Street Style and Blogging

There are lots of lovely books being published at the moment but Brent Luvaas’ Street Style: An ethnography of fashion blogging seemed an appropriate choice. It is part of the Dress, Body, Culture series from Bloomsbury Academic and many of them are worth a look. For those interested in researching themselves, it might be useful to see how Luvaas developed the methodology for his research. Not only did he research the work of and talk to fashion bloggers, he became one. He claims that the “book was written ‘on the street’ through a day to day interaction with the city of Philadelphia… and was written online through ‘fieldnotes’ posted… on my street style blog, Urban Fieldnotes.” (p.19.) Striking images from his blog punctuate the book, illustrating concepts of the public’s representation of itself, the democratisation of fashion, the business of street photography, and the life of the fashion blogger blurring boundaries between the professional and amateur commentator.

Proddy Rag Rug

I’ve been looking for a rag rug workshop for some time and finally found one at The Spring in Havant. Led by Penelope Davis, we had a gentle introduction to the technique of proddy rag rugging. I came away with a dauntingly large piece of rug canvas with just a small, central circle of tufted rags. Will I ever finish it? Well, I’ve decided to take inspiration from Terry Frost for TRAC’s September exhibition and I am aiming to work the rug with that in mind. I’ve also promised Izi at the People’s Gallery in Ryde, that I will run a proddy rug workshop there on September 24th. I’m looking forward to it – a new venture, and it will make me finish this rug!