This is the bell curve, darling
Fashion lesson #1:
Ignore science and math - it has no place in fashion.
I know this may seem like an overstatement, but it is the truth. Recalling my background in math got me in trouble this past week. I noticed a mistake in a textbook conveniently written by one of my professors. This professor is a veteran of the fashion industry and could write a dissertation on virtually any obscure style from any era. The mistake she made wasn't related to anything contextual - I wouldn't dream of correcting her in the field of fashion. However, I found a graph in the book labeled a “bell curve” when obviously it is nothing of the sort.
I've taken a statistics course; I did very well in it too. I knew damn well that a bell curve is based off of a normal distribution. It is called a bell curve because the probability density looks like a bell. This graph was almost a crescent, but clearly not a "bell" shape. The data in the distribution did not fit the definition of a bell curve either.
I approached the professor after class and kindly suggested she rename the graph because it is not a bell curve. She gently touched my arm, and in a permanently faked Europhile accent told me: "Darling, this is the way the bell curve works in fashion." I was in shock at the nerve of her comment. How could anyone pervert science in such a fashion? (Pardon the pun) I gathered what politeness I could and explained to her that it actually is a scientific term and she could easily rename it to a different shape in the next edition - she could even sell more textbooks that way! Alas, my efforts proved futile. She touched my arm again and told me (in the same accent): "Darling, this is fashion, not science, and this is how it works in fashion." Aghast, I walked away in horror at the industry I'm about to enter.
I need to find logic in this world of chaos.
xposted from Vox
Ignore science and math - it has no place in fashion.
I know this may seem like an overstatement, but it is the truth. Recalling my background in math got me in trouble this past week. I noticed a mistake in a textbook conveniently written by one of my professors. This professor is a veteran of the fashion industry and could write a dissertation on virtually any obscure style from any era. The mistake she made wasn't related to anything contextual - I wouldn't dream of correcting her in the field of fashion. However, I found a graph in the book labeled a “bell curve” when obviously it is nothing of the sort.
I've taken a statistics course; I did very well in it too. I knew damn well that a bell curve is based off of a normal distribution. It is called a bell curve because the probability density looks like a bell. This graph was almost a crescent, but clearly not a "bell" shape. The data in the distribution did not fit the definition of a bell curve either.
I approached the professor after class and kindly suggested she rename the graph because it is not a bell curve. She gently touched my arm, and in a permanently faked Europhile accent told me: "Darling, this is the way the bell curve works in fashion." I was in shock at the nerve of her comment. How could anyone pervert science in such a fashion? (Pardon the pun) I gathered what politeness I could and explained to her that it actually is a scientific term and she could easily rename it to a different shape in the next edition - she could even sell more textbooks that way! Alas, my efforts proved futile. She touched my arm again and told me (in the same accent): "Darling, this is fashion, not science, and this is how it works in fashion." Aghast, I walked away in horror at the industry I'm about to enter.
I need to find logic in this world of chaos.
xposted from Vox