Reflection: Week 6

   For this blog post, I would just want to personally thank God again for putting me in the right course hehe. I've done this several times after I've spent time attending my major subjects and working on the course requirements. This week, I realized another sign that showed me why Clothing Technology was the right program for me. It's kind of a shallow reason actually. It's the fact that our subjects require us to have our individual croquis books. Croquis is a French word for sketch. Basically, this notebook should be treated like our portable scratch paper, where we could jot down, draw, paint or record our ideas and inspirations. I saw this as a sign because that is how I work as a person. I've always seen myself as creative and I've trained myself to generate several ideas and never limit myself when it comes to brainstorming. I've been collecting notebooks for as long as I could remember, and probably it's because of the fact that I like recording/documenting my experiences and ideas and that nostalgic feeling you get when you open a notebook you haven't touched in years. I've always had that one notebook I would carry anywhere in case I get bored or a source of inspiration would pop-up but I never knew it could be called a croquis book. Our prof also told us that in fashion schools abroad, they really value the designer's croquis book because it is there wherein you'll see the authenticity and the development of the design. 
   
   At first, I wasn't as comfortable in freely writing things on my croquis maybe because most of the stuff we'd put in it were required by our profs and would also be checked by our profs. When I nosily looked into everyone else's croquis, I got a bit jealous of how they were filled with doodles drawn during boring classes or just documenting what inspired them. Then I decided to treat my croquis just as how I've treated my treasured notebooks. 

   I've discovered that I'm the kind of person who takes note of every detail possible and who respects even the smallest ideas. The croquis caters to the way I work as a designer and a creative mind. For all of you out there who believe they have great ideas or are just inspired to do a lot of things, I recommend get a croquis of your own :-)

Reflection: Week 5

   A question was raised up this week that really struck me. We were shown a video (The Problem with Jeggings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPJz850ibII) that depicted how different trends were emerging by combining different articles of clothing (jeggings = jeans + leggings, nirt = not a shirt) and also how as the years go by, so do the fabric in the clothes we wear (less coverage, more skin). Then our professor showed us a painting (the title of which, I forgot) and asked us to relate it to the video. I inferred that both the painting and the video showed how different people have different perspectives on what is acceptable or decent; how normal is really something subjective. Then she flashed the question: What is normal?

   The question of what sets the difference between normal and abnormal has come across my mind plenty of times in my life. I'm the kind of person who really spends time to think and reflect not just about my personal life but even the external factors that affect it. During those times, I've questioned what is normal for the society we live in today. Because if you look at it, the standards of normal have changed through out the years. Take for example, in the 1800s, women and men wear layers and layers of clothing, complete suits and afternoon and evening dresses; but if you're out wearing those today, people will think that you're trying too hard to look good or that you're wearing some sort of costume. Another is that years ago, men found women more attractive if they were curvy and voluptuous contrasting to how the standard for women today is slim and athletic. I've thought that maybe the notion of normal is something psychological. Imagine teaching your child that saying "yes" means no and saying "no" means yes and he'd grow up believing what you've taught him and for him that'll probably be normal. Things we consider normal nowadays are things that have undergone the approval of the general society and have lived through the first degree of questioning and scrutinizing. 

   I've read a book back in grade school entitled "Frindle" by Andrew Clements and if I remember correctly, it was about how a boy was so persistent in renaming the ballpen into the word frindle and at the end he succeeded and the word was even recognized in the dictionary. I often think that normality could be analogous to that; like if I would want something to be socially acceptable, all I'd have to do is convince a number of people to believe in it as well. Just like how we've gotten accustomed to more revealing outfits as daily/casual wear as opposed to how they used to be frowned upon by society. 

   This gets me thinking, what else would be considered normal in the future; and in following the logic, would there be more good normal or bad normal?