Fashion Critic

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As a fashion critic and writer in Colombia, I became to be recognized for being the first to openly criticize the country´s fashion culture, comprising it under bad taste but also as a symptom of a patriarchal society´s reflex: women dressing solely to indulge the visual fetishisms of men. A reflex that unveiled deeper realities in gender relations and social values. Many people enthusiastically supported my acid and thoroughly argued commentary. Others accused me of snobbery and of misunderstanding the particularity of tastes bred by the context. Looking back, I now understand that I was trying to comment on a deeper subject: the power of the male gaze and the battle in a woman´s life to find her sense of worth beyond the approval of men. I was, instinctively, attempting to write cultural criticism by using journalistic fashion writing as a medium. I felt, however, that as much as I was onto something – never before written about, as I wanted to do so in my country – I needed further conceptual background to do it as I yearned. This is one of the reasons I came to Fashion Studies, the Master of the Arts program in Parsons The New School for Design, where I was granted a scholarship.

Today, I feel I am more able to write about the topic and to create new knowledge, as I have always wanted: by bringing together different genres to create a new style of fashion writing; one that draws from the theoretical and the conceptual but finds its ultimate outlet in fashion and style journalism.

Vanessa Rosales

*This piece was published in Caras, Colombia, in October, 2012

 

 

 

2 comentarios en “Fashion Critic

  1. Se me hace muy interesante el hecho de que tocaste un asunto social a través de la moda… mucha gente cree que la moda son solo «trapos» y algo superficial, pero tu comentario demuestra que tiene mucha más profundidad y relevancia que eso.
    Lástima que no puedo leer el artículo completo, pero con tu introducción me da una idea de lo que es la moda en Colombia… en México es algo similar, se trata más de ser sexy y llamar la atención que de sentirse especial y representar una identidad propia.
    Tal vez con el tiempo las cosas cambien.
    Saludos!
    Ylenia
    Ambitieuse.net

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