On becoming the Editor of the Costume Journal

Cover of Costume Journal Volume 42, Number 1

The Costume Journal is a bi-annual publication by the Costume Society of Ontario that features articles, exhibition and book reviews, resource lists (books, catalogues, tours), and other fashion and costume news. This journal is mailed out to members of the Costume Society of Ontario and is also collected by libraries and museums around the world.

Precarity and the Cultural Worker

When one works in a cultural industry (perhaps as an artist, curator, web designer writer or designer), there is an element of precarity that comes with the role. Paid jobs are erratic in nature and typically structured on a contact basis, demanding long hours for the duration. These types of jobs offer flexibility but are entwined with insecurity from the unpredictable peaks and valleys in scheduling demands.

Creative Process Journal: The Culture Industry and Enlightment as Mass Deception

"The whole world is passed through the filter of the culture industry".

(Horkheimer and Adorno)

Frankfurt School theorists Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno wrote a critique of the culture industry within capitalist society in a chapter called “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception” in the book Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944). In this work, they compare the production of culture through such media as film, radio, and magazines to that of a factory in which consumers are manipulated into a state of  docile passivity.

This densely written treatise reviles the easy pleasures of popular culture that perpetuate desire and create insatiable psychological needs that cycle into the capitalist structures of consumer demand.

Creative Process Journal and The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

Photo of Walter Benjamin in 1939 by Gisela Freund

"Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be," wrote Walter Benjamin in 1936 in an essay called "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction". This essay is one of many philosophical essays written by Benjamin before his death by suicide in 1940.

The idea of the aura of the original is something that makes an artwork unique and adds value. There is a mystical quality associated with an original work of art, which can be understood by considering the  difference between seeing an artwork in person as compared to viewing it in a book or on the web.

Benjamin traces the history of the mechanical reproduction of art with founding and stamping by the Greeks, engraving and etching in the Middle Ages, and lithography in the 19th century. It was the ease with which reproduction could happen using  photography and film in the 20th century which underpinned Benjamin's analysis of how these media would shift the concept of authenticity.

BIG in the ROM Costume and Textile Gallery

BIG at the ROM with John Galliano for Dior Spring/Summer 2011
Photo by Ingrid Mida 2012

This exquisite couture outfit by John Galliano for Dior from Spring/Summer 2011 is the centrepiece of the latest installation called BIG which will open at the Royal Ontario Museum's Patricia Harris Textile Gallery of Textiles and Costume on November 3, 2012.

Art and Fashion at Art Toronto 2012

Art Toronto 2012
Photo by Ingrid Mida 

Henry David Thoreau once said "This world is but a canvas to our imagination." And clearly imagination has taken flight and come home to roost in the artwork on display at Art Toronto 2012 in the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. This venue is jam packed with artful delights from around the world, including galleries from Vancouver, New York, London, and Japan.

Every Body Counts

Caryn Franklin
Photo courtesy of Ryerson University

"Every body counts" was the message that Caryn Franklin imparted to an audience of fashion students, faculty, media and invited guests at the first annual Diversity Now! lecture at Ryerson University on October 20, 2012. As a former fashion editor, Caryn had many years of experience as a fashion insider, and wanted to foster a movement that challenged and redesigned the beauty ideal to be more inclusive, where "every body counts". In 2009, Caryn Franklin, along with supermodel Erin O’Connor and communications specialist Debra Bourne, founded All Walks Beyond the Catwalk, a campaign to promote diversity in the size, shape, ethnicity and age range of models on the catwalk and in fashion imagery.

In her first lecture in Canada, Caryn encouraged fashion students to think about the unattainable standards of beauty seen in mainstream fashion imagery that perpetuate the standard of the tall, thin, young and white ideal. She noted that fashion imagery has "begun to normalize something that is not normal" in promoting and perpetuating "image of unachievable beauty", and quoted statistics about body image and self esteem to show the level of "unease and destabilization that the fashion industry creates." She said "we have all internalized a body dysmorphia" and asked "isn't it time to make changes?"

The Colours of Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo (1907-1954)

Self Portrait as a Tehuana (Diego on my Mind), 1943

oil on masonite, 76 X 61 cm The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection of Mexican Art

(C) Banco de México Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico, D. F./ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Many artists use colour to paint their emotions, but few have actually defined what colour means to them. In 1944, Kahlo began to keep a journal in which she wrote her thoughts as well as poems and watercolours. She also included the symbolic meanings she attached to certain colours. These associations are anything but typical,  such as:

Geen = good warm light
Yellow = madness, sickness, fear the sun, happiness,
Navy blue = distance, tenderness
Cobalt blue = electricity and purity, love
Black = nothing is black, really nothing
Magenta = blood of the prickly pear cactus
Brown = the colour of mole and fading leaves, Earth

Unmasking Frida Kahlo at the AGO's Frida & Diego Show

Self-Portait with Monkeys by Frida Kahlo, 1943, oil on canvas.
The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection of Mexican Art (C) Banco de Mexico Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico, D.F./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Frida Kahlo's iconic image, created with braided hair, thick eyebrows, colourful ethnic dress and bold accessories, was a carefully constructed persona that spoke to her passions for politics and her identity as an artist and as the wife of Diego Rivera. In effect, she constructed her identity through fashion.

Although fashion is not the subject of the Art Gallery of Ontario's exhibition called "Frida & Diego: Passion, Politics and Painting", Kahlo's colourful outfits, headdresses, ribbons, shawls, and accessories define many of her self-portraits. The exhibition makes no explicit mention of fashion, but Kahlo used clothing and accessories as identity construction and so my reading of the exhibition focused on the artifice of her dress.

Update on the Violation of Copyright

Dear Friends,

After discovering that much of my blog has been copied onto another blogspot site without permission, credit or attribution, I made the decision to temporarily suspend my posts. The experience made me feel violated and cut off from my readers. Figuring out how to report the problem to Google was a challenge in itself, and while the problem has not totally been rectified by The Blogger Team, I am going to resume my posts in a limited way.

Some people have suggested that I write an article on blogs and copyright. This is messy territory with little precedent to follow. I am grateful for the many emails and words of support that I've received from my friends around the world, and it has been that response that has inspired me to continue, albeit I have to admit that I am now somewhat reluctant to share my original research on this forum. But my love of art, fashion and museums compels me to go on.

This morning, I will be attending the press preview for the exciting show Frida & Diego: Passion, Politics and Painting at the Art Gallery of Ontario. The AGO exhibition will overlap with the upcoming opening of the exhibition 'Appearances Can be Deceiving: The Dresses of Frida Kahlo" at Museo Frida Kahlo in Mexico City from November 22, 2012 to November 22, 2013. Kahlo had such a distinctive style and the exhibition explores the ways Kahlo used fashion as a language to address the issues of ethnicity and disability - aspects that are also visible in her paintings. I want to share that and the many other wonderful intersections of art and fashion that cross my path. 

You will notice that I am now adding a notice of copyright to each post. I suggest that you all do the same, and take care in attributing your sources of photos and information.

Ingrid Mida

Notice of copyright: 
All text and images on this blog are the copyright of Ingrid Mida, unless otherwise noted. The copying of posts, images and/or text without proper attribution is violation of copyright and legal action will be pursued.

Notice of Temporary Interruption

Dear friends and loyal readers,

It recently came to my attention that the entire content of my site is being copied on several other blogspot addresses. I am pursuing legal action on the matter to shut this down. Depending on how long it takes for Google to react, I am, for the time being, suspending my blog posts on Fashion is my Muse!

I find it very upsetting that this has occurred since I have written content on this blog for 5 years now, without commercial aims, in order to share my passion for and knowledge of costume history, fashion and art. If this is not resolved in short order, I may have to restart on another platform. In the meantime, I encourage you to follow me on either Twitter or Facebook. I am also the social media manager for the Costume Society of Ontario and post links to exhibition and fashion related content there. I also welcome your emails at fashionismymuse@gmail.com.

I hope you will join me through one of these other social media platforms.

Best wishes,
Ingrid Mida

Creative Process Journal: On Photography and Memory

Cabinet Card
Ryerson Fashion Research Collection

One of the most tangible links between clothing and memory exists in the portrait photograph, especially the carte des visite and the cabinet card. Popular in Victorian times, these cards were albumen prints made from glass negatives, attached to stiff card backing usually printed with the photographer’s name. In this medium, we can revisit the past to see the clothing that ordinary people wore in the latter half of the 19th century.