Friday, March 1, 2013

Andover's Fashion

        I saved this blog post for Friday evening for one reason: the West Quad North Charity Fashion Show. Every year, the Phillips Academy students transform from Calculus and Latin nerds into designers and chic models. All of this designing and strutting down the runway is supposedly done in the name of charity, but is it really? Do people participate in the fashion show because it is a charity event, or because they want to to show some and some funky clothing? And do people attend to cheer on their friends or to watch people clad in more risque clothing than usual?
        From my experience tonight, I have to say that the fashion show is really not an event geared toward supporting the charity. Yes, the money earned from purchasing the $5 entrance tickets goes to a therapy horse back riding center in New Hampshire, but the charity part of the show is not stressed. The announcer informed the audience about the cause that the money would support, but that was the only time during the show that the cause was mentioned. The rest of the show featured about thirty girls and two boys strutting, and in some cases wobbling, down the runway in uniquely designed clothing. Even though there was a huge screen projecting the designers' names and the name of their clothing line, that screen advertised nothing about the horse back riding therapy organization. Furthermore, nobody spoke to the audience about ways to get involved with the cause of the benefiting organization. Nobody stressed the importance of serving others besides telling everyone where the funds would go in the show's initial speech. I agree that the event was a benefit fashion show, but I think it's a stretch to call it a full blow charity event.
        I was actually a model in the fashion show tonight, and while getting ready back stage, I heard a  few comments that really surprised me. Not everyone was focusing on being skinny and beautiful by that narrow (literally haha) definition, but there were definitely a few who were. While we waited in line to go on stage, one of the participants said, "When you stand with your feet together, your legs shouldn't touch at the top of you thighs." The person said this as if it should be the goal of every girl to eat and work out in such a way that her legs wouldn't touch. Skinniness was the definition of what made a girl beautiful and valuable in the fashion show, at least for this person. What he or she said reminded me of Baudrillard's idea of sign value. For some people at Phillips Academy, skinninness = beuaty = worth. The person is objectified and judged based on that idea of sign value. So do people participate in the fashion show to display their value, as defined by Baudrillard, in front of a crowd, or do they do it for the charity purposes? In my opinion, based on the comments I heard and the amount of advertising for the charity, the fashion show actually exemplifies Baudrillard's idea of female sign value.

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