 "Photo: Courtesy of Janet Hethorn")
When people first meet fashion and apparel design professor Janet Hethorn, they wouldn't think she holds a third-degree black belt in shotokan karate and has been training since 1979.
They also wouldn't think that for eight years she spent time cruising the streets of Los Angeles looking for gang members to interview as part of a gang dress investigation.
Hethorn's philosophy that fashion can change the world has led her to experiences people rarely associate with a designer.
While reading Minneapolis Saint Paul Magazine during the early '90s, an article about gang dress caught Hethorn's interest. She contacted sources listed in the article and was on the way to her investigation.
"Kids were getting killed because of what they are wearing," Hethorn says. "I thought, 'I understand these things, I'm not a criminologist, but I understand how clothing can play into this.' "
One thing led to another, and Hethorn found herself in the back of a police car late at night, speeding up and down dark alleys in dangerous neighborhoods, jumping curbs and looking for a group of suspected gang members.
"They threw me in it right away," she says. "You have to sign all these releases about if you get killed or whatever, it's not their fault."
Hethorn says her first time on the street was the moment of truth. While speeding around an L.A. neighborhood, she could hear whistles - a neighborhood signal that police were near. The police eventually cornered a group of suspects and ordered them to put their hands on the car as they stared at Hethorn.
"They were all pretty hardcore gang kids, and I said, 'I'll just sit here, fine,' " she says. "Then one of the cops came over and opened up the back door and said, 'You can come and interview them if you want.' "
This was the point where Hethorn says she had to make a decision - go through with the study or stay in the car. She got out, interviewed the gang members and found they were surprisingly willing to talk. Hethorn says getting them to do so was all a matter of respect.
"I'm talking to them from a place of respect because I want to understand what they're doing," she says. "I don't want to categorize or stereotype them. I want to know what's going on so I can be a part of communicating and eventually healing."
Hethorn's research spawned a documentary video, "Style and Meaning - A Youth Perspective," and a Web site that garnered national attention. She says she had some unique experiences while she was working on the study.
"Of all the years I was working, I only got one death threat - that's not too bad," she says. "And that was by e-mail. It was kind of interesting."
She says she was invited into some neighborhoods and had to decline due to fears for her safety.
Hethorn's investigation of gang dress stemmed from her interest in the real meaning of clothes and design, she says.
"Design is about solving a problem, it's not about making something gorgeous," Hethorn says. "If that's part of the problem, you do that, fine, but it's really about identifying and solving a problem."
She says her work allowed her to give back to the community and speak to parent groups and schools about gang dress. Fashion can be a vehicle to change the world, she says.
"You communicate who you are through what you wear," Hethorn says. "It is a way people connect with each other. If you really can understand it in a deep way, it has a lot of power."
The connection between dress and gang violence was more difficult to discover than she expected, Hethorn says.
"I thought it was a matter of find it out, avoid it and everybody's safe and life goes on," she says. "But it's really a whole lot more complicated than that."
Hethorn says the reality is, different gangs' dress criteria apply to different neighborhoods.
Explaining style and how people understand conflicts around style is one of Hethorn's goals, she says. Her experience with gang dress was a training ground for investigating bigger problems in fashion.
Hethorn is currently studying masculinity and men's style. Her research is a way for her to be a contributing member of the world through what she does well, she says.
"If clothes were designed in a more humane way and people understood how and why we wear what we wear, the world would be a lot better," Hethorn says.
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