The Fingerprint of the Second Skin by Kitty Hauser
Prior to reading this passage, I was aware of the intrinsic value of someone's clothing, but I had never sat down and picked a part the ideas and notions that surround individuals and their garments. Hauser explains "...individual garments might be imprinted with the signature of the of the wearer's body, evoking or revealing the wearer's identity, character or physiognomy." Immediately after reading the passage I got up, walked into my closet and started to pull out a few pairs of jeans. But before I could even focus any personal imprints, or "barcodes" as Hauser refers to them, I had to step back for a moment and reflect on the alarming number of jeans that I own. I simply cannot bring myself to divulge the number, but I will say that you need quite a bit more than fingers and toes to count on.
My initial trip to the closet was to look for my own, personal "barcodes," but after being distracted I began to think about why females in general, have a lot of jeans. And more importantly, what do we do with the old ones? Then my final project began to start to make sense. If I could obtain an old pair of jeans from each of my friends, and cut them up into patches that form one skirt, I could physically demonstrate how all of us are socially connected. For instance, in my pattern the following patches will be next to each other: Wendy, Megan and Kim. And the reason for this is... I met Wendy on my recruiting trip senior year in high school and Wendy introduced me to her friend, Megan. Megan and I became roommates about two years later. Then I met Kim, who was an old high school friend of Megan's, and Kim moved in with us. And so on, and so on.
I have not quite figured out all of the details..which I will have to do in the upcoming week, but the reading passage definitely helped to put me in right direction for my final project.