The End of a Blog?

I started blogging in 2008 and for the most part, it has been an incredible adventure. I attended exhibitions and events that I would not necessarily have had access to. I learned how to craft an article, conduct an interview, and find an audience. More importantly, I gained friends from around the world that have shared my passions, as well as my successes and my sorrows.  

There was a time when I looked forward to writing a post and I included my photos and my artwork freely. In October of this year, when I discovered that much of my blog had been copied onto other sites, without permission or attribution, I was utterly bereft. The experience robbed me of the joy that I once felt in writing a post, and I am not sure whether it will ever come back. Plus, the heavy curatorial demands of my job at Ryerson, my new responsibilities as the editor of the Costume Journal, and invitations to write for Selvedge Magazine and for Modeconnect make me feel even less inclined to continue on this forum. That doesn't mean I won't come back, but for the foreseeable I shall be absent on this platform. I invite you to stay in touch on Pinterest, Facebook or Twitter. 

                                                                       With my best wishes, 
                                                                                  
                                                                                      Ingrid Mida

Creative Process Journal: Project Summary

Creative Process Journal Diary Page by Ingrid Mida 2012

When I began this project, I undertook to explore:
1. How to portray the fragmentary nature of the historic garments of the Ryerson Fashion Research Collection through photographs?
2. Given the nature of clothing as material memory, how do I honour/remember the women who once wore these garments?

The constraints I set for myself were to only use garments and photographs found within the Ryerson collection and only photograph items on-site and in a manner that respected their fragile state.

Creative Process Journal: The Precession of Simulacra

All is Vanity
Photo by Ingrid Mida 2010

The simulacrum is never what hides the truth - it is truth that hides the fact that there is none. The simulacrum is true. 
                               Ecclesiastes

This quote by Ecclesiastes headlines the erudite essay "The Precession of Simulacra" by French philosopher Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007). Although Baudrillard often gives me a headache, I always feel a wonderful sense of accomplishment when I've muddled through his densely written essays. This particular analysis of simulacra has a direct link to the creative work I am doing in creating photographic images based on the garments and found photos in the Ryerson Fashion Research Collection.


In Baudrillard's writings on simulacra and simulation, he explores the relationship between reality, symbols, and contemporary society. Simulacra refers to a representation of something that creates a hyper-reality, becoming more real than the actual object itself.

What's on the Fashion Calendar for December 2012?

It's been a while since I've dared to post a calendar as it seemed to be one of the most popular posts to be copied onto other sites.....

Here are my picks for December 2012 fashion events:

Valentino: Master of Couture
Photo courtesy of Somerset House, 

Valentino: Master of Couture at Somerset House, London

Opened on 29 November 2012  and runs until 3 March 2013
Somerset House,  Embankment Galleries, South Wing

This exhibition celebrates the life and work of Valentino and features over 130 exquisite haute couture designs worn by icons such as Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Grace Kelly, Sophia Loren and Gwyneth Paltrow in an exciting installation created specially for Somerset House in London, UK.  I adore Valentino, but am wondering whether this exhibition can match the incredible installation at the Ara Pacis in Rome (July 6 - October 28, 2007).



Appearances Can Be Deceiving at Frida Kahlo Museum, Mexico City
Opened on November 22, 2012 and runs until November 2013

Judith Clark curated this exhibition of 300 items of clothing worn by the artist Frida Kahlo. Apparently after her death in 1954 and Diego's death in 1957, art collector Dolores Olmedo who acted as the manager the estate, refused to give access to Kahlo's archives of letters, clothes, jewelry and photographs. They were not unlocked until 2004 after Olmedo died. One of the highlights of the show is a corset designed by Jean Paul Gaultier who considered Kahlo a fashion icon and a source of inspiration.

If you cannot make it to Mexico City, the Art Gallery of Ontario has one of Frida Kahlo's painted corsets on display in their exhibition Frida & Diego: Passion, Politics and Painting. Read my post about the exhibition here.


Impressionism and Fashion at the Musee d'Orsay, Paris
Opened on 25 September 2012  and runs until 20 January 2013

In an essay called "The Painter of Modern Life", Charles Baudelaire encouraged artists to paint contemporary fashion as a way to convey modernity in their work. He wrote: "the gesture and the bearing of the woman of today give to her dress a life and a special character which are not those of the woman of the past.” Baudelaire was friends with many of the Impressionists including Degas, Manet, and Renoir, and their paintings captured women at a time when the rapid changes in fashion revealed subtle clues about class, status and identity. (By the way, this is a topic that I've researched at length and does not necessarily reflect what might be in the exhibition).

In Impressionism and Fashion, the exhibition presents paintings by such artists as Renoir and Manet as well as actual garments and considers how Impressionists such as Renoir and Manet depicted fashions of the day. A team of curators worked on this exhibition including Gloria Groom, curator at the Art Institute, Chicago, Philippe Thiébaut, general curator at the Musée d'Orsay, Paris. and Susan Stein, curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The exhibition will move to the Metropolitan Museum of Art from February 19 to May 27 and at the Art Institute of Chicago from June 26 to September 22.

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.

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