I made my essay video based on the topic “Dressing stars and celebrities: Desire and Identification.” In my essay, I examine how celebrity outfits represents their desires and identification by influencing their personality. I have gone further and reviewed the Met Gala 2019 and particularly focused on Lady Gaga. This video essay explores how Lady Gaga embraces art creativity by stealing the spotlight on the red carpet by rocking with different looks on the red carpet. Lady Gaga has been rocking the red carpet for a long time and this includes several Grammys appearances, Met Gala appearance, MTV VMAs, and the Venice Film Festival (Lang 2019. p.2). Throughout this period, Lady Gaga has been showing up with different and unique outfits that represents both her desires and identification.
Clothes can be viewed as an agent that makes desire possible hence representing one’s characteristics and also act as a medium of self-presentation to the public. According to a study by Loureiro, Costa, and Panchapakesan (2017, p. 468), passion for fashion can be seen as individuals shop for inspirational outfits and brands that often reflect on their self-identification with the specific style. Lady gaga never disappoints, looking at her outfits, one can see that Lady Gaga continues to demonstrate her feminism by dressing up in attires that emphasize on her ample curves. Her cloth line is quite unique and it represents fame, creativity, characteristics, and thoughts. Although some people perceive her sense of fashion as being exaggerated, for instance when she stepped out of the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards wearing a dress made from raw meat, I view this as Lady Gaga’s creativity in perceiving art. Kanter and Fields (2019, p.30), state that each of Lady Gaga’s outfits reinforced her updated persona and this prompted her to outdo herself after every look which mirrored a new era of her life, ambitions, and career.
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Fashion not only represents desires and identifications but also creates an attraction to the public and acts as a way of pleasing them. As a result, people who want to keep up with the current look are attracted to watch every outfit that the celebrities put on (Uwire Text (2016). Concerning fashion and its positive impacts on celebrities and public societies, I would add that celebrities often influence people through fashion especially among fans that are often obsessed with celebrity culture and entertainment. Shaffer (2017), states that perceiving them as role models, most teens and children often get infatuated with pop-culture icons and often imitate them. With that said, my video on Lady Gaga was effective in illustrating her influence on her fans and most fashion enthusiasts who are enticed with her new and creative ideas.
The topic of double life among celebrities and how they try to manifest their ‘other personality’ was intriguing to me since I have always tried to create an image of how the celebrities could look at their residents with their unique outfits. To add on Norman Mailer’s point on celebrity’s double lives, I would say that most celebrities maintain their clothing styles while living their private lives and only step out of the public in outfits that can match their desires and the identity they wish to portray. Although the video does not show how Lady Gaga lives her private life, is correct to assume that she does not continue wearing such unique and different clothes while living her private and other life (Galloway 2012, p.47). Other celebrities express their other personalities through their performances and body languages and this allows them to bring out their inner reflections.
In video essay, I further reflected on how clothing not only impacts celebrities but also impacts the consumers of the related products. Fowler and Thomas (2019, p.1010), state that most celebrities act as ambassadors to different clothing brands like Gucci and Prada and by putting on their clothes, they influence the consumers to try them on as well. According to a study by Adam and Hussain (2017, p 85), celebrities are used to endorse a brand since their norms are commonly related to differently and occasionally get the recognition that is highly elevated from the public. Most marketers believe that by endorsing celebrities as brand ambassadors, they could gain their rewards through building up credibility, drawing public attention, and establishing their consumer’s trust levels (Seunga and Ryu 2019, p.120). Most consumers tend to trust and believe words or activities done by celebrities compared to other people and may, in most cases, end up emulating them by wearing the same brands.
In summation, my video has illustrated how Lady Gaga is inspired by her fashion and at the same influence the public at the same time. The video explores celebrity fashion and its impact on the general public especially the consumers. Consequently, celebrities can successfully act as brand ambassadors and increase total sales purchases (Hackley and Hackley 2015, p.470). This can act as a good way of marketing the brands for the respective companies.
References
Adam, M. and Hussein, N. (2019). IMPACT OF CELEBRITY ENDORSEMENT ON CONSUMERS BUYING BEHAVIOR. [online] Eajournals.org. Available at: http://www.eajournals.org/wp-content/uploads/Impact-of-Celebrity-Endorsement-on-Consumers-Buying-Behavior.pdf [Accessed 13 Dec. 2019].
Fowler, K. and Thomas, V. L. (2019) ‘Beyond endorsements: The effect of celebrity Creative Directors on consumers’ attitudes toward the advertisement’, Psychology & Marketing, 36(11), pp. 1003–1013. doi: 10.1002/mar.21251.
Galloway, S. (2012) ‘The Private Life of a Superstar’, Hollywood Reporter, 418(7), pp. 44–52. Available at: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=72100465&authtype=sso&custid=deakin&site=eds-live&scope=site (Accessed: 13 December 2019).
Hackley, C. and Hackley, R. A. (2015) ‘Marketing and the cultural production of celebrity in the era of media convergence’, Journal of Marketing Management, 31(5–6), pp. 461–477. doi: 10.1080/0267257X.2014.1000940.
Kanter, S. and Fields, J. (2019) ‘LADY GAGA THE QUEEN of FASHION. (cover story)’, People, 91(7), p. 30. Available at: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=134672674&site=eds-live&scope=site (Accessed: 13 December 2019).
Lang, C. (2019) ‘16 Times Lady Gaga’s Red Carpet Style Was Out of This World’, Time.com, p. N.PAG. Available at: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=heh&AN=134071100&authtype=sso&custid=deakin&site=eds-live&scope=site (Accessed: 13 December 2019).
Loureiro, S. M. C., Costa, I. and Panchapakesan, P. (2017) ‘A passion for fashion’, International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, 45(5), p. 468. Available at: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edb&AN=122718249&authtype=sso&custid=deakin&site=eds-live&scope=site (Accessed: 13 December 2019).
Seunga Venus Jin and Ehri Ryu (2019) ‘Celebrity fashion brand endorsement in Facebook viral marketing and social commerce : Interactive effects of social identification, materialism, fashion involvement, and opinion leadership’, Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management: An International Journal, 23(1), pp. 104–123. doi: 10.1108/JFMM-01-2018-0001.
Shaffer, C. (2017). How Do Celebrities Influence People?. [online] Our Pastimes. Available at: https://ourpastimes.com/how-do-celebrities-influence-people-12341285.html [Accessed 13 Dec. 2019].
UWIRE Text (2016) ‘Keeping up with fall fashion trends’. Available at: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsgao&AN=edsgcl.445798948&authtype=sso&custid=deakin&site=eds-live&scope=site (Accessed: 13 December 2019).
