Question
As for the alumni, the school uniforms they wore have a special meaning. How can I make the worn-out uniforms into a meaningful thing?
Primary research
From research, I found that uniforms can not only be used as a tool to restrict and limit the freedom of human clothing, but they can also become a way of life, and everyone has a uniform lifestyle. After graduation, students have the power to dress freely, explore and have their style and way of dressing.
So uniform can be regarded as a symbol. It is the symbol of a specific form of expression in reality.
For example, playing guitar requires armor, students need to use Word documents, musicians need instruments to show their talent, painters need brushes, and so on. These are the embodiment of the uniform.
Certain people have certain uniforms, which are also equivalent to a way of life. It is also a symbol of the specific identity of a class of people or a group.
Secondary research
A uniform is not just a piece of clothing, it is a way of life, to reflect a person.
What uniform symbols do you give yourself? How you define this symbol is crucial.
I found three graduated students and asked them to take photos of their daily wear items, and I collected the photos. to know how is their daily wear preferences and what is uniform looks like for them.
How can I combine or exchange or associate different people’s uniform symbols? And create some new possibilities?
Stakeholders
An intervention was conducted with three fashion graduates who had previously worn uniforms. Fashion is a symbol for them. And the people who wear the uniform know more about the feeling of wearing the uniform and give the uniform more meaning, or the idea of change, or a feeling of missing.
Intervention
1. Stakeholders
Three fashion students who used to wear uniforms and now graduated.
2. Platform
I found someone I know in person or online and let them photograph daily and for at least three days.
3.Goals/Objectives
To better understand the present dressing style of these three observers and some uniform-related things.
How do they understand and interpret the symbol of fashion?
4. issues of support for intervention
For a graduated art student, what kind of dress, and some personalized dress style preference?
How can I enjoy it and become my symbol?
How can I find people’s styles and enjoy the freedom of dressing?
5. Activities/events that allow users to participate
I organized several graduate students to join my online communication group and asked them to share their daily clothes in the group, which was used to collect data.
6. The feedback
Art graduates have the freedom to dress and have found their own style of dressing, which makes the school uniform more meaningful.
Three graduated students have all found their style of dressing, so it can be seen that art students have realized their freedom of dressing and found their style after graduation, but I still need some non-art students to show more information. How do conduct a more comprehensive study?
In more ways, I will find graduates with different specific symbols, and people with different occupations and identities to study people’s understanding of UNIFORM SYMBOL.
User interviews
Craik, J., and Uniforms Exposed: From Conformity to Transgression (Dress, C., 2022. 9781859738047: Uniforms Exposed: From Conformity to Transgression (Dress, Body, Culture) – AbeBooks – Craik, Jennifer: 1859738044. [online] Abebooks.com. Available at: <https://www.abebooks.com/9781859738047/Uniforms-Exposed-Conformity-Transgression-Dress-1859738044/plp> [Accessed 1 September 2022].
Hertz, C. (2022). The Uniform: As Material, As Symbol, As Negotiated Object. Retrieved 1 September 2022, from https://www.academia.edu/4044048/The_Uniform_As_Material_As_Symbol_As_Negotiated_Object
Bickman, Leonard. 1974. The Social Power of a Uniform. Journal of Applied Social Psychology.
Bogatyrev, Petr. [1937] 1971. The Functions of Folk Costume in Moravian Slovakia. The Hague: Mouton. Bonami, Francesco, Maria Luisa Frisa, and Stefano Tonchi, eds. 2000. Uniform: Order and Disorder.
Ideas
Why is institution a symbol？ Why is it a symbol？ Why do these symbols become a unity?
How do these symbols become a unity?
Fashion is a symbol that many people want to have, but they don’t know how to have, so can people who have this good symbol influence those who don’t have it.
Those who successfully find their own symbols enjoy it, but how do I create or change something for the group of people who don’t get the right uniform symbol?
Or how do we get people who are currently in a symbol they don’t like and want to find their own symbol?
Reflections/learnings
Why is the fashion uniform a specific form of symbol?
1. Constraints,
2. The specific dressing style of some special groups can help people to judge their career or professional direction at a glance,
3. People want to show off themselves.
How do recombine different symbols or labels to make people have more diverse identities?
How can different single unified institutional symbols be combined to produce change?
challenges/limitations
It’s really hard to find more ideas through fashion graduates, to find people with different symbols, different uniforms.
Participants in the intervention, after finding their own uniform symbol, stick to or stay with a fixed symbol.
It cannot be defined that uniform symbols are a good phenomenon or a bad embodiment, and further investigation is needed.
It is just looking for stakeholders who own the symbol of fashion that is one-dimensional.
Opportunities/next steps