We were talking about fashion in my YA Lit class this week, comparing the novel So Yesterday and the Merchants of Cool documentary. When I saw this article in Slate, I thought about those and about some of the questions that had come up here about the "naturalness" of visual literacy:
What's Everybody Scribbling About in Their Notebooks?
by Josh Patner, posted Friday, Feb. 8, 2008, at 6:41 PM ET
The fashion editors and other professionals described in the article depend on these fashion shows for information that is essential to their careers. It's clear that they've come up with a variety of different strategies to help them take it in and process it quickly. Some sketch, some have carefully organized systems for their notes, and some just delegate. But all of them are doing much more than "just watching" as they sit in these audiences.
I'd find it interesting to use this approach with teens as an introduction to visual literacy- ask them how they use visual cues from fashion to get information about people. The movie Mean Girls comes to mind, I know there's already been some discussion of it on the class forums. In my YA Lit class not everyone felt that fashion mattered much to them as kids or to the kids they observe, but it is an omnipresent reality for many people whether you're talking about brand names or tech gadgets or something more expressive of individual creativity.
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