translation-ish
[header]
you're not dressed according to the current fashion
[down left corner]
He should ideally be working or studying,
But he wastes the time showing off his clothes.
For a narrow mind
The limit of imagination and dreams is a "brand".
It’s really cool to see a historic piece of propaganda that pushes in the opposite direction of US brand consumerism.
Seen through a contemporary feminist lens the message feels a little weird to me as it has some implications of telling women how to dress. I’ve had a boss tell the office that women need to stop wearing “such bright colored” clothing because it’s distracting. American school systems have dress code that often force traditional and conservative values of how women should dress and remain “modest”.
That makes me think about what a feminist and anti-capitalist fashion culture and industry would look like. The extreme of so called “fast fashion” that creates so much waste isn’t the answer, but I also don’t think conservative prescriptive fashion is great either. I sort of currently have a lifestyle that is dressing in the refuse garments of other consumers, and that obviously also wouldn’t be sustainable without the whole capitalist fashion industry as it is. IDK, what the answer is.
This piece does make me think a lot about how contemporary anti-consumerist propaganda can appeal to the dreams of women freely choosing their fashion away from both the patriarchs and the capitalists. 🤔
sure, but I don’t think that was the intention at the time
the woman in the pic is presented in the positive light compared to the guy, even though she has a lamentable-ish expression for some reason…
Yeah, I can’t speak to the cultural impacts at the time. It just brought up some of those feelings that I have from living in my cultural concept, and made me think a lot about what a liberated fashion even is.
I def think it’s a cool piece of historic artwork/propaganda. It made me think about a lot of things critically which is what great art does ☺