TREND

These past weeks, we have been working on a trend presentation. We started by taking a look around us and finding something, that we thought might be a new trend. Like saying “I see a lot of young men with beard these days - how might I analyze that, and make a trend from it?”

There were many different subjects, for example selfies, filters and self-promoting of different kinds, or a back-to-nature kind of lifestyle. I chose the current situation between Russia and Ukraine, or even Russia and the world. I find it very scary and overwhelming, and there seems to be nothing I can do as an individual. People are talking about invasion and World War lll, and I can’t help but wondering, if we as humans have not become any smarter since the last one? It feels like a massive cloud of madness, power and destruction, that no one can really do anything about, besides trying to fight it with violence, as the Ukrainians, or financial restrictions, which seems to be a big joke to a certain Russian leader (and the rest of us) anyway.

It seems so unrealistic to me, that a nation can take over an area of another country, start a civil war, and claim to not even be a part of it. Are we not in the 21st century or what? Should things not happen in a some sort of diplomatic way? Guess not. At the same time, I realize that I may not be right to judge the Russian people or even Putin, because I know, or I think I know, that the Russian people in general are very happy with Putin. I believe they are being manipulated, physically and psychologically, but how am I to really know? There are always two sides to a story, I guess.

As you can see, this takes up a lot of space in my mind, and it is very difficult to translate a subject so horrible and serious into something trendy. It seems kind of ridiculous. But I couldn’t let it go. It’s a fact, that after a war, the losers often copy elements of the winners uniform, to put on their own. As in decorating yourself with the image of the winner, which sometimes means the image of your enemy. Not very logical to me, but interesting. I also know, that there are different kinds of uniforms suited for different kinds of landscapes, like forrest or desert. In Ukraine, where civilians are now fighting the pro-Russian separatists (or Russian soldiers, if you ask the BBC) the civilians don’t have any uniforms. They use whatever they have to protect themselves, meaning that they are in battle using motorcycle helmets, diving goggles, masks of different kinds and so on. The image of it (which you can see on the “form” board) is both frightening and funny to look at because it looks like kids playing war, but it is actually adults in a very real war.

Having a kind of “urban warrior” in mind, I tried to use elements from different kinds of soldiers, Russian and Ukrainian, in a fashionable way. That is actually not very hard to do, it instantly looks pretty cool. The hard part is to not forget the enormous conflict you are trying to translate - I didn’t want to make it into fashion, that doesn’t communicate what I’m trying to say - which might just be, that we should be aware of the situation, and that this should not be happening. Don’t just forget it. So I thought about statement fashion, where you literately put a statement on your clothes.

I didn’t want it to become a “Bevar Christiania” shirt that many people wear without even really knowing anything about Christiania. So I chose to make the statements, like “Free Ukraine” or “bring them home”, hidden for those who are not a part of the conflict, by writing them in Russian, using the Cyrillic alphabet. So to people who understand, it will be real statement fashion. And to the rest of us, the letters will serve as decoration, and together with the Russian and Ukrainian elements, I think that people's minds will still go to Russia, Ukraine and the current situation.

I wish that there was something I could do. Like many others, I have no idea what.