Concept Collections Part 2.:
Jeans Collection
I was born in the ’90s and remember that dad played from his videotapes (he recorded the best hits from MTV and Msat) always such joyful and energetic music. Maybe it will be romantic, but life was good then. In Hungary was no more war and the communistic regime was at least officially gone and democratic election was in place. Things felt light and easy and west music was on television. In the 2000’s as teenagers we felt that we can make the American dream come true in Eastern Europe as well. Magazines were full of success stories, west musicians and arts were in reach and it seemed the globalization really on its way, knocking on the door and mankind can be unified under one flag: Earth.
Yet, 24 years later I feel that despite the good start the energies went in wrong direction and people can’t get along with that much freedom that they have received. My feelings, that society is polarized and divided by so unimportant and unreasonable things like, who is your favourite football team, which car label is your preference, are you a stay-at-home-mom or are you a working mom (Note: SAHM is also work!) and the list goes on. It shouldn’t be a problem, that we like different things – this is natural, as we have different personalities and socialized differently. However, when I see online fights in the chat section it feels, that people have forgotten it is okay to have a different point of view and in real life even friendships would cut just because of these. I mean this is just crazy, at least for me. The world is beautiful because of the differences, and throughout different views we should make progress, by putting them together, finding something common, instead of fighting “who is right”. Because no one is right. Opinions are opinions and subjective, not objective – this society needs to relearn.
Adding to this, on the other side, I think also categorizing, naming, and labeling all little nuances are gone in the wrong way too. I understand that population has never been so big, so it leads to the path, that communities, even individuals want to specify and identify themselves too much, to not be lost in the crowd. So we start to call ourselves – whatever phrase or statement you want to put here. Does this identify me? Yes. Does this separate me from others? Probably, and the same time it could close you out from a community. Why is this urge and pressure there to “label” and separate people from each other? Why is it so important to clear my personal dynamics for some random people online? To sum up, I think this identifying and labeling is also gone in the wrong way, yet at the beginning for sure it meant to be a good thing. I think simplifying the wording would be at this point such a better direction to unify society again. An example to clear more what I mean: in ancient Greece they didn’t even have a word for homosexuality, because everything was accepted and it was none of the others business. How amazing is that?! When did acceptance and common sense gone? Meanwhile highlighting that minorities have their difficulties and they are valid and existing, just to make it very clear. Law should change a lot; each person should be seen same. Because at the end of the day we are all humans, living on the same planet and this is what should matter after all.
So my jeans collection is all about to change our morals and the standards of what is normal and what we accept. Because what is normal? Normal – as is – not existing. Because everyone’s perception of reality is different. Having that said our standards are set on the actual morals, of what is accepted in a community. Make it shorter: is all about communication and collaboration. This is what defines a human being – the actions, and not that labels of age, height, race, studies, birth place, family status, etc.… People are not products to put labels on them.
To put all of these feelings and thoughts into fabric I have chosen jeans fabric. I think jeans is kind of almost everyone loves, it is easy to wear, yet the dynamic of the fabric is indicating a leisure wear. Symbolizing society standards by jeans and tried to “forget” that they are jeans and used unusual cuts and forms for that fabric. Needless to say it was very challenging to sew and create the items and several details needed to be re-done couple of times. Even more, unwantedly symbolizing how hard to leave inappropriate/ double standards behind. The whole set is made in business wear style, which is also unusual for jeans fabrics, added some embroidery details to it. What do think, would this be accepted at working place as regular business wear? Happy to hear your thoughts.