The Magic Mirror - The Fashionista's world-view (and the rest of humanity's)

In this lecture, LCF Visiting Professor Peter York, author, journalist and broadcaster, looks at the contrasting attitudes to fashion amongst:
'fashionistas' (i.e. fashion professionals - but particularly high-end fashion journalists), and the rest of humankind.

He argues that 'fashionistas' are - most of them - "quite astonishingly different" from the rest of humankind. This is a function of:
* their 'expert' role
* their place in the fashion market process
* their milieu
* their 'wardrobe opportunities'
* their aesthetic education.

'Fashionistas', quite literally, see the world differently and talk about clothes differently. This means their reporting of fashion brings different criteria to bear, most of which are unacknowledged.

Key differences are:
* (at least while they're working) fashionistas develop the tastes of extremely rich women, and are enabled to satisfy them
* fashionista language develops its own codes, distorting the meanings of familiar words (e.g. 'sexy') and introducing others (e.g. 'directional'), which only work in fashionland.
* a total inability to acknowledge the role of age, class, the workplace or any other real world factors in real women's fashion options.

The rest of humanity (broadly women readers of fashion coverage) have lives.

These lives, situations and finances shape their views of fashion and their choices. Their concerns and language are wonderfully different from those of most 'fashionistas'.

The misunderstandings between these contrasting world-views are richly comic and deeply sad.

As the University continues to maintain and develop its profile as a global leader in arts research, a series of Professorial Platform lectures was launched in 2008.

The Platforms are an opportunity for University colleagues and associates, as well as invited members of the public, to learn more about the research undertaken in the University. The Platforms enable Professors to highlight their field of interest and the University, in turn, to recognise and commemorate their successes to date.

• http://issuu.com/ualresearch/docs/petery...