Sunday 21 March 2010

Black for the sake of being black

It's not often that I see a black man with a sense of entitlement that is born just because he's black. But that's what this lecture is about; being black. And also fashion, but the two aren't mutually exclusive, so why did it feel that way?

David Knight is a black man--I mean fashion designer who makes black--I mean clothes for black--I mean black people. Jokes aside, this guy has some serious lecturing to do about being culturally aware (read: black) and the differences in society. I wonder how this lecture would have went down in a room full of black people, where guilt about being white was absent and people could actually have the balls to tell this guy to get off his high horse. Now, he seemed to note the differences in designers, which is the common theme I see in these lectures (as well as personal vs commercial success in work). He said designers work outside themselves, taking from culture and giving in return. While I agree with that (and feel its a boring thing to focus on) it seems limiting to only focus on one culture. In terms of fashion, there are plenty of interesting places you could go, I mean, you could literally go across the world looking at them.

He seemed to be into political messages from his work, and liked to write research as it feeds into design, which then feeds back into research and so on so forth. There was a lot of other racial, political and cultural messages. Like how the east was social and the west was commercial. But honestly, I don't care about that, not even a little bit. The thing that interested me most was the drawings. He had a great style, very suited for fashion, which makes me wonder why he didn't talk more about it.

He talked about the magical wonders of photoshop like it was some new high tech thing that no one had ever heard of. At the time I was thinking, "Yeah, that's true" but after a while I found myself saying "No kidding? You can really do that?" (Note: Steeped in sarcasm). He talked about manipulating the image, changing the colours and modifying the proportions. Blah blah blah, he said a lot of stuff I already knew, so I didn't listen to that part much. I next tuned in to his philosophy about drawing, about understanding the drawing process and using drawings to measure progress. That's all I have on this guy, another worthless lecture about the de/merits of being black.

Now excuse me while I go listen to rap music.

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Remind me that I'm whining. Oh, and that I'm black.