Fashion and Faith: New T- Shirt Range

This is my T-Shirt range named: Crucified Superstar. I have combined the subjects of Christianity and Gay Culture- two subjects that haven't exactly got along in the past few centuries. This T-Shirt range is trying to voice the opinion I like to believe Jesus would have on Homosexuality if he was alive today, as his completely open self, with the pinch of humour I hope he would have.

I have chosen 6 images of Jesus Christ and altered them on Photoshop to depict him as a gay Icon. I have also used Gay slang such as "Werk It" which basically means do your thing and "She loves it" which is a term of endearment that could come from anyone, as she could mean you, me, her, him or it. In most of the T-Shirts you will find Jesus wearing rather outlandish makeup. This is a reference to the Drag Queens in gay culture. Usually if you go to any gay club, district or Pride festival, there will be Drag Queens galore, think of them as the fairies of Gay Land. In one T-shirt I have a translucent photograph a man kissing another man's forehead, wether these men are in love or are simply heterosexual friends I do not know, I chose the photograph because it demonstrates some sort of "love" between two men. I put a picture of Jesus being crucified in the background because overall, I wanted to convey the message of thousands of men being crucified for whom they choose to love. I have also made use of the iconic Rainbow Flag, used as a flag for LGBT's across the world. The Rainbow Flags are often displayed in gay districts, gay festivals, gay protests and online to raise LGBT awareness. In two T-Shirts I have specifically placed Rainbow Halo's around Jesus' head as a statement of how I believe he would feel about homosexuality if he were alive today.

The T-Shirt range is mostly for people who want to convey the same message as myself.

The age of my target audience would vary widely from around 14 to 60's, as there are people of all ages who would like to wear these t-shirts as a statement, if you go to gay pride marches there is always a wide variety of people. There is no specific gender for my target audience as a lot of my target audience probably won't specify with a specific gender. I'd say my target audience could be anyone who wants to raise awareness for the LGBT community in a cool and fresh way.

Fashion and Faith: T-Shirt Range Plan

This is my first T-shirt range I have named it: Crucified Superstar. I edited iconic images of Christianity to make them look more pop and fashionable.

My target audience is for people aged around 14 to late 20's, because my range could be seen as quite controversial and young people like to be controversial. My target audience will be stylish and trendy as Religious clothing is trending at the moment as seen on runways such as Givenchy and Dolce and Gabbanna. My target audience could be more specifically menswear as similar T-shirts from Givenchy and Topman are mostly wore by men, however my T-shirts are unisex and still available to women.

I have used multiple filter galleries and cutting tools to create these t-shirts. I have also changed, color hue, saturation, contrast and lighting.

Fashion and Faith: Mood Boards

Christianity and Homosexuality

The theme for this moodboard is the relationship between Christianity and Homosexuality. I wanted to convey the hateful views on homosexuality holded by some Christians. Homosexuals have been persecuted for many years because of Christian beliefs that Homosexuality is wrong. The colour scheme I have used is quite pale and blue, I did this to create a cold feel. All the sources are secondary that I have gathered from the internet. I have used two pieces from the art duo; Gilbert and George. I chose to use their work as I know they are a gay couple who often publically speak about the corruptness of christianity. I used photoshop to create the mood board. I am happy with how my mood board demonstrates a certain darkness to the relationship between christianity and homosexuality, however I wish I could have the cut the signs out more precisely.
 

 

Ancient Egyptian

 

The theme of my mood board is Ancient Egyptian. I wanted to gather the some of the most recognisable of things from this era to inspire me. The background is heiroglyphics; which is what the egyptians wrote in. Their is a picture of Cleopatra; the last pharaoh of Ancient Egypt, a picture of Tutankhamun, four images of Canopic jars; which were used to hold the mummies organs, an image of a mummified baby, Anubis; god of the underworld, the sphinx, and the eye of horus on a pyramid. I also included a look from the Christian Dior Haute Couture 2004 show as it was heavily influenced by Ancient Egypt. My colour scheme is mostly nudes and golds with a hint of blue, because this is a recognisable Egyptial colour scheme. I used photoshop and the interent to gather and alter these secondary sourcwa. I like this mood board because I feel like it has a lot on it without looking too cluttered.

Fashion and Faith: Gilbert and George

                   Gilbert and George

Gilbert Prousche and George Passmore are two artists, known together as "Gilbert and George". Gilbert was born in Italy and studied art before moving to England. George was born and raised in Plymouth in the UK by his poor single mother. They both met at Saint Martin's school of Art where it was "love at first sight."

Gilbert and George are known for being rather anti-religious; “When we walk to dinner, we pass churches that also have opinions, like the one that says, The bloody death of Jesus was for you. That's quite aggressive, no? Or the worst one, the really horrible one, is ‘I am the way.’ That's horrific, isn' it? Just one person is the only way in life? It's like Hitler.” said George

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some of their work often looks like a stained glass window, such as this piece which was infact made of glass. Not only is it considered blasphemous to put ones self on a stained glass window, but they have also referenced hinduism with the font of the blue writing and the pair of hands at the bottom.

“It’s all religion in the end – that’s the big problem. Inventing evil and sin, and limbo, and hell and purgatory… just to terrorise us forever. Mortal sin? Living with sin? Extraordinary stuff. We don’t believe you have to be religious to behave yourself. We have to sort out a system for ourselves, because religion is something untouchable – a god that invented god to terrorise you.” protests Gilbert

Fashion and Faith: Riccardo Tisci

Riccardo Tisci was born in Taranto, Italy and graduated from Central Saint Martins before becoming creative director of Givenchy. Riccardo is a very religious man and said about his A/W 2011 menswear collection:  ”Religion is a big part of my DNA and this collection was about my Catholic(ism) and every other religion in a way.”

Riccardo Tisci designed this Givenchy menswear Spring/Summer 2013 collection around "the confessions of a young Catholic boy." There were round black and white collars like that of a priest and bomber jackets with images of Madonna and Child. 

Riccardo Tisci is known for being inspired by religion for alot of his work and this is displayed thouroughly in his religious themed issue of visionaire.



“Today, so much fashion, and art and music, involves pleasing the client. So I said right from the beginning that, even though I am at Givenchy, I didn’t want any [fashion] credits in the magazine. The contributors could use vintage clothing, they could use a single piece of fabric, they could do what they wanted. And there are a lot of nudes. In religious painting and sculpture there are a lot of nudes, too – Christ is portrayed nude, angels are portrayed nude. We were all born naked.”

Fashion and Faith: Christian Dior Spring/Summer 2004

This collection for Christian Dior is one of John Galliano's most memorable, and he gathered his inspiration and research whilst travelling on a hot air balloon over Egypt. It is not hard to see what inspired Galliano for the collection with the indulgent amount of gold metallic and beautifully crafted sphinx masks. John Galliano really went to town with the Ancient Egyptian theme and referenced nearly every aspect of their culture and beliefs. There were long chin straps to reference Osiris: god of the afterlife and masks of Anubis: god of the underworld. In this collection, every flash of gold, pyramid shaped sleeve, elongated brow or sparkling scarab beetle belt is an homage to the Dior girl, who wants to channel the beauty and power of an Eyptian goddess.

Fashion and Faith - Lucia Giacani

In 1976, the fashion photographer; Lucia Giacani was born. She was born in Jesi, Italy and has attended the Advanced Institute for the Artistic Industries in Rome. She is now a freelance photographer and is currently working from her studio in Milan. She often collaborates with the likes of Vanity Fair, Vs, Tatler HK, Noi.se, Glamour, Twill, Harrods magazines, Vogue Italia, Vogue Accessory, Vogue Russia and Vogue Gioiello.


Icons


Icons is a series of photographs for noi.se magazine in November 2010 and they were also showcased at Cannes fashion photography festival in July 2011. Make up and Styling by Aaron Henrikson.
The work has been heavily influenced by religion, femininity and divinity. Her work is also influenced by paintings of famous religious women such as Saint Mary, Saint Anne or Saint Dorothy.
 

As seen in this painting of the Virgin Mary by Mirjana Gotovac, she is often depicted with a sense of complete holiness. Over the years she has been most often painted with a halo or some other circular issue around her head to represent a halo.  Lucia Giacani has done this most clearly in picture 8 except it is pink and filled to represent a modern femininity. She also references a halo in pictures 3, 5, 6, and 7. In the two darker pictures 4 and 5, the model is depicted with dark pink coming from her eyes in the manner of blood. This is a reference to the bleeding eyes of Mother Mary. Mary is always painted wearing a headscarf as a good Christian woman is meant to:

“But I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God. Every man praying or prophesying with his head covered, disgraces his head. But every woman praying or prophesying with her head uncovered disgraces her head, for it is the same as if she were shaven. For if a woman is not covered, let her be shaven. But if it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, let her cover her head. A man indeed ought not to cover his head, because he is the image and glory of God. But woman is the glory of man. For man was not created for woman, but woman for man. This is why the woman ought to have a sign of authority over her head, because of the angels.” - New Testament (1 Corinthians 11:3-10)

In "Icons" the model has her head covered in every photograph, this is to show her divinity and her representation of female Christian icons.

"Icons" is a series of photographs of a model representing the femininity and divinity of women religious figures, none to be specific. The subject matter is a model who has been styled in rich goddess-like clothing and holds feminine objects such as an angel, a flower, a sphere, a love heart, a doll and petals. Lucia has then used lighting and a backdrop, then took pictures of the model. Using professional editing software, she has then gone on to edit the pictures to create a biblical, artistic effect. You could say "Icons" is all the old and worshipped paintings of female religious figures, updated and modernised for the fashion magazines of today. The pictures are in single format, this is to make the messages conveyed more powerful. The colour scheme of the shoot is very soft and feminine colours. colours such as pink, white or cream and more rich and indulgent colours such as gold or hot pink. Lucia has used contrast in the pictures. For example, picture 1 is mostly white and represents light, virginity and purity, whereas picture 5 is mostly black with a rich flash of hot pink. Perhaps this to represent the darkness and death of the icon, and the rich pink represents indulgence.

The work is very aesthetically pleasing to the eye and intrigues the viewer with the splashes of rich colours against softer pale colours. The work is very mysterious and enticing to view. In picture 1 her skin and clothing is a pale off-white. The viewers eyes are instantly attracted to small circles of skin colour around her eyes. We then see her glazed eyes looking past the camera and we are wondering what she is looking at. This creates a sense of mystery and also references the iconic paintings of Christian women figures who are also depicted looking away.

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My favorites from NYFW SS14 PART 3:

Altuzarra

Creatures of Comfort

Derek Lam

DKNY

Hood by Air

Jeremy Laing