Further literature research
Myths & Structure
— Jean Baudrillard
In The Consumer Society, the writer points out the development and essence of consumerism in contemporary culture.
Fashion, Dress and Modern Social Theory
— Joanne Entwistle
In The Fashion Body, the writer put emphasis on different social meanings of the body, connecting the body with fashion and dress.
Name of the project: Dismemberment of the body and perceptions of identity
Description about the topic based on the research
In this project, I connected the mirror to this five key words, consumerism, the body, makeup, self-identity and fragments and then make it about dismemberment of the body and perceptions of identity. And as for the feeling of dismemberment of the body, it base on the common view that consumerism becomes one of the main factors that increase status anxiety among people especially female.
In my point of view, consumerism’s impact on the body and perceptions of identity works like a cycle.
For the sake of economic benefit, consumerism create demand and desire as much as possible by defining every part of the body with new rules and standard.
For example, a tiny A4 paper waist challenge has been very popular among chinese young girls. A good waistline is defined with the width of a4 paper and girls are told that it is necessary and even urgent to buy a slimming waist shaper or a fitness class.
And even an eye, a smallest organ, is divided into several parts that require several kinds of eye products
Those norms therefore control and dismember the body. Consumers then do more shopping aiming to each part of the body to meet the increasing rules and beauty definition and what they do then boost consumerism to a large extent.
However the project is not about anti-makeup, but aims to reveal a phenomenon that by the impact of consumerism, a person is no longer viewed through an entire human body, but through those parts which have been divided and defined separately and this may do harm to perceptions of identity.