Culture to Culture: Two San Francisco State University Students from Different Eras

Cultural Background Description of Susans Background My mother, Susan Lou Akeson (who goes by Sue), is a 59 year old Bay Area native born in Oakland California. Both her parents, Merle and Nancy Akeson were from Portland, Oregon and came to San Francisco in 1950 seeking a more liberal cosmopolitan lifestyle to raise their children in. My grandfather, Merle Akeson, was an educator while my grandmother, Nancy Hoak, was one of the first home counselors for the San Francisco Blind Babies Foundation. Sue grew up in a very tight-knit family of one younger sister, Santha, one older brother Steve and younger brother Scott. They lived on 33rd and Lincoln in San Francisco in a three story classic Edwardian home and at 18 months, my Grandfather , took them all to Abbottabad, Pakistan on a Fulbright, teaching history. He was part of the USAID community education programs from Stanford and the Fulbright educational program from Columbia, which took his family to Kabul Afghanistan, Pakistan, Phnom Penh Cambodia, and West Liberia Africa, from the 1950s to the 1980s, empowering and teaching teachers within the local school systems as well as a number of other programs. Sue returned to the US after 14 years. Sue grew up in a household that put an emphasis on self-sufficiency and taking initiative. Her parents took them around the world and from a very young age she had a freedom to explore and in a way take care of herself. Her mother once said it wasnt in her contract to make their lunches so my mother remembers making her own lunch from a young age. This translated to a theme of self-reliant behavior. Sue made many of her

own clothes beginning at age 5. The culture of her childhood and young adulthood was a reality different from everyone else. We didnt have TV, other people did but we never did. When we lived over seas there were no TVs so my connection to American culture was seen through a very different prism. She has what she feels is a spectators impression of many of the cultural events that defined her generation. Sue identifies as an independent and self-reliant woman and as a young woman entering college identified with the foundations of the feminist movement. Description of My Background I was born January 23rd, 1987 in San Francisco, California. I have one older sister, Claire. We lived in the Mission District of San Francisco until I was three when my parents moved us to Mill Valley, escaping a lack of parking and in search of better schools. My mothers exposure to Liberian cultural growing up translated into my own childhood and household heavily influenced by global traditions and global cuisines. Global textiles have greatly influenced the formation of my fashion aesthetic. African ikats and Indonesian batiks amassed family heirlooms preserved by my grandmother and passed down to my sister and I for childhood dress-up. Creative exploration was fostered from my parents at a young age and to implement this my parents took away our TV before I was 4. My father was a devoted locally known jazz guitarist as well as a lawyer and modeled a thirst for knowledge and the arts throughout my life. I have always had an open dialogue within my family and see them not only as a support system but also as individuals who I relish. I identify as an artist, and although my mediums of self-expression change Ive identified as an artist my entire life. At a young age I was involved in theater arts and

this lasted until I graduated high school. I had an affinity for theater costumes, which translated into an affinity for fashion and as a 24 year old woman, I am empowered by my fashion aesthetic. I get creative inspiration from films, friends, thrift stores, and strangers. I formed a relationship with thrift shopping young, but as I matured I saw thrift shopping as a tactile catalog of fashions history. The Road to San Francisco State University Susans Path to San Francisco State University Susan attended Lowell High School and after she graduated at age 18, her family moved to Kabul Afghanistan, working for Columbia University, writing textbooks for the Afghan educational system. She was left to live alone the San Francisco house and decided to spend a year traveling through Europe. In 1970 she returned to the US and decided to go to UC Berkeley for Environmental Conservation of Natural Resources but was there for just one quarter after to deciding to leave. She felt isolated by the anonymity of the 600 student lectures, I didnt like Berkeley very much, I likened it to an armpit and I was sleeping on a sofa. I felt very much disconnected in the enormity of the campus. And it was hard. I took upper division philosophy courses of which I couldnt understand a thing. It was when Peoples Park was happening, people were demonstrating as they still do in Sprawl Plaza. It was a time of civil disobedience to make your point be known. The Maoist movement was happening. Thats all I remember about Berkeley I was only there for 3 months and I felt out of place and I felt quite over education. So I sat around for 4 months and read a whole lot of Murder Mysteries. I decided that was a whole lot more boring. Her decision to attend SF state was due to its proximity and her need to be proactive in her life. The movement she

identified with was feminism, which propagated the expectation that you would work and that you are not looking for a man to stay home for. There should be equality amongst the sexes in terms of housework, childrearing, opportunities in employment and education. Sue attended SF state seeking to solidify her autonomy as a young woman. My Path to San Francisco State University I was accepted to the University of Santa Cruz California in 2005 after high school but due to the passing of my father in my first semester, was forced to drop out and move back home. Painting and thrift shopping became vessels upon which I reestablished stability and direction in my life. I enrolled in community college and began exploring different artistic disciplines such as art history and drawing composition. In November 2009 after moving to south Berkeley from Madrid Spain I began consistently selling clothes to local vintage stores for steady income, as I had done occasionally for cash as needed. I formed a relationship with thrift shopping in my search for theater costumes at age 9, but as I matured I saw thrift shopping as a tactile catalog of fashions history. I am always amazed by the range and evidence of the evolution of style within thrift stores. I had amassed a permanent tundra of clothes on my bedroom floor as well as two full standing racks dressers and closets. I emphatically and idealistically bit an opportunity I was given to purchase a retail space in Rockridge Oakland to start my own vintage store. I was floored and immediately said yes only then to realize I was a 23 year old starving artist with no business training, no degree, and a very loving but recreational view of school. I then reevaluated what education meant to me and decided to reinvest in school on the path to a BS in fashion merchandizing and marketing. I had confidence in my artistic vision but need higher

education to supplement the hands on experience I already had. San Francisco State University offered the program and the environment I desired. Female Cultural Appearance Ideals at San Francisco State Female Cultural Appearance Ideals at San Francisco State in 1971 San Francisco was the apex for many subversive and mainstream counterculture movements including the Hippy and the Anti-war movements in the late 1960s which both challenged social norms and hegemonic ideologies of that time. By 1971 many of these movements had instilled permanent social trends, expressed through dress for the women and men of my mothers generation in San Francisco. The cultural rebelliousness and political radicalism was impetus for a change in social values and this affected dress. Kingglsy Widmer, a professor of English at a California State College in 1968, wrote from his essay The Children of Rimbaud: Thrust of the Underculture, Take any of the major motifs of the rebellious, such as the ecstatic consciousness, the self-chosen alienation from the mainstream society, the syncretistic religious, the action arts, the polymorphous sexuality, the flamboyant costume, the utopian communalism, the tribal poetry-music, the loving anti-competitive personal code, and the outrageous life styles (including reversed standards of living) as ways of protest (Widmer, 1968). These motifs translated into a shifted aesthetic of personal dress that influenced my mothers generation. By 1971 the volume and proportion of garments had changed and the body modifications were distinct as well. My mother recalled, There was still the hippy image of long hair for both men and women and women were wearing short skirts. I think that there was less of an emphasis on what you

wore. I mean women wore jeans and slacks, it was not the girly girly that we had grown up with. This was the beginning of the feminist movement. The sixties was a movement away from the 50s and the 50s stereotype of a woman was that she adopted an overly feminine look with a lot of pink and puffy skirts with a cardigan sweater and curlers in her hair. There was a greater emphasis on what you looked like as opposed to who you were in the inside. People were

abandoning those trends. At that time the cultural norms for women where that they could do anything that men could do. And as a consequence they took on all of the duties meaning they worked, if they had kids they took care of the children, they cleaned the house they cooked. They didnt give up their female duties when they took on male duties. There was a whole lot more expectation of equality. There were very little modifications for the face and hair, my mother recalls that women didnt wear much makeup. Women at San Francisco state seemed to embrace natural beauty in a theme that coincided a social protest on both mainstream consumerism and materialism. She remembers abandoning many of the body modifications that she and her friends felt enslaved their mothers that partook in the daily tedium of transforming their hair, skin, and nails to meet the social standards of a 1960s womans appearance. She told me, There was lots of jewelry, amulets, necklaces, earrings, things that you put in your hair. Clasps and feathers, but makeup, no. Women wore long dresses made of ethnic fabrics. There was a fascination with eastern cultures like India. Female Cultural Appearance Ideals at San Francisco State in 2011 Women in my generation have been exposed to an excess of different social trends and cultural appearance ideals through the proliferation of the internet. Online

social networks, like Facebook, that amass photographs chronicling the lives of its members, advocate certain aesthetics depending on what social group its members identify with. Facebook has had a huge influence on the female population at San Francisco state and through shared images certain cultural appearance ideals are encouraged. Vintage clothing is a very en vogue social trend at San Francisco State. The appropriation of body enclosures and body supplements from different eras is characteristic of the San Francisco female. For women, a cultural appearance ideal is the assertion of individuality. Encouragement of personal style is advocated and many females at San Francisco state experiment with clothing from thrift stores that do not represent the aesthetics of mainstream consumer America. Seen on campus are 1950s era horn rimed glasses, 1980s era large sweaters that fall over the shoulder and 90s era equestrian and Native American themed regalia. In an article Retro: Bonanza Or Beware? Stan Gellers, a writer for DNR magazine, said, What's retro today? She says it's the 1980s for the young guy, but in her opinion there's much less to work with from that decade. If you talk real retro you have to go back to the 1960s and before, when style had a specific point of view. Today, people doing retro use it as a starting point, not as a reproduction. The key: You have to do something modern with it, " (Gellers, 2006). Trendy artistic individualistic body enclosures such as ripped tights and oversized knit sweaters that once reflected personal style and gained popularity through fashion forward young women, are now being mass produced and sold at mainstream retail stores such as Forever 21 and H and M. Fashion innovators continue to introduce new dress concepts at San Francisco State, which will be reproduced by followers and eventually solidified into future social trends. There is a collective desire to rebel against the mass produced

fashion of mainstream America and in liberal artistic communities like SF state, thrift shopping is a way to dictate your own fashion story. An article discussing the recent increased popularity of thrift shopping in the United States stated that, Across the board, secondhand stores are prospering. Industry net sales grew 12.7 percent from 2008 to 2009, according to the National Association of Resale & Thrift Shops (NARTS). Nonprofit Goodwill, for example, saw retail sales increase 9 percent from June 2009 to June 2010. In contrast, the US Census reports that total retail sales in the same period decreased 7.3 percent, (Dunne, 2010). Personal Style of Dress at San Francisco State University My moms dress at San Francisco State University in 1971 A bit of a self-proclaimed outsider, out of all the cultures at San Francisco State, my mother associated with the counter culture, the hippy movement, the anti-Vietnam movement anti-establishment movement. These movements encouraged the assertion of personal freedoms and liberties. My mother was an advocate of the feminist movement and inadvertently followed the cultural appearance ideals of the movement by wearing pants and little to no makeup.

I wore Levis jeans, jeans and more jeans. Jeans and shirts and jeans and sweaters. Back in those times people drew from ethnic clothing like Dashikis and there was the whole ethnic influence. And I fit into that perfectly because I was straight off the boat and had been living in West Africa hadnt had a whole lot of contact with American Culture. So I had fabric and batiks and made clothes from my fabric so I wore shirts and dresses that I had made with ethnic fabrics. In High School I had long hair and in college I cut it all off and its been short ever since. Refer above to Figure 1: Sue in African Dashiki, for an example of the West African traditional clothing my mother wore in Liberia. The clothes sold in stores were very expensive and the clothes that my mother could afford she didnt like because they werent unique or individual. They were mass-produced. Using her knowledge of sewing and her motto of self-sufficiency, if she wanted something, she made it. She wore mostly shirts sewn from fabric bought over seas, which coincided with the popularity of the ethnic influence. Refer to the left to Figure 2: Sue in Homemade Shift, for an example of the dresses my mother made out of the fabric brought back from overseas that she incorporated into her college attire.

My current style of dress at San Francisco State University in 2011

My personal relationship with dress is both utilitarian and expression driven. The culture of artistic expression at San Francisco State University resonates within me, as individualism and originality have been two life long themes of my personal dress. The culmination of my relationship with fashion is being played out, academically, in my pursuit of a degree in Fashion Merchandising and Marketing. I have always had an innate desire to follow my own fashion path and cultivate a genuine fashion aesthetic reflective of self. This adheres to the culture of individuality and expression alive at SF State. I feel my desire to experiment with vintage clothing of different proportions, textures, and volumes, reflected in a kindred pursuit of fashion exploration evidenced by my peers. I value comfort first and foremost, so many of my body enclosures have Lycra fiber contents for elasticity and mobility. Refer to Figure 3: Striped Tunic and Leggings for an example of the leggings I wear on a daily basis. Body modifications are both personal and serve as a nonverbal communication of self-expression. Hair color modifications as well as hair length are both ways to experiment and play with my identity. Wigs temporarily modify my appearance by adding a body supplement. Refer to figure 4: Annie in a Wig, for an example of the playful quality of a short blond bob wig manipulate and alter my appearance. I have seven permanent tattoos all of which are artistic expressions. An

abstract tattoo descends down my left shoulder blade and is symbolic of the freedom of artistic expression. Thrift stores are actual dress artifacts cataloging the evolution of modern style. I appropriate elements from different fashion eras in new ways to express my personal identity. In 2010 I was offered to go into partnership and open a vintage store within the company I worked for. I constantly thrift shop and take part in the thrift culture at San Francisco State. I proudly discuss thrift shopping finds with my friends and incorporate disparate fashion elements from different eras into my daily outfits. Figure 5: Vintage Fur Coat, is an example of a Jacket made of synthetic fur from the 1980s that I bought from a second hand shop in New York at the beginning of the Fall 2011 semester.

Reflection

My mothers choice of dress at SF state in 1970 was a reflection of the culture that surrounded her. Anti-consumerism and anti-mainstream America movements were prominent and this translated into a do-it-yourself attitude towards clothing and fashion. My mothers generation sought freedom from the constraints that bound women to a stereotypically feminine look. They abandoned the fifties archetypical dress for a more liberated take on a female look with less makeup and less of an emphasis on the outward appearance. My own experience at SF state has many similarities. I am motivated by my artistic identity to defy mainstream fashion trends and participate in a culture of thrift shopping and vintage clothing. I am seeking my own individualized path of expression through fashion that has many correlations with the Anti-consumerism and anti-mainstream movements that influenced my mother. She made her own clothes in the pursuit of a unique wardrobe reflective of self and I am participating in the same activity through thrift. In reflecting on campus daily life she said, It was multicultural just like it is now. It was an easy-going environment and there were always cultural things happening on campus. I was a time of theater in the streets and an appreciation of the arts. It was a time of public demonstration. It reminded me very much of campus daily life in 2011.