The research for my 2007 final project began in March of that year. During the summer of '06/'07 I read American Psycho (1991) by Bret Easton Ellis and Affluenza (2007) by Oliver James. These books had very current cultural themes of consumer addiction, celebrity obsession, and the general excesses of western 20th/21st Century lifestyle. Further useful reading was Thorstein Veblen's The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899) and Karl Marx's Capital, Critique of Political Economy (1867). These authors had lived through and critiqued economic boom and bust, and seen consumer frivolity and tragedy, their critiques gave an idea of what was to come...
My conclusion is more or less pointing toward a 'return to self', though it is left a little open ended. My ideal conclusion would have been: "A global recession will financially ruin The U.S.A and Europe, an uprising will be experienced by the ideologically repressed, some more outrageous celebrities will take there own lives, and thus fashion will embrace a radically new set of ideals based on a new set of foundations"
My views on where the industry was going were far more radical than I cared to write down. I think I had shocked my tutors enough by writing about major changes in the way we saw consumerism, many took this as an attack on the fashion industry and therefor themselves, but far from it, i thought it a new beginning!
'The last supper 2007' Mood board: March 2007 