The Glam-Rock Culture

“Glam culture is ultimately rooted in obsession, and those of us who are truly devoted and loyal to the lifestyle of glamour are masters of its history. Or, to put it more elegantly, we are librarians.”  - Lady Gaga

That evening, March 31, I was reading a lot of stuff. Fashion stuff. I was thirsty of the new culture in fashion. For me, fashion is not only about expensive clothes or judging people who have a collection sold at Walmart, it is also about culture, things that have been going around life. Then I was wondering, what is the root of fashion? How was the feeling when people realize for the very first time that fashion defined their caste?
Then I found an interesting article about The Glam Culture on Rolling Stone. They interviewed Lady Gaga, the queen of controversy. The Glam Culture itself was miss-understood as the movement of gay people, long before the LGBT rights were discussed seriously. The discrimination of seeing the culture with another style in fashion world was clearly declared. But Lady Gaga, with her unique character in her style (that was influenced by the pop and rock culture), broke the wrong interpretation. She stands out with her Glam-Rock Culture.

Gaga with a very-New-York rocker style

Long before Gaga, there were Freddie Mercury, David Bowie, and Elton John with their Glam-Rock character. But then again, we need to highlight the word 'long before'. There is nearly no singer who actually brings this style back to live. "Everything from vintage books and magazine I found at the Strand on 12th Street to my dad's old Bowie posters to metal records from my best friend Lady Starlight to Aunt Merle's hand-me-down emerald-green designer pumps were sprawled all over the floor about two feet from my bathroom and four inches from my George Foreman Grill," explains Gaga clearly in the interview. She stated that she's influenced by the old metal records and another Glam-Rock stuff. She actually experienced it. The pop singer recently made another controversy by performing one of her songs while being thrown up by the vomit artist, Millie Brown. At the SXSW keynote speech event she explained that as an artist, everybody should have the freedom to express, not to say yes to everything the management says.

Gaga being thrown up on a swine rodeo

For me, that is the spirit of the true Glam-Rock Culture. In this 2014, I must say that the culture is not always related with the gay movement. It's about freedom to express and freedom to experience the soul of the culture. The root itself was actually from the experience of having the freedom in the past, breaking any rules just to have the moment where we can be who we truly are. The Glam-Rock Culture is the way to experience it. The way to be free.

Sources:
The Twisted Tale of Glam Rock
Lady Gaga Declares Herself 'Librarian of Glam Culture' (Rolling Stone)

Do Men Have Icons?

David Beckham, the main icon for men

There’s a story when I went to barbershop. The barber asked to the customer what kind of hair that he’d like to have. He said that he wanted a style like David Beckham. Then I couldn’t help but wonder do men only have one icon, only for their hair?
It’s different from women. They have Kate Moss, Princess Diana, or Anna Wintour. Black women have Oprah Winfrey and Michelle Obama who always dress perfectly from head to toe. Even fashion freaks have Isabella Blow and Daphne Guiness. They have someone to look up to when they dress.
On the other side, men are more experimental. People that they (fashion lovers) look up to constantly change, and they always look for items that are trends. I personally never look up to someone. One time I really wanna look like Johnny Depp (yeah, freak), the next day I wanna look like Nolan Funk (which is, you know, cool). One of my friends is also influenced by different things especially Asian style. He tries different combinations of hair, tees, and pants. He experiments. So I got into this conclusion that men generally only have an icon for their hair.
Maybe someday when men’s fashion is equal to women’s, we will hear something like, “Hey Johnny Depp is my fashion icon and I wanna look like him!” from men.

Changing Something When You Are… Something

Some things don’t need to be changed. But in fashion, if you are a powerful or influential person in the business, what would you change?

A campaign to save Anna Wintour, just because she's powerful.

Mine is to create the exact boundaries between men fashion and feminism, because the line is getting Blurry. Not to mention big brands like J.W. Anderson that always make the collection for men that has feminism side. It’s one of the powerful characters in men fashion, knowing that a lot of men already have the feminism style. But for me, it really needs the exact boundary. Remember when Burberry styled their models in quite feminist style in their AW14 show? Even though they really want to put that in their collection, maybe they can more style their models like Versace (which had a bolder concept) and it should really different from J.W. Anderson which basically has a feminism from the first time. I was actually inspired by the risk that Anna Wintour took earlier in her career. She risked herself because she wanted to change the concept of Vogue’s cover. But she was right and Vogue is now one of the biggest magazines in the business.
Changing something is not quite necessary when you are someone in the field. You can develop what does already exist. But changing something can put you into the list of people that must be considered, just like Anna.