In the video, "Type in Couture"
The speaker, Elizabeth Carey Smith examines the prolific nature of making an image within the industry of creativity, arts and fashion. Smith is herself a personality with a career in the fashion industry because she is a creative director for type and brands in New York City.
Exploring the history of fashion
By presenting a beautiful and colorful exploration of the history of fashion, her presentation focuses on the typographic and memorable trends that have been etched into the history of fashion and hence defining it in various dimensions. The presentation presents research into the fashion field, which is fused with interviews with leading directions of fashion, design, art and met costume in New York. Her speech inherently examines the underlying nature of image, its making, and its essence within the fashion industry. In a nutshell, from an individual reflection point of view, Smith's general idea in this presentation is that inventing oneself involves creating the most ideal image of oneself since fashion is about self-expression and self-invention.
Fashion as self-expression and self-invention
In shaping self-expression and self-invention, fashion represents both the insecure and secure was in which people reflect themselves to themselves as well as to those around them. Fashion is therefore from within and also committed to the personal image outside oneself. For instance, our fashion could be defined as uninspiring or superfluous if most of the times that is the fashion choices we go with. Fashion also represents great art, one whose sociological beginning and deeper roots are just as impactful as the manner in which the clothing and customization itself has evolved. Consequentially, fashion is important in bridging the gap between the personal and the professional part of the individual, because it discloses critical information about those adopting fashion and the people surrounding them.
The role of typology
On the same note, Smith makes a similar point about typology. She argues that it provides an expression and also serves an informative purpose. Typology can therefore be seen even though it is also hidden most of the time. The level of visibility in typology is determined by the makers of – designers (typeface) and the users – graphic type of designers. In a similar form just like fashion, type is also around us all the time since it cannot be separated from everyday life. The only way that type distinguishes itself from fashion is due to the fact that it is literal in most ways, while on the other hand fashion can be regarded as nebulous. Regardless of this, both type and fashion are greatly affected by context, even though the interpretations attached to fashion are much broader due to the society focusing mostly on self-awareness and perception.
Convergence of type and fashion
In a nutshell, the central argument of the presentation speech by Elizabeth Carey Smith is that fashion can reconcile with one another because most of the time they appear alongside one another. Whether it is in rollouts conducted by various brands, within editorial coverages, or within presentations by fashion labels, both type and fashion collectively provide a feeling of precedent, a gamut of appropriation, and a feeling of cliché. By exploring the development of fashion through presenting information on how various brands have embraced both type and fashion, the speakers shows that regardless of the distinction between type and fashion, the two incidentally meet and are represented all around us.
Work Cited
TypoTalks.com.
Elizabeth Carey Smith: Type in Couture. TYPO International Design Talks, www.typotalks.com/videos/type-in-couture/.
