Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life

OK there have been some quite angry articles on my blog of late dealing with some very serious topics from the political crisis in the Crimea to the freedom of speech in Singapore. I am going to write about a more lighthearted topic for a change. Let's revisit one of my favourite topics: fashion.

Now I have become a huge fan of the American comedy Veep - and this is in fact the American version of the British comedy The Thick Of It, which I am also a big fan of. I'm glad to see that the American version is not just a remake of the original British version but is totally different - do check them both out as they are both brilliant. One thing that I have picked up on is Veep is the use of costume to create certain caricatures of characters - Jonah is the vile creep that nobody likes and Mike is the loser who is an ageing fossil, out of touch with the modern world.

So whilst the other characters like Amy, Sue, Dan and Gary (Gary's borderline here - he's normally decently dressed but there was one episode in series 1 when he was badly dressed) actually dress quite well, the actors playing Jonah and Mike are subject to a lot of quite hideous costumes just to send out the message "creep" or "loser". Jonah has his signature badly mismatched woolen jumper to complete his "creep" and "social outcast" look.  It was so funny yesterday because I went to the gym after having watched an episode of Veep and I ran into my neighbour in the lift - and he wore a jumper that looked just like the one that Jonah wore in the episode I had just watched. So I said to him, "oh I was watching TV earlier and there was someone who wore a jumper just like that." And he said, "Oh really? I do like this sweater." LOL, he actually thought I was paying him a compliment. I left it at that, I didn't have enough time to explain before the lift got to the ground floor. What's the point anyway - he's a lost cause.

I know what some of you may say, oh give that poor neighbour a break - he just wants to stay warm in the cold winter, sometimes keeping warm is more important than looking stylish. Well, in response to that I would like to point out that one can stay warm and be stylish at the same time - it is not an 'ether stay warm or look sexy' choice. Besides, if we were in Siberia where winter temperatures can hit -70°C then fair enough, wear what you have to wear to stay alive and not freeze to death. But in London where it is 10 degrees in March (newsflash: winter is over, it is officially spring now), you don't want send out the message that you are so paranoid about feeling cold that you're willing to wear anything however hideous just to keep warm - or that you really don't care how hideous you look because you have no one to impress or nothing important to do that day. Tut tut. Oh dear.

How do you judge the characters you see on TV?

So yeah, incredibly enough, there are people who do wear articles of clothing which send out the message 'creep' or 'loser' and they are completely oblivious to it. They probably can watch the same episode of Veep and be oblivious to what the costume department has done with these characters. You see, for some of us who have been aware of fashion all our lives, we have an internal radar that is hooked up with the fashion police - we can look at a piece of clothing and immediately come to the conclusion, "I couldn't possibly wear that - it has creep/loser written all over it."

Did I always have this fashion radar in my head? No, I didn't. It was something I had developed over the years and rather than tell you what to wear, I am going to explain the process of developing one's fashion radar in three simply steps. Now this is just for fun - so stop telling me I am a shallow vapid airhead who judges people by their appearances.

What would you make of a character dressed like that in a TV show?

1. Pick an inspiration for your image

This is about aspiration - think about the way people who are serious about football spend an awful lot of money buying the original kit of their favourite teams. Why? It sends out a message - you dress like your idols and heroes because you want to be like that, you are emulating their image of success. Furthermore, it sends out a positive first impression - we live in a world where people make snap judgments based on first impressions. This is a cycle that has been reinforced by the commercial aspect of fashion - football kits are big business and a real money spinner for the big football clubs, the more people buy these kits, the more the industry perpetuates the links between aspiration, image and attire. I didn't make the rules - I am just making a social observation here.

So if you work in the corporate world, the you should pick an image that will send out a picture of success - imagine for a moment that your life is a comedy like Veep and you are the costume designer for the programme. Now do you want to dress your character like Danny Chung the extremely popular and charming young governor of Minnesota who is the potential future president or Jonah Ryan - the creep who is disliked by everyone in the show? Let's face it - each episode of Veep is about 27 to 28 minutes long, they don't have enough time to explore deep complex characters and it is a comedy. So they don't beat around the bush - they don't try to be too complex: Jonah is creepy and a loser, everyone hates him, he is the object of ridicule in the show. The audience is not meant to sympathize with him, he is not given any redeeming features in series 1 and 2 - there are no redeeming features even what his character gets to wear. Whereas with Danny Chung - he is portrayed to be this greatest threat that will stop the VP from becoming the next president. Everything about him is designed to shout "success" and every image you see of him on screen supports that. Again, we live in a shallow world, not my rules - I am just making another observation here.

What about this character then - if you saw him on a TV show?

Now you may say, "Alex, that's just TV, it's just a show, it is just light entertainment." But how often do we act like that in real life and judge someone based on first impressions? Sure we have very good friends and family members whom we know very well, but think about the number of people whom we deal with on a daily basis whom we don't know well and pass judgement based on first impressions? Oscar Wilde once wrote, "Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life". This is ever so true, as the way we relate to people is becoming more and more influenced by he media we consume - we are not just being entertained when we watch a TV programme like Veep, it goes far deeper than that.
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I remember back in the 1980s, watching TV meant watching whatever my dad wanted to watch and I had the choice of either joining him in front of the TV or going to study/read in my room. And whilst my dad had final say about what programme we watched, he basically had the choice of SBC channels 5, 8 or 12. Whoopee. In 2014, I can dig up anything from an obscure Korean art house film to a popular American TV series to old British classics from the 1970s on the internet. We are honestly spoilt for choice in this day and age because of how many of us are using our high speed internet connections to watch TV now.

Thus when we have so much more choice over what we get to watch over the internet, we are allowing it to influence us so much more because it is something we have actively chosen to watch, rather than something that just happens to be on TV that night. There's no longer the, "oh well, we'll watch this because there's nothing else on tonight." If you get bored with a programme, you can so easily cut your loses and just choose to watch something else. So this experience of judging characters we see on TV carries over into our real life, when we are so conditioned by the exercise of making snap decisions based on first impressions when we see a character like Jonah on Veep - it took me like 5 seconds to work out that he was meant to be the creep in the show from the moment he appeared and I was right. Years of watching TV makes us act the same way in real life, it is a form of modern social condition. Thus we have to start thinking like a costume designer for a TV show when we dress ourselves for the real world.

2. Consider the message you are sending out with your choices

So with the TV approach in mind, think about the role you want to play - who do you want to be in your place of work (or at university, at your gym etc)? If your life was a TV programme, what kind of message are you sending to the viewers watching you? Are you the IT geek who is still a virgin? Are you the femme fatale who is out to seduce and craves attention? Are you the busy mother of two who has no time to take care of herself? Are you the vegan hippie who doesn't care about social norms? Are you the well groomed man who oozes easy charm with each smile? Are you insecure older person who is suspicious of everyone younger? Are you the alcoholic who has a serious anger management problem? Are you the marathon runner who is as hard as nails? Are you the guy who really hates his job and spends each moment wishing he was doing something else? Yes I am talking about people I know and you'll be amazed how they display their characters in a variety of ways - including their wardrobe choice.

And what would you make of this character if you saw him in a TV show then?

3. Look in the mirror

That's right. Simply look at the mirror and tell me what you see. Pretend that you don't know the person in the reflection and just look at what s/he is wearing and guess what role s/he plays in this TV programme. And be totally honest with yourself - you don't need to tell me or anyone what you honestly think of what you see in the mirror. If you're not happy with what you see, then just imagine you're working as the costume designer in a big TV production - what wardrobe choices would you make to convey a different message about this character then? Maybe you want to change the message that you have been sending out to your viewers all the time or perhaps you're perfectly happy with what you see in the mirror. Either way, have a look in that mirror and spend a few moments scrutinizing...

So that's it for me on this issue - give it a go, let me know what you think, leave a comment below. Thanks for reading!