Week 2 Ziyu Wang

Michael Hurt talks about the power of social empathy through the highly communicative culture of fashion in his article Clothing, social empathy and the power of stepping into someone else's shoes. He believes that through fashion as a medium, it is possible for people to look into and understand the one's culture and achieve a higher understanding. This idea of essentially culture exchanging through fashion trends is definitely one I would agree with. It is human tendency to take the best of ideas from other places and incorporate into one's own. This type of exchange is extremely prevalent in global fashion trends; a designer would take a traditional piece of clothing then put their own idea and spin on it to create something special; fashion kids from the East could see the fashion trends of the West then take elements they like into their own regional fashion culture and vice versa. This globalization of fashion is becoming highly communicative and thus can speak volumes without actual speaking at all. By incorporating other's culture's fashion, one will be learning about the history and ideas behind it and will then be able to have a sneak peek into other's culture as a whole, gaining a new found understanding and appreciation toward said culture. This type of behavior should be encouraged and should not be alienated as a form of cultural appropriation. So what methods could we use to further facilitates this type of cultural exchange?



reference:
Hurt, Michael. Clothing, social empathy and the power of stepping into someone else's shoes. The Korea Times. April, 6th. 2019.
Image: A Cross-Cultural Exchange courtesy of Filipino, Korean Artists. GMA Networks. June 2nd, 2014. https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/lifestyle/photo/61049/a-cross-cultural-exchange-courtesy-of-filipino-korean-artists/photo/