Chameleon hair: How hair's materiality affects its fashionability - Helen Holmes
After researching into the journal Critical Studies in Fashion & Beauty for my IRP module, I realised it would also aide me within this project as it focused on fashion and beauty trends within production, representation of individuals and the media. It focuses on critical debates within fashion and beauty, and how one would wear their hair, constructing their looks is definitely a key debate within beauty at this moment in time.
The article I have chosen here, written by Helen Holmes, focuses on the idea of the changeable materiality of hair, and how we can construct our hair so easily, but within its own limits.
Within the article, Holmes quotes Nigel Thrift, suggesting that hair 'is the easiest part of the body to alter. It grows so it must be cut.' The beauty industry relies on this ever-changing-ness of hair and hair styles to create profits, as each time the hairstyle trends change, the industry creates new products which people want to use to construct their hair. Here, Thrift and Holmes suggest that we use the shallow materiality of our hair to shape the way we look, the way we are perceived and in turn our own identity. However, the article also focuses on how even though you can change your hair, it is still your hair and has its own limitations, it will always display 'constant features.' 'Hair's materiality is at once changing and changeable, but with constant qualities', as 'previous hair fashions remain stored in the material of hair.' Here the point made is that every hair style one has will effect the next hair style, such as bleaching and dying your hair will effect whether or not you can put another colour on top of it. Constructing your hair according to how you feel you want to be perceived can actually limit how much you change your hair, and in turn limit how much of your identity and personality you can construct with hair as your accessory. Your actual hair documents who you are, 'hair [is] an inimitable record of a person's life that documents layer upon layer of previous hair fashions.', 'hair is not only a changeable material, it also has material qualities that persist.' Relating this back to my work, I agree with he statements they make on the materiality of hair actually limiting how one can construct their hairstyle, and I believe that often this is an issue for people who want to change how they look, revamp their life as such so they can change how people perceive them, as often their hair resembles one identity when they wish to resemble another. Such as dying your hair a bright colour for the summer, but actually not wanting to live up to the colour means people have to wear their hair as it is until the hair stops limiting identity progress. Within the article, Holmes also quotes Annemarie Mol and John Law (2004), who states that the body is never whole and work must be done to make the body coherent. Then Chris Shilling (1993) also suggests that the body is always being working upon to create one's identity or sense of self. This point sums up part of the focus of this project, the fact that altering your looks can change how you are perceived by others, as your looks will fit into different categories, especially your hair styles. If you wear your hair a certain way, the hairstyle has connotations of certain identity categories, for instance short hair is often seen as masculine, and long as female, black hair as gothic and red hair as Celtic background. After reading this article, I want to explore the idea of why people wear their hair as they do, and in the second term I feel I will start asking people questions when photographing them, asking why they style their hair as they do, whether they use their hair like they would clothes and accessories and whether or not they think they construct their image in line with how they want to look, whether its to do with fashion trends or personal preference.
The article I have chosen here, written by Helen Holmes, focuses on the idea of the changeable materiality of hair, and how we can construct our hair so easily, but within its own limits.
Within the article, Holmes quotes Nigel Thrift, suggesting that hair 'is the easiest part of the body to alter. It grows so it must be cut.' The beauty industry relies on this ever-changing-ness of hair and hair styles to create profits, as each time the hairstyle trends change, the industry creates new products which people want to use to construct their hair. Here, Thrift and Holmes suggest that we use the shallow materiality of our hair to shape the way we look, the way we are perceived and in turn our own identity. However, the article also focuses on how even though you can change your hair, it is still your hair and has its own limitations, it will always display 'constant features.' 'Hair's materiality is at once changing and changeable, but with constant qualities', as 'previous hair fashions remain stored in the material of hair.' Here the point made is that every hair style one has will effect the next hair style, such as bleaching and dying your hair will effect whether or not you can put another colour on top of it. Constructing your hair according to how you feel you want to be perceived can actually limit how much you change your hair, and in turn limit how much of your identity and personality you can construct with hair as your accessory. Your actual hair documents who you are, 'hair [is] an inimitable record of a person's life that documents layer upon layer of previous hair fashions.', 'hair is not only a changeable material, it also has material qualities that persist.' Relating this back to my work, I agree with he statements they make on the materiality of hair actually limiting how one can construct their hairstyle, and I believe that often this is an issue for people who want to change how they look, revamp their life as such so they can change how people perceive them, as often their hair resembles one identity when they wish to resemble another. Such as dying your hair a bright colour for the summer, but actually not wanting to live up to the colour means people have to wear their hair as it is until the hair stops limiting identity progress. Within the article, Holmes also quotes Annemarie Mol and John Law (2004), who states that the body is never whole and work must be done to make the body coherent. Then Chris Shilling (1993) also suggests that the body is always being working upon to create one's identity or sense of self. This point sums up part of the focus of this project, the fact that altering your looks can change how you are perceived by others, as your looks will fit into different categories, especially your hair styles. If you wear your hair a certain way, the hairstyle has connotations of certain identity categories, for instance short hair is often seen as masculine, and long as female, black hair as gothic and red hair as Celtic background. After reading this article, I want to explore the idea of why people wear their hair as they do, and in the second term I feel I will start asking people questions when photographing them, asking why they style their hair as they do, whether they use their hair like they would clothes and accessories and whether or not they think they construct their image in line with how they want to look, whether its to do with fashion trends or personal preference.
Intergenerational Dialogues: A reflection on the role of photography, drawing and material culture in the ritual of Black everyday life. - Dr Shawn Sobers
Shawn emailed me a non-published book chapter of his writing, which focuses on 'hair directly, and the relationship I had with my own hair and used it as an artwork.' The writing focuses on his relationship with his dreadlocks and how he cut them off when his brother died. He then used them within his art work, creating the Wawa Aba symbol, which symbolises hardiness, toughness and perseverance. His relationship with his hair relates back to race, religion and culture."The growing and cutting of dreadlocks for Rastafari is a personal thing, 9 though depending on who was asking and the circumstance, I did tend to say why I did it when asked. Days turned into months turned into a year, and I decided to make a photograph in tribute to Delvin, part of my ongoing slow-burning series in which I make the Ghanaian Adinkra symbols 10 made out of collections of different objects that form the symbol shape, and photograph them as pieces of sculpture from above."
His writing is very clearly focusing on race and his personal relationship with both how he used to wear his hair due to rastafarian culture and also what hair can symbolise to different people. Within my project, I have obviously had my own personal connection to hair itself, due to my own experiences with hair loss, however I am also interested in other peoples personal connections to hair, to how and why they wear their hair a certain way and how they feel hair actually takes up a significant amount of attention and focus within their lives.
His writing is very clearly focusing on race and his personal relationship with both how he used to wear his hair due to rastafarian culture and also what hair can symbolise to different people. Within my project, I have obviously had my own personal connection to hair itself, due to my own experiences with hair loss, however I am also interested in other peoples personal connections to hair, to how and why they wear their hair a certain way and how they feel hair actually takes up a significant amount of attention and focus within their lives.