Author Archives: Kianmob

Process Post: What Now?

As this course is coming to an end I wonder what I should do with my website, I have put so much time and effort into it and it feels wrong to just ditch it.

Throughout this semester the task of creating my own digital space has taught me so much, I have learned about cyber infrastructures, digital gardens, and how to build an audience. Going into this course I thought I would be using my knowledge of fashion for this website, however looking back I now know that I have learned alongside my audience, by having to think of ideas for articles I have forced myself to educate myself further in order to be a reputable source.

While I won’t be continuing my website at the end of this course I have realized that it has served its purpose and beyond, not only has it taught me about publication, but it has also taught me about my interests, I believe I am both a better publisher and a better fashion enthusiast because of it.

Essay #2

We have learned how to create an online presence throughout this semester, and I believe that through “ChainStitch,” I have accomplished this. I have published new articles about every possible subject about fashion through my blog, and through this, I have learned how to find, relate to, and engage with my audience. An initial task to learn how to express my thoughts and interests professionally and engagingly has evolved into so many things for me, from learning about fashion through my research of my articles to job opportunities in the world of fashion.

When I began to create my publication, I was faced with choosing what subject my content focused on and how I would be presenting myself to my audience. Deciding how to “frame, curate, share, and direct (an) engagement stream” (Campbell) would be the first step in building my cyberinfrastructure. When choosing the topic on my blog, I chose one where I could speak on the topic with both passion and knowledge while still allowing myself to learn about the topic speaking on it. I also thought about how I would frame my digital garden; I knew I had a space where I could talk about my opinions about my interest rather than stating facts. I wanted my audience to understand that I am not above them, but instead we are equals, learning about this topic together(Suler 2004).

When I first began, I imagined my audience as those who were interested in fashion but had not been able to learn due to the elitism that the fashion community has. I decided to begin my first set of writings to be very basic, not using any jargon as not to alienate those who have not yet been introduced to the world of fashion. I would then begin using more niche terms and writing about more complex topics that would require past knowledge or reading my previous articles. I then realized that my audience was far more vast than previously thought. I saw those who didn’t even care about fashion, people who have worked in the industry for years, or people who knew far more than me. I saw how my blog was not for those who wanted to learn about fashion but rather for people who wish “to see and be seen, to socialize, and t feel as if they have the freedoms to explore a world beyond”(Boyd 2014)

If my blog were to be about fashion, I thought it important for my website to be very visually appealing. I used earth tones which recently have been extremely popular in manner, I added a playlist that ties into my blog. I also added a list of interesting pieces which I update regularly. Taking what I learned from Lecture Six (Designing yourself), I focused on my blog being simplistic with a consistent and unified design while still easy to use. Using what was established in class, I understood that most readers would only view one to two pages. Using this I used pictures and bold heading to help grab my audience’s attention, allowing for more engagement.

To address my audience directly, I thought it would be essential to have a casual conversational tone in most of my pieces. This helps establish a solid relationship with my audience as they know who they are listening to rather than some faceless, nameless entity. By using everyday language, I feel that it creates a mismatch with the serious tone that high fashion has. This helps break the stigma of my topic while fostering a community of respect between the creator and audience. I also added my personal social media to the site to put a face and personality to my blog, so my audience could better relate to me.

My thinking about publication has significantly changed since taking this course. At first, I had a straightforward and minimal understanding of how to relate to an audience. I was nervous and wary of putting my fashion knowledge to the test by showing it to an audience. Still, after receiving feedback from my peers and my audience, my confidence in the online presence I have created and in myself has grown dramatically. While I won’t be continuing with this blog in the future, I believe I have gotten so much out of this, the most important being an actual career in fashion. Through my blog, I was connected with an individual who works in fashion design. They saw my blog and offered me an apprenticeship in design. I believe this shows how a robust online presence can reach thousands of individuals you would have never met in real life.

Process Post: Understanding Who My Audience Is

For this process post I decided to post a link to my website on my personal social media, I then interacted with those who clicked on the link.

I interacted with them to understand who my audience is and how I can better engage with them through my content. By doing this I feel like I can build strong connection with my audience, helping improve repeat visitors on my site.

The first thing I did was turn on my insights and announce I would be doing this (see my article about insights) to my audience so they would be aware. After this I waited 2 days for my audience to engage with my site through the link on my social media, after those two days I checked who engaged and spoke to them about what they thought about the website and what articles they enjoyed the most. The main theme of the feedback was that they enjoyed articles about things outside of specific brands or pieces, they mostly enjoyed educational themed articles rather than analytical articles.

Using this feedback I have focused mainly on articles that educate those on fashion rather than just describing things. By doing this I acknowledge my audience, helping improve repeat visitors.

I circled back with my audience letting them know that I have used their feedback and after this I have seen a 17% growth in repeat visitors.

Taking Care Of Your Clothes

This short article is going to go over how to take care of your pieces and why.

Why Should I Care?

The main reason you should care is obvious; why ruin a piece of clothing when you can take care of it and not have to buy another one?

The second is a bit more complicated. When you take care of your clothes you ensure that they wont be in the trash, this helps reduce the insane amount of waste that the fashion industry is responsible for. It also ensures that you won’t buy another piece, this helps reduce your carbon footprint as there is no need to transport the garment to you.

Cold Water Wash

This is a no-brainer, if you’re not washing towels or bath mats there is no need to wash something in hot water. When you wash something in warm water you damage your clothes in two ways. The first is what the heat does to your fabric, when cotton is exposed to heat it looses its elastic properties, causing it to become more stiff and fragile, breaking down the fibres. The second way it damages your clothes is how it fades the colour, when the hot water seeps into the fabric it tends to cause dye to release itself from the fabric, changing the original colour of the wash.

The only time you wouldn’t cold water wash something is when you have to hand wash the garment.

Hang Drying

This is super simple, hang dry everything you can, especially cotton pieces like shirts, hoodies, and sweats. When something is put into the dryer it removes the elasticity of the fabric, shrinking it and weakening the fibres. This is most prevalent in wool and cotton pieces.

Another way to dry things is to lay them flat, by laying them flat you prevent the weight of the fabric stretching the piece out. Honestly this is only really necessary with wool pieces as the knit can be loosened with gravity

Hand Washing

Hand washing is a huge pain, the only time you should do with is with wool and raw denim. Raw denim is un-bleached and unwashed denim which when washed looses a lot of its dye. Wool when washed can shrink like crazy, with cold water or hot. The best way to hand wash is the fill up a tub or a container with cold or barely lukewarm water with a little bit of gentle detergent and just scrunch the clothing.

By doing this you help maintain the original look and feel of the piece.

How Often

Washing clothes every time you wear them is a very dangerous idea, the only time you should wash something is when you sweat in them or get them dirty. The one thing you should wash every time is socks and underwear (DUH).

When you wash something every time you damage the fibres, regardless of how careful you are.

How To Store Clothes

OK, you washed your clothes, dried them, and now you have to put them away.

The first thing you need to do is to see how much space you have, I don’t have a clue how big of a space you have so I’m going to assume you have a mega mansion and your closet space is the size of a small country.

Shirts: I think that folding shirts on top of one another helps prevent maintaining the shape of the shoulders while also allowing your to find them easily, the only time you would hang them up is when they are a button-up or if you have very high quality hangers.

Pants: Pants should be always hung up, it helps so much with storage and makes them far easier to find, 20 pairs of jeans are hard to tell from one another when you only see the front of them.

Sweaters: Sweaters should be folded, no discussion. Gravity kills knit pieces by stretching them out, fold them in your closet and stack them on top of each other.

Tops and Jackets: Jackets and thick tops like hoodies or sweatshirts should be hung up with think hangers to prevent damaging the shoulders of the piece.

Shoes: Don’t be gross, have a shelf or container for your shoes so the dirt doesn’t get on your floor, anytime I go to a friends house and I see their shoes just laying around a little part of my middle-eastern soul dies

Fighting My Urge To Consume

Throughout my articles I have spoken on how lowering your consumption is a necessary part of being part of the fashion community, but what have I done to do this?

Before My Epiphany

Before I was educated on the impact fashion has on the enviroment and the awful things it does to those in sweatshop I was just like any other person. I would buy clothes in mass quantities without thinking, every week I would have another pair of shoes or some clothes arriving at my front door. At first it felt amazing, I was fulfilling a need that nearly every single person in a capitalist society has, a need to consume.

What Made Me Change?

While non-stop buying was nice I began to realize that no matter what I bought I still felt that I had nothing to wear. It felt as if my closet was useless, its only purpose being to store my impulse bought clothes. One day I sat down and went through my closet and I was shocked to uncover a pattern I have created. I would buy a new piece, wear it everyday for two weeks, get tired of it, and then not know what else to wear, this whole time I had been restricting my imagination and creativity.

I knew then that I had to lower my consumption, not only for my own creativity, but also for the environment.

What About Today?

Now while I do still buy clothes it is far less than before, I now often buy one piece once a month rather that 4-5 times a week. While ideally I would not buy anything at all, this is a start, and thats all it takes.

Process Post: A Change

For this process post, I decided to completely change my website.

I won’t have much to say in this post but I feel like you can see the bulk of my work on the site.

I thought that my site’s current theme was not as user-friendly as it could be, the first thing I did was find a theme that supported everything I would need. After finding a theme I ensured that all the necessary menus that were needed would be present. I included a few new widgets and a playlist as well.

I feel like all the things I changed were for one reason, the main one being that it helps the website to be easier to use. Even if I have the most interesting website on the planet it won’t matter if someone cant uses it. By redoing the site I have ensured that when my audience interacts with me it is as easy as possible, allowing them to focus on the content.

The Yeezyfication Of Fashion

Recently it seems that everyone is following one man’s style

The Year Of Ye

This year something very strange has happened in the world of fashion, one man has completely influenced it. That man was Ye (formally Kanye West). Ye has overtaken what fashion is in recent months, with many taking inspiration if not just copying his new style.

What is Ye’s new style?

Ye’s new style mostly stems from his friendship with Demna, Balenciaga’s new creative director. His style is often composed of rubber boots, slim jeans, and face masks. This style while seemingly simple does have merit, it creates a new silhouette, rubber boots are an amazing piece to have in your wardrobe.

What’s Wrong With It?

I think the main issue with this new style is how it has been received recently. While I believe that taking inspiration from people is a great way to build outfits, there is a huge difference between taking inspiration and just flat-out copying someone’s style. Many people have just simply taken the exact pieces Ye wears and tried to pass it off as a cool outfit but in reality, it’s just the ability to have money to spend on expensive clothes. This isn’t just regular people either, its celebrities, fashion houses, just about everyone who wants a piece of the Ye pie.

I think that it’s an awesome style, but when people just copy others it restricts innovation and perpetuates the fashion cycle.

Process Posts: Talking To A Stranger Part Two

This Process Post will focus on how speaking to a stranger has helped further my career in fashion.

Flashback!

In my first process post, I talked about how I spoke with someone who worked in costume design in film. I was extremely interested in their career so I took their contact information in order to ask them questions about a potential article I was writing. While I did not get to write this article I feel like what came from it was far more fruitful.

What Came From It?

After emailing them they offered for me to shadow them in costume design, they said that when a possible opening was available they would contact me and I would shadow them on set to learn about how costume design works.

Around 3 days later I was offered a spot on a small film 2 months from now, I would be focusing on continuity and helping actors get into their costumes. I was ecstatic, I immediately jumped at the opportunity and prepared myself.

What Was It Like?

After getting all the necessary tools (sewing kit, gloves, etc.) I got ready for a weekend of nonstop work. On a set most days are around 12 hours, the bulk of the work was when the actors came in the morning, I was focused on getting them into their costumes and ensuring that their costumes were accurate to what was expected. Other than just making sure that they were wearing the clothes correctly I was also doing the one thing that any fashion enthusiast hates doing, damaging the clothes. The movie was a style that required the clothes to look worn and dirty. I used tools like a seam ripper or fake dust to make the clothes look they have been through hell and back.

After the clothes were ready and the actors got dressed I was tasked with continuity, continuity on a set is the practice of making sure that the clothes look the same chronologically.

What I Learned

The main thing I learned from this experience is how far fashion’s reach goes, it allows for people who have nothing in common to connect. This helped me understand how to better engage with my audience through my blog as well , by understanding how I connect with my audience I can exploit it and focus on it.

Process Post: Transmedia

Transmedia is the process of being present in multiple forms of media.

What Would I Do?

If I were to implement transmedia practices in my online presence I would first create multiple social media pages devoted to my blog. The most important of these are Instagram and TikTok, these platforms have the highest amount of people who are interested in fashion. I would also create pages/accounts on Facebook and Twitter in order to maximize my online presence but these are not as important for implementing transmedia practices.

Why Would I Do This?

By doing this I can widen my influence, finding those who are interested in fashion that I have not yet interacted with, and as a result, I can increase my engagement with my blog. Consistent uploading on all of these platforms creates a sense of cohesiveness, allowing ChainStitch to seem more than just a blog or one person, instead of being an idea or a “vibe”.

If I am to continue with ChainStitch in the future I will definitely do this, I feel that blogs while useful for long articles are hard to follow up with, social media is far easier to use and interaction is far more frequent, this can create a funnel effect, leading to the blog.

Progress Post: Why I Stopped Using Analytics

Before you take marks off my blog, I want to preface this with one thing. I have used the analytics when necessary for the course, for example knowing how often readers return to my page or using google analytics to see how I rank on the search engines.

The most important thing that a creator needs to have with their audience is trust. If one does not trust someone, it makes it much harder to continue interacting with them. I feel that when I have, it breaks boundaries. While it was evident that the internet does “steal” a fair amount of information, I think that by not contributing to it, I can help the audience see that I, the author, am the same as them, I consume information the same way, and I wish to have privacy the same as them.

When I made this decision, I posted it on my Instagram story that I would not be using anyone’s information when they visited my site. I was immediately overwhelmed with positive responses. Those who responded liked the fact that their privacy was respected online.

While I may not be able to see if they return, I know that when the audience trusts the creator, they are more likely to continue consuming the media.