Technology Diary 9/19

*Late post because I changed my topic halfway through…*

The technology I would like to focus on this week is fashion or clothing in general. I admit that clothes are not the first thing that comes to my mind when I use the word, “technology.” It seems to have been with us, humans, since our evolutionary ancestors lost their thick body hair and needed something external for protection. In short, clothing has been with us for a very long time especially if you compare it to computers or smart phones. Not to say that clothing does not include “technological advances:” we can look at the huge range of fabrics that were invented in the last hundred years and the importance and effects of clothing related technologies such as the cotton gin that inevitably crops up in every American history class.

However, you can definitely apply the framework Rosser used in discussing feminism and technology to clothing and fashion. The perspectives about women in the technology workforce can be applied to clothing especially at the manufacturing level. Issues about the workforce that makes clothing are the same as the ones about the workforce that makes our electronics (highly gendered and colored, issues of pay, safety and health…the past garment factory fires this year). The question of technology design in clothing and fashion might seem like the opposite of the issues Rosser raises, but it can be agreed upon that there is a gender skew in both industries and a point of interest would be how women are viewed and treated in the male dominated technological design field and how men are viewed and treated in the female dominated clothing design field. The last part of Rosser’s framework, technology use, probably brings up the most obvious gendered aspects in the technology of clothing and fashion.

I am not dismissing other parts of what de Lauretis calls “representation,” which as a process and product constitutes the construction of gender, such as posture, language, actions, roles, and the other countless things we use to represent gender. However, at least in our society and culture, I feel that clothing is a huge component in this (physical) representation. There is the easy fruit: which gender can wear certain clothing items (suits, pants vs. dresses, skirts) or colors or styles, etc. without being called out in our normalizing society. I also argue that clothing/ fashion framed as technological use is a huge component in The Hunger Games. There is a reason why there is a role of a stylist for the Games and it seems that they receive as much attention as the role of mentors from the tributes as well as the amount of detail Katniss/ Suzanne Collins gives to descriptions of the various outfits in the book. The book also seems to bring up two views toward fashion/ clothing as technological use relevant to our society and culture.

The first view would be that fashion is frivolous. It is obvious that Katniss distains the residents of the Capitol by calling out on their devotion to their clothes, make up, and use of surgery to alter their bodies and preserve the image of youth. It is no surprise that Katniss warms up to and respects Cinna, who is described as being much less flamboyant, when at best she would view the rest of the prep team as “an affectionate trio of pets at the end of a particularly difficult day” (Collins, 2008, p. 253). Attuned with our class’s discussion, class is a huge cause of this view: residents of Districts like District 12 have to worry about getting enough food for the day, not which outfit to wear that day. However, the view that fashion is frivolous seems tied to gendered views found in our own society and culture. Katniss overhears one of the Careers complaining, “[Katniss] seemed pretty simpleminded to me. Every time I think about her spinning around in that dress, I want to puke” (Collins, 2008, p. 162). This statement has similar connotations about fashion/ attention to clothing (especially by a female) to the ones brought up in our society such as being a simpleton, materialistic, and unimportant. There is also a tie to the view that females are inherently more interested in fashion, clothing, and appearances even though all sexes and genders use this technology. This is probably also connected to the generalization that almost anything where women supposedly dominate is cast off as less important, serious, etc.

The other view present in The Hunger Games can be seen as the flip side: fashion is political, especially as a tool. Despite, Katniss’s distaste for the seemingly frivolous prep concerning her apperance for the pre-Games ceremonies, she takes Haymitch’s advice to let the stylists do whatever they want to heart. She admits that Cinna’s design choices results in “a very calculated look” and “nothing Cinna designs is arbitrary” (Collins, 2008, p. 355). It is obvious that fashion/ clothing is an important strategy of survival especially for tributes that are disadvantaged from lack of training with weapons and physical strength. The flaming outfits for Katniss and Peeta in the Opening ceremonies were meant to be eye catching to rally up interest in the audience that will lead to sponsors. The fact that the stylists for Katniss and Peeta decided that all the outfits worn by them (even in their “downtime”) should match or complement each other was meant to promote the two as a pair, a deviance from the all for one mentality of the Games and later as visual backing of them as lovers. This theme seems to continue in the rest of the trilogy (spoilers courtesy of Wikipedia) as fashion/ clothing becomes a point of resistance beyond the Hunger Games.

A side note (as if this post is not long enough, sorry), I mentioned in the forum that I never read the trilogy before this course or even watched the movie, but it is hard to not miss the promotion for the upcoming movie, Catching Fire. To me there seems to be slant towards promoting the trilogy through high fashion/ costumes and some quick googling revealed that a fashion line tied to the movie is being launched. I wonder if this tie-in/ marketing technique (introduction of capitalism and consumerism into this conversation) plays down the political and resistance themes of the trilogy and throws fashion/ clothing as technology into the frivolous category.