A few years back, while living in India, I sharpened my skills in mo’-spotting and now consider myself a discerning observer of upper-lip exhibitionism. Imagine then my delight in coming across a site where the time-honoured art of the ‘stache meets the modern phenomena of Twitter. On Stache Tag guys can track the growth of their moustaches, categorize their facial hair types, and even create animations of their day-to-day growth – using the hashtag #movember with viral fervor.
Even better – it’s supporting the Movember Foundation which raises funds and awareness for men’s health and male cancer initiatives.* Sparked in 2003, Movember challenges men to change their appearance and the state of men’s health by growing a moustache. The rules are simple, start Movember 1st clean-shaven, then grow a moustache for the entire month. The moustache becomes the ribbon for men’s health – the means by which awareness and money are raised to fight cancers and health issues which affect men.
From Stache Tag’s creators Blast Radius:
“Twitter is really huge, moustaches are on trend, and Movember is a great cause,” says Sean Chambers, the executive creative director for Blast Radius in Europe. “It did feel like a really good time to pull all these things together.” The site strikes that perfect balance of worthwhile and useless. In addition to building in frivolous (read: totally awesome) features like animations for the moustache photos, Blast Radius hopes the site will increase international awareness for Movember and help participants raise more money.
And it’s not all about guys. Mo Bros have been joined by Mo Sistas too.
And I couldn’t resist adding my buddy from Mumbai.
Giving a whole new meaning to ‘letting one’s hair down’.
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* If you’re keen to donate to Movember – head over to your local division.
And if you want to parade your mo or check out the Mo Stylers – drive by Stache Tag.
New York-based photographer Kate Orne has focused her lens on Pakitsani prostitution over a number of years in an effort to expose the denial, modesty, pretense and cultural oppression which envelope it.
Young women from rural villages and refugee camps are sold to the brothels by human-traffickers, while others are born into the trade.
Prostitution is forbidden under Islamic law, but with the increasing influence of extremist groups, the women risk severe punishment under Sharia Law through beheadings and stoning to death.
The laws – both secular and sacred – seem to disregard the context in which women have entered the profession while paying negligible attention to the men who engage their services.
The women practice modesty according to Islam. For a woman not to cover her chest… is considered daring – even among prostitutes.
Proceeds from Orne’s print sales from the series May You Never Be Uncovered: The Victims of Pakistan’s Sex Trade support education of the children of Pakistani prostitutes via the Sheed Foundation – “a small but highly efficient community-based organization addressing the social problems faced in particular by the local female sex workers and their children who suffer from oppression, poverty, illiteracy and abuse.”
Orne highlights cultural complexity through her portraits and studies which are both intimate yet modest. Her images don’t provide us with answers but rather confront us to question deeper the paradoxes at play surrounding prostitution. And I’d hasten to add that they are not limited to Pakistan nor Islam.
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My jet-setting former student, Sagarika Sundaram, recently touched down in London long enough to complete a 3 month internship with multi-disciplinary design firm Pentagram – between stints in Zürich and Dubai.
While there she assisted Pentagram partner Harry Pearce on his project for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNDOC) which provided graphic training tools for the Russian police. Employing national abbreviations (GB, US, RU, etc) the folding posters presented comparative data surrounding drug abuse, intervention, therapy and health related consequences – as a way of clarifying various aspects of drug policy during training sessions. (English versions shown here, with Russian versions being used on the ground. More posters can be viewed via Pentagram)
Sagarika’s input involved exploration of the folding component of the posters – a realm in which she has developed skills through her previous work on dimensional projects. Above she experimented in typography composed from playing cards to transform her understanding of 2D-form during her time in Baltimore.
And of maps, Sagarika has a few observations based on her extensive global forays:
“In India maps are not prevalently used – I think due to the immediacy of existence. People will go as far as they know then just ask where to go next. And it works in that context. Elsewhere people like to know from the outset where they are heading. I find that in Europe, maps take on added significance due to the proximity of interacting countries. It seems that European nations, in part, are defined by who they are bordered by.” [I caught Sagarika in Berlin this morning on Skype]
When I met up with Harry Pearce recently in New Zealand he noted that Sagarika was definitely one to watch – although we both agreed it was hard to predict where in the world she would pop up next.
I was particularly heartened to come across the recently launched mash-up of fashion and fundraising: The Uniform Project in which a pledge has been made to wear one dress for one year as an exercise in sustainable fashion.
Actually there are seven identical dresses – one for each day of the week. Every day the dress is artfully reinvented via layers and accessories and images posted online in the effort to raise money for the Akanksha Foundation – a grassroots movement that is revolutionizing education in India.
The project’s brainchild Sheena Matheiken recollects “I was raised and schooled in
India where uniforms were a mandate in most public schools. Despite the imposed conformity, kids always found a way to bend the rules and flaunt a little personality… Girls obsessed over bangles, bindis and bad hairdos. Peaking through the sea of uniforms were the idiosyncrasies of teen style and individual flare. I now want to put the same rules to test again, only this time I’m trading in the Catholic school fervor
for an eBay addiction and relocating the school walls to this wonderful place called
the internet.”
It all made me reflect on my past delvings into fashion and connectivity which I covered in my paper Fashion, Humanism and the Online Environment (1.8MB). Written in 2005 I’m the first to admit that the dialogue has definately moved on. However at the time Web 2.0 was still a fresh enough topic to win me a junior faculty travel award to present at the International Foundation of Fashion Technology Institutes conference in the US. (disclosure: my main driver for submitting the proposal was the thought of a two week escape from the excrutiating heat of high Indian summer – to which, as a New Zealander, I was entirely unaccustomed.)
The Uniform Project goes a long way in exemplifing my suggestion:
“through the internet, fashion holds the power to create space for social, cultural and altruistic discourse… the multi-layering of internet based communication affords the opportunity to participate in the arena of commerce while remaining culturally relevant, responsible and active.”
While I was more speaking about fashion brands leveraging cultural connectivity The Uniform Project is instead an online fundraising initiative masterfully leveraging fashion itself. Great to see the Manolo on the other foot!
