Refashion.

The following is a snippet of my research statement for my Comm Tech & Culture final essay on the topic of remediation.

Hairspray, Colour, and Pumps: Refashion Me, Please

Society is in a war against authenticity and objectivity. Since the dawn of perspective, people have lost their belief in one truth and found many instead. No one individual is entirely correct because each person has the power to produce meaning. Society are the spectators, the viewers, and the gazers who idealize images, fashions, and strategies in their own culture and add a little bit of personal flare. “A person’s trash is another person’s treasure,” is a perfect example of this concept.
New ideas are taken from past exposures and made into something different. This different compilation may be composed of parts from the past and parts of the individual creating a refashioned product. This process is referred to as remediation. Remediation challenges assumptions in the digital age. It argues that new visual media are refashioned or remediated perspectives of media (Bolter and Grusin). Paintings were remediated through the introduction of film and digital photography, which also evolved into cinema. Music has also been refashioned; from the record to the mp3 file. One of the most common used phrases, “history is repeating itself” is still true today with these remediations as well as with developing fashion. The fashion of the 1980’s has been remediated to fit in the new 2009 culture through bright coloured pumps, the layering of vibrant tank tops, and leg warmers.
Though 80s fashion made a big statement through big, 6 inch tall hair, 2009’s version of this ideology has been changed to suite the change of time. Though many women continue to wear huge sunglasses, bright colours, and leg warmers and many men continue to wear high top converse, each article worn has been adjusted to accustom an individual’s subjectivity. Kristin Carlson from the Montclarion magazine of Montclair State University voiced her opinion in her article called “Today’s Trends Mirror 80’s Fashion.”
“Drop-waisted dresses and/or long shirts worn with a belt over them are extremely unflattering. Short girls appear shorter, and even Calista Flockhart would look bigger around the middle. Some trends from the 80's are not as prominent as others because as time goes by, we (hopefully) grow smarter, and therefore know the difference between good and bad fashion,” she said (Carlson).
Remediation is also referred to as the correction of something bad or defective. Big hair and high waisted belts may not be as flattering now as they were in the 80’s because of societal and cultural realization and change. Nonetheless, the attractive attire from the 80s is still used on the runway and the streets. Perhaps girls have invaded their mother’s closets and boys have found their father’s old pair of sneakers, but each one of those girls and boys have added their own fashion to the original to make a personal remediation.


Works Cited:
Bolter, Jay David and Richard Grusin. "Remediation: Understanding New Media." Feb 2000 16 Feb 2009 .
Carlson, Kristen. "Today's Trends Mirrors 80's Fashion." The Montclarion 21 Oct 2004