This piece of work centres on the concept of the gaze and its controlling effects on women, specifically the way it controls how women dress. It is not as simple as women dressing to be attractive to the opposite sex or to attract attention but the idea of being watched all the time and dressing with this in mind. As John Berger states “Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at”. Women are not only being watched by men constantly but also are aware of it and therefore are continually surveying themselves.
It is this sense of scrutiny that is questioned in the work. Making the viewer look closely at the images to find the pieces that do not fit, places the image under the same kind of scrutiny as women feel that they are under every day. In this piece each outfit has been chosen by the woman who owns it, because it is something they feel attractive in. Putting these outfits onto the artist so they do not fit properly; are too big or too small; makes a parody of the idea of these outfits being attractive and attracting attention. The head has been cut off in the images, which in itself is quite a violent act and serves as a reminder of the objectification of women in modern society. It takes away any identity from the model and focuses attention solely on the clothes and body. They are shot in a commercial style, further playing on the ideas of beauty and attractiveness, which are associated with the media, in the ill fitting and often unflattering garments.
This work aims to draw attention to the pressures facing women and do so with a sense of humour. Displayed in a typology format it alludes to the social phenomenon that it is, in the same way that in the Victorian era there were typologies of criminals or sick people, this creates a typology of the effects of social ideologies on women today. What to Ware? Is a tongue in cheek commentary on the way that women display themselves to the world surrounding them and the way they deal with the pressures facing them to live up to the “beauty myth” of today’s society.
It is this sense of scrutiny that is questioned in the work. Making the viewer look closely at the images to find the pieces that do not fit, places the image under the same kind of scrutiny as women feel that they are under every day. In this piece each outfit has been chosen by the woman who owns it, because it is something they feel attractive in. Putting these outfits onto the artist so they do not fit properly; are too big or too small; makes a parody of the idea of these outfits being attractive and attracting attention. The head has been cut off in the images, which in itself is quite a violent act and serves as a reminder of the objectification of women in modern society. It takes away any identity from the model and focuses attention solely on the clothes and body. They are shot in a commercial style, further playing on the ideas of beauty and attractiveness, which are associated with the media, in the ill fitting and often unflattering garments.
This work aims to draw attention to the pressures facing women and do so with a sense of humour. Displayed in a typology format it alludes to the social phenomenon that it is, in the same way that in the Victorian era there were typologies of criminals or sick people, this creates a typology of the effects of social ideologies on women today. What to Ware? Is a tongue in cheek commentary on the way that women display themselves to the world surrounding them and the way they deal with the pressures facing them to live up to the “beauty myth” of today’s society.
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What To Ware
