women’s cufflinks designed by Willms herself made available as part of Pomp & Pageantry‘s in house accessories line. Willms take is that “there should not be an element of jewellery that men wear that women don’t wear,” and I whole heartedly agree.  I love to gender bend through my accessories, and so I was quite thrilled at the idea of accessorizing my oxford shirts and menswear button downs with a great pair of menswear inspired cufflinks.

Nevertheless,  this shop is for the for the hard-core girly-girl who loves to indulge  her most feminine instincts, but still has  something to offer  the not so girly woman, and carries enough thought out pieces to entice everyone in-between.  For that reason, and Willms dedication to showcasing Canadian design talent, I think Pomp & Pageantry is well worth a visit.

Coming Soon! : My review of Pomp & Pageantry Boutique and Interview with owner Shellie Willms

Hello!

It’s been awhile I realize, but (!) I have this post in the works and will be posted very, very soon! So please stay tuned!

“China and Cheerful”: The Social Politics of Fast Fashion

Chinese womenswear designer Uma Wang
(Image; Chinadaily.com.cn)

I rarely shop locally. Sure, many of the clothes I buy are bought within the city’s borders, but I rarely buy clothes designed and made in Canada, let alone Toronto. For someone who loves clothes as much as I do I know that this must mean that I have been missing out on opportunities to procure great fashion. So I have decided that I will try to make more of an effort to shop, if not from local designers, then at least, from local boutiques more often,  instead of always heading to the bigger international chains that now line Queen Street West.

So like the good little sartorial nerd that I am, I decided that I needed to do some research, and look up boutiques which specialize in selling clothes designed by local designers. Up to this point, this has mainly consisted  of me skimming through shop reviews on Toronto based fashion blogs.  Admittedly, most of this has been done somewhat haphazardly, but while researching I was immediately struck by  this (admittedly kind of old) review of Charlie boutique on BlogTo.  While highlighting some of the boutique’s best features the reviewer, fashion writer and blogger, Briony Smith, writes, “Fast fashion tends to translate into shit quality, which is why I steer clear of H&M and its ilk (among other reasons–I’m sure I’ll harp on that in a future post).  But “cheap(er) and cheerful” doesn’t have to mean “China and cheerful” (emphasis mine). This line triggered about a thousand thoughts at once, but mostly (and maybe strangely?) it made me think about fast food. Specifically how the rhetoric around fast food has shaped and directed the slow and local food movements.

What I am really interested in is how discussions around fast fashion have established a narrative around  clothing produced in non-Western countries and/or emerging economies and how this frame has made evoking China  short hand  for  “poor quality” and “bad taste.” These ideas tend to overlap and reinforce popular  Western cultural ideas about race and class (and gender, but that’s a whole other post). Smith’s quote  struck me as similar to popular North American  narratives around food.  Food that is  grown organically and processed locally has made “locally grown” synonymous with high quality and good taste, especially in contrast to fast food, which has come to represent the exact opposite.

Like fast food has for foodies, China  has become emblematic to many fashion journalists and enthusiasts of poor quality and/or taste. So when brought up in fashion criticism it is often meant to imply a lack of innovation in terms of design or used to refer to clothing intended for the mass market (which in the case of bloggers I find particularly grating since what’s more “mass market” than blogging?), the implication being that something truly innovative would not appeal to the average (read poorer) consumer.  For example, two years ago, when eminent fashion critic Cathy Horyn dismissed Taiwanese-American designer Alexander Wang’s  Spring 2011 collection as boring,  she did so in part by bringing up the fact that much of his clothes are manufactured in China. The implication was that either Wang’s lack of vision or the mass appeal of his clothes (this is relative here because a Wang dress can cost upwards of  $ 700)  or both is somehow directly related to where they’re being made.  The assumptions implicit in these discussions about  the artistic and aesthetic value of clothes made outside the West, but more precisely China,  highlight the extent to which our  often problematic ideas about taste are tied up in our often problematic assumptions about race and class.

By evoking China or other parts of Asia and the global south in this way we are assuming that nothing innovative is being produced in those regions. In such discussions we end up reinforcing the idea that the West stands at the avant-garde of fashion and that the rest of the world can only offer raw materials (i.e. textiles, jewels, flowers for perfumes) or serve as inspiration to Western designers.  And so the efforts and contributions to the globalized fashion industry of non Western designers, clothing manufactures,  and consumers are, more frequently than not, minimized, dismissed or flat out ignored.

A lot this, I suspect, stems from  China being so closely associated with the manufacturing and consumption of counterfeit  fashion products ( i.e. designer handbags) and mass production (which in and of itself is often viewed as a marker of poor or poorer quality relative to European based luxury goods) in the West.  China is rarely characterized as a hub of design innovation in Western fashion media and Chinese designers (to be clear I’m talking about Chinese designers based in China not Chinese -Americans or Americans of Chinese descent who do business there)  are practically never featured as the next big or exciting thing in fashion.  What we tend to hear instead is how the market there for Western luxury goods is boomed, or has  expanded over the past decade. And so instead of exploited garment factory laborers, Chinese consumers are newly framed as crass over-consumers, with unsophisticated or uncultured tastes who are more interested in the wealth that the luxury labels that they buy represent than their aesthetic value.  This is a damaging  fashion myth, but one that is pervasive and that helps many European and American fashion labels  protect the value of their brand  by maintaining established luxury brand hierarchies (in terms of desirability) that place Western labels on top.

Schrödinger’s Cat: Fashion Media, Fat Acceptance, Race and Representation

I have been thinking a lot lately about race, fashion and the fat acceptance movement.  More specifically, I’ve been thinking about how the fat acceptance movement could better address the needs of fat black women whose fat embodiment is informed by their experiences dealing with multiple levels oppression (i.e. being black, fat and women).

However, based on a recent pole conducted by the Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation, it looks like American fat black women may have no need for fat acceptance since they  are much more confident about their bodies than “average size” or  “thin” white women.  The poll also suggests that not only do “overweight” black women have higher self-esteems, but that they rank other priorities such as work, religion, and family much higher than being thin. This sounds like great news doesn’t it?

So great that in an opinion piece published on the Guardian’s website,  journalist Victoria Coren argues that the survey makes the fact that black women are so under-represented in fashion media that much more aggravating. Why?  Because black women may serve as good examples to white women who, as a result of being over-represented by this industry, have developed a psychologically damaging preoccupation with attaining a certain level of thinness.

Here’s the thing, analyzing the results of the survey this way, despite the author’s good intentions, oversimplifies something as complicated as body image,  especially since how we feel about ourselves is, for better or worse (most often worse), informed by pervasive and damaging  social assumptions about race, gender and fat embodiment. And so assertions like Coren’s ends up reinforcing these assumptions and privileging the experiences of white women while potentially further othering fat black women and their experiences by holding them up as examples. At the same time this argument situates fat black women outside the bodily norm, which also then implies that the bodily norm is white and average size or thin.

Taking on this view also obscures the other potentially dangerous aspects of this kind of erasure by  the fashion and beauty industries. The symbolic near annihilation of fat black women in fashion media has other pretty unsavory implications for the social and public role of black women generally, but also fat black women specifically.  A women’s social value is often inextricably tied to her level of beauty, and beauty, at least in the West, is narrowly defined as slim and (mostly) white. For many women, how closely they are able to conform to this beauty ideal does often determines how easily they are able to navigate the public sphere.

In such a context, fat black women face more than a few disadvantages and so they may be forced to go the extra mile to prove their worth to the greater public in other ways, even if they, as individuals,  do not have a problem with the way they look or even prefer it to the ideal. The fashion industry by not catering to or representing fat black women only reinforce the idea that they somehow do not belong, not only in the fashion industry, but in the public sphere or as part of a society that,  generally, chooses to ignore them, in part, for failing to conform to a beauty standard that is impossible, on various levels, for them to meet.  Unfortunately, no amount of self-esteem will change that, but perhaps this is an area where the fat acceptance movement could make itself more relevant to the lives of fat black women.