Feed The Birds II

A lot of people have been asking me where exactly 'Feed The Birds' came from.

Here is your answer!

Feed the Birds is a play on words which I think I have mentioned before. I was really inspired by 80's designer Katharine Hamnett once again in this brief due to how she uses fashion to put across a political matter/message. Mine may be more Gareth Pugh than Politics but it's the same concept.

As part of my research in the beginning I looked into super skinny models within the fashion industry and the issues in which role models and images such as size zero can create.

I personally don't see an issue with 'skinny' women nor do I see an issue with 'curvy' women, the whole point of fashion and good style is that it suits YOU and who YOU naturally are! But I do have an issue when you see images of obviously malnourished and unhealthy models and supposed faces of fashion parading across magazines sending out a bad message and setting poor examples to young girls and boys in some cases of how to look! It's wrong. Skinny can be sexy, but scrawny just can't!

While researching I found out some seriously haunting facts and it really opened my eyes to the reality of what the fashion industry influences on more drastic level than just how we wear denim this season! I know it did me when I was going through high school, I suffered from Anorexia for about 2 years and even now constantly battle with my weight and self esteem issues, and it turns out I am not alone! Over two thirds of teenage girls and young adults suffer from some form of either eating disorder or have an issue with their body weight and image and it more or less always comes down to what they see on the catwalk or in glossy magazines.

So, my slogan 'Feed The Birds' is a little bit like my own form of Hamnett. To bring a message across that it has to stop!

The slogan isn't just around eating disorders though, there is a lot more too it.

I don't know whether it's my nature to just accept someone for who they are or whether I have just been nurtured to always be curious but understand that everyone is always different and sometimes that means they have different preferences in life, one of which can be their sexuality.

My concept of eating disorders and super skinny models then developed on how fashion influences and hides other issues within young society.

One of the leading ones being homosexuality and other sexuality preferences. I was prompted to look further into this when I met my current boyfriend who had actually been gay/bisexual for most of his teen years and looking through his photo albums had used how he looked, especially his hair to help him figure out who he was and also whether or not being homosexual was what made him happy in life and would for years to come... Turns out it didn't (obviously) but that isn't always the case, sometimes young adults struggling to cope with their sexuality or even their gender use their body, style and personal image as a form of escape from what they know is really who they are, it's almost like a living experiment. Statistics show that almost half of young men who suffer from eating disorders such as bulimia use their weight and image as way of punishing themselves for being 'gay'. This isn't always because they're ashamed of it, quite often this is due to the amount of pressure young men especially feel to be 'manly' and often suffer horrific forms of bullying as a consequence should they admit the reality. This is all so wrong so I decided that the best way to incorporate this part of my concept would be to use the colours from the gay pride flag within my T-Shirt design. Which is why the text of 'Feed The Birds' is in the 7 colours of the rainbow.

I know it wont exactly do a lot in the sense of having an impact on said issues but it's a start and it has really inspired me, I'm not saying I'm going to be anywhere near as iconic and influential than Hamnett but it's certainly given me food for thought for the future.