Sisterhood, sexuality and the space of the benign in makeover TV

The perfect relationship or the perfect body is only heard of in fairy-tales. To work around what you have, and that little bump here and there- that’s what makes for a beautiful relationship with your partner and yourself, starting with your 'body'. In ‘How to look good naked’, Gok wan does not mock or belittle the imperfections of the female body, instead he tries to make women confident of their body and forms a synthetic sisterhood as discussed in C’mon Girlfriend (Frith et al 2010). This synthetic friendship between a straight woman and homosexual man is critically analysed by Annus (2011) , who proposes that the gay experts on the show capitalize on traditional stereotypical traits of femininity assigned to women and gays in contemporary western societies. In the HLGN Gok wan is this traditional stereotype  best-friend because of his suspended sexuality .

This new trend of benign makeover TV shows relates to the everyday woman.  Unlike the shows ‘Queer eyes’ or ‘What not to wear’,  Gok wan tries to make the woman form a friendly camaraderie with her body. Gok wan’s show has changed the trend of woman aspiring for the perfect stereotype model body. In the paperback ‘Makeover TV: Selfhood, Citizenship, and Celebrity’, Weber (2010)  contends that the makeover television show is a complicated text from which we can learn much about cultural desires and fears as expressed through narratives of selfhood.

Weber (2010) also argues that although makeovers are directed at both male and female viewers, their gendered logic requires that feminized subjects submit to the controlling expertise wielded by authorities. Although Gow wan’s show is classified as benign, it still wields stereotypical yielding of woman participants to the authority on fashion, in this case the authority is Gok wan.

Visual identity and image of Manish Arora

Manish Arora Logo, Symbol and visual identity
www.manisharora.ws

Paco Rabanne has got a new Creative Director Manish Arora who hails from India and is an alumni of NIFT, the prestigious design school in India. The verbal Identity of Manish Arora gives the consumer the impression that the Country of Origin is India. His brand name has Indianised english  fonts, Kitsch style and psychedelic colours synonymous with the country's colourful lifestyle. This distinct style of the design brand has formed the visuall identity for the brand.

The brand has taken the personality of the designer with brand name linguistic characteristics (Keller 2008) of semantic devices such as Paronomasia (Keller 2008) which refers to pun and word plays clearly illustrated in Manish Arora’s label called Fish fry which has had collaborations with Reebok, MAC and Swatch.

Personification which is humanising an inanimate object as discussed by Keller (2008) is shown in the main brand name 'Manish Arora' which also has a strong visual identity with its logo, in which orthographic device of abbreviation (Keller 2008) 'MA' is used with bright pink and lime green colours that are very memorable hence adhering to memorability, likeability and adaptability of the brand (Keller 2008). Also, since the brand name is a person and the logo is distinct the brand name is protected.

The brand positioning achieves differentiation from the category as a whole rather than from specific competitors within the category referring to disruptive positioning approach as stated by Keller (2008). This approach is achieved because it defies its own category of fashion, borrow rules from another category- Architecture, Sculpture and Paintings; and create a new category of Revolutionary clothing. The target market of Manish Arora or Paco Rabanne is celebrities who have defied rules such as Lady Gaga, Katy perry and Rihanna.

Original Handmade knits worn by Bella Swan of 'Twilight'

Hand made knits are a rare thing to come by in the fast paced machine world. But, it still exists. Shown above  Sunny yellow knits from Cloudier designs knitted by an RGU student. The head band and the short bolero cap sleeve knit will suit any black out fit you have and took her nearly 2 weeks to finish.

I also came across this site called ruth cross and on its front page there was Bella Swan of twilight and below that was the heading ' WE ARE THE ORIGINAL MAKERS OF THE MITTENS BELLA WEARS IN TWILIGHT,'. Now that is clever marketing one would say. The mittens worn by the celebrity is showcased on the site , although it is hard to say if they are the original makers. The knits are very innovative and made from pure wool. According to Solomon (2002) as quoted by Schlecht  a central goal of advertising is the persuasion of customers, i.e., the active attempt to change or modify consumers’ attitude towards brands. In this respect, the credibility of an advertisement plays an important role in convincing the target
audience of the attractiveness of the company’s brand. The statement that Ruth cross is the original makers comes across as very attractive to consumers.