What do people wear? Not in magazines, but in daily life?
Because clothes are a necessity, or our second skin, they reflect life itself. I like to look at what people are wearing on the train or at the station. Especially older people, who are rarely represented in publications.
Fashion is predominantly understood as a form of self-expression, but even if the wearer is not actively exploiting this aspect of clothing, the clothes are there on that person, after coming out into the world. I feel something profound in this phenomenon, which is happening every single day.
When we think of why we wear what we wear, I realize it quite often boils down to the fact that it was available. Instead of going for made-to-order, most of us make a choice from what is for sale at the moment. And even made-to-order begins from a set of options.
So, many of our choices are partly defined by what is manufactured and sold. Of course there are a multitude of choices and that is where our individual tastes and circumstances come in, but even those factors are influenced by our surroundings.
Further up the line, what is manufactured is determined by what manufacturers think people will want to wear and also what they can afford to make and distribute. Would we be wearing cotton T-shirts so casually if cotton weren’t such an accessible material?
Our choices are never completely our own. It’s a manifestation of all the aspects of the times we live in.
Ai Tomiki 