Sunday, June 17, 2007

(this summer's sweatshop)


What do you call a working group of fashion students? A sweatshop.

we toil... we slave away... we're in the sweatshop!
(Featuring Helen, Anne, KY and an unseen Jeanne.)

I didn't help them much today; all of them have finished their garments and are doing the paperworks (illustrations, technical drawings, compiling, binding etc.) There wasn't much I could do other than cooking and cleaning - for me, I was being more of a domestic helper than lending a hand to help finish their work. Nevermind, I'm quite happy with the helper role, and I'm going to see them submit their work tomorrow. I might be able to sneak in and have a look at what other students do, too... ^.^

Mmmm. The hunt is on; ...I wonder, who stands in my position this year? The internet yields no news so far... and the night is less than a week away. I wonder whether these ladies are being grilled through the routines right now, who is the artistic director, and who would have enough guts to speak up against him/her... :s

Also, if Barbie was a real-life figure, her body would be attainable only through plastic surgeries and tightlacing. Yes, you can try to grow naturally to 5'9"... but there's no way a waist circumference of 45.72 cm is naturally attainable (this comes from a girl whose measurement 'grew' only 5 cm since she was six.) And no, you can't possibly support all the above-mentioned attributes on a pair of European size 33 feet. I wonder why Mattel has not adjusted Barbie's unrealistic proportion, since the doll is one of the earliest female body image role models available to children in today's postmodern consumerist society.

Oh well... here I rest my case.

2 comments:

Devi Girsang, MD said...

I believe you have finished all your works, haven't you? ;)

As for Barbie, I thought the proportion of the doll has nothing to do with body role models in real life? or has it something to do with anorexic models nowadays? Hmm. I used to collect Barbie dolls when I was a kid, luckily I wasn't trapped into Barbie figure obsession. Thank God!

mukuge said...

Barbie is seen as a representative of 'the ideal woman', and it's just unrealistic to imply (by association) that having a Barbie-like proportion is what females should aspire for. Moreover, young kids are exponsed to Barbie-esque physical aspirations early on... especially more so in today's visual-driven, media-frenzied world packed with surreal-bodied public figures. For youngsters, they often don't realize Barbie-esque attributes are no more than an unnatural blip in the gene pool. So yes, IMO Barbie does influence the rise in eating disorders.

Luckily I didn't like Barbies that much as a kid! I used to think the waist is too flimsy - I once broke a doll in two on the waist :q and yes, thanks, I've been holidaying for the past two weeks ^^