Fashionista v. The Artist (Musings over Bloody Mary's)

An artist acquaintance recently sermonized the shallow “tackiness” of flock fashion. I listened intently as she chastised the industry that I love. My initial response was to retort angrily, but then I decided to listen to her views whilst sipping back the Bloody Mary’s silently fuming. “The Artist” referred to broad trends as “pop-conformity” and proceeded to paint a rather ugly picture of fashion-followers as sugar coated pop-princess clones with no free-thought. I was horrified. *Shocked pause*

How could an artist, someone who draws creativity from varied sources, claim not to be inspired or indeed have some form of respect for the following of fashion? *Bizarre*
To me, a true artist has the ability at a glance, to look at the work of the great masters and appreciate their style, understand composition and analyse technical aspects of an artwork subconsciously. This visual and mainly subliminal dissection, does not presume that they will create a reproduction of the same artwork. It is simply an understanding and appreciation of a great work. It is vitally important to take inspiration from a myriad of sources. This is not carbon copying, it is merely agitating imaginations. The dilution of mastery she argued is damaging to originality as it creates a conformist society, but I think the opposite. Many of fashion’s masters are inspired by their consumers, it is often a hungry upward-feeding pyramid not a trickle down theory of diffusion. Take cool hunting in all its guises....*tut*.

I agree, there is an element of tacky and cherry gloss about certain aspects of the fashion industry, that sometimes disinterest and disappoint me, but it is necessary to see past the bad and the ugly to reach what is good. There is so much originality to celebrate and I challenge any artist not to be a fashion follower. Sermon over. *Amen*

♥ BexBella