March 2020

C

John Lau’s lecture on cultural sustainability was in my opinion the best lecture I have attended during the first two weeks of the better lives unit.

John Lau’s lecture was mainly about cultural diversity, how to sustain culture and how fashion brands and designers use or misuse the idea of cultural diversity.

The lecture itself was very fascinating to listen to and the subject matter is very relevant in today’s fashion world and society as we live in a time where the idea of culture is being either used or misused in certain ways. Fashion brands or designers tend to just create fashion without thinking about the impact it can have on people or ethnic groups  E.G Gucci early 2019 collection where they included jumpers that were black with a red mouth piece that sparked an uproar and it was labeled as racially offensive against black people which shows there are brands who don’t do their research before making things and that’s majority of fashion brands so there is a major issue with fashion brands not being culturally aware especially to its audiences or people who shop from them.

This example leads onto another major topic that was spoken about in the lecture which was cultural appropriation and appreciation from a western and eastern perspective which I agreed a lot with as western and eastern worlds take influences from both sides, there’s a level and extent to that as it can become issue when I dives into a cultural aspect for example braids.

Braids are a hairstyle that originates in black culture however in the media there have been multiple times where braids have been appropriated by people who are not black which has been an ongoing thing for a while even in the industry and big brands or designers get away with it. 

The way John Lau explained the idea of appropriation and appreciation it was perfect as a black young female student myself that’s exposed to social media.

I find and see a lot of people throw around and use black culture as a “trend” rather than appreciating black culture for it’s beauty and richness. Not even just black culture alot of cultures get appropriated rather than appreciated. 

I believe it’s so important especially within the fashion industry to earn about the cultural society that we live in so the new generation of fashion designers can flip the switch and create things that is appropriate and shows cultural awareness because ethnic groups of people  nowadays are more protective of their culture because of the way people, brands and designers have misused it without even learning about the culture they take from. On the other hand it’s also not just our responsibility but it is also fashion brands, designers and celebrities who need to also step up to be culturally aware as we live in an advanced time so we have no excuse to be ignorant when it comes to sustaining culture.

educate those who are unaware.

The Better Lives lecture I attended that really stood out for me personally was John Lau on Cultural Sustainability. “culture is innately part of us and our development, where we are from is just one part of our culture” – this statement really drew me back and gave me a new perspective on the word culture, I had always thought of culture as someones birth right by wherein they were born geographically. Culture is a huge part of life and until now I didn’t even realise that culture can be learnt throughout life as we grow and develop as people alongside one another. Lau went on to speak of a specific example, the infamous Marie Antoinette, known visually for her fashion choices, what I did not know was the back story of her original culture, simple clothed Austrian heritage – when she became queen of France, the French wanted a queen who looked like one! Time goes by and the French Revolution comes to fruition, Marie Antoinette is beheaded and her symbol of over the top dressing was cut from French culture, their new idea of beauty actually looked into the past for inspiration from the Greeks and their Empire Line dresses and their long meaningful history which was very political. This I would come to learn, was a great example of Zeitgeist – ideals and beliefs that motivated actions of the society at that time – this sort of idea of things falling into place through fate or ‘right time right place’. Another great, and quite different example Lau gave was, of Jean-Michel Basquiat, who in his childhood had an accident causing his mother to give him the book grays anatomy – along with this collision of capitalism, cartoons/graffiti and drugs on the rise in the 1980’s, Basquiat’s style was born – a Zeitgeist in his own right, causing massive influence in the art world and general society. Basquiat was a threshold or example, for young or new artists believing in their dreams of being heard by the public. The idea of influence these days is at an all time high with the use of social platforms, and so in terms of cultural sustainability and its accessibility you’d think that cultural sustainability is easily influenced onto the world – but the sadder truth is to make sustainability readily available for all cultures, it is going to take a massive effort on all of our behalves. Thank you to John Lau for opening our eyes onto the reality of cultural sustainability and how we as individuals can use our art to make a stand, and allow gates to open for the rest of cultures to be heard and sustainable.  

Well-being may have multiple meanings, depending on the context one allocates it in. However, Jekaterina Rogaten, a Better Lives unit lecturer, emphasized the need for defining it as a positive condition rather than lack of a negative one. Unfortunately, due to the rise in terms of materialistic and individualistic values caused by shifts in the structure of a capitalistic world, achieving this state gradually becomes problematic. This raising issue may be observed in almost all aspects of human life, including fashion. 

Within positive psychology, hedonic (subjective) and eudaimonic (psychological) well-being are differentiated (Estes and McMahan, 2010). Second of them consists of personal attributes such as self-acceptance, growth, purpose, skills, autonomy and relations. Due to its universality, it may be widely applied within the fashion industry, affecting both its consumption and production counterparts. 

Today’s consumerist society is often based on a wrong view that more equals better. Thus, the customers create high demand and companies make their efforts to produce overwhelming amounts of items to fulfil those needs. In terms of clothing, those products are then sold in high street stores with a full range shifting from season to season. However, according to researchers, this process has a negative effect on buyers: a wider choice equals harder decision-making process and reduced satisfaction with a final choice (Lepper and Yengar, 2000). Because of this, I believe that migration towards slow fashion should take place. This way, the concept of sustainability is fulfiled by reducing the number of garments produced. Simultaneously, the well-being of customers is enhanced by the establishment of a sense of dialogue with a designer as well as obtaining the feeling of clear purpose.

Well-being should also be elevated among fashion industry employees. A research conducted by Meyer (2007) compared this feature among professional models and non-models. The results showed that professionals characterized in lower need satisfaction and well-being but greater personality maladjustments, what was explained as a result of unfulfilled basic needs. It reminded me of the observations I have made while volunteering on Fashion Week. Even though officially the underweight models are banned from taking part, most of the girls involved were very skinny. In addition to their young age and restless lifestyle, it created an image of heavily affected beings. This observation influenced me strongly, causing frustration but also inspiring to take action upon inclusivity. Therefore, I decided upon incorporating a wider range of models’ sizes in each of my upcoming projects.

The most influential part of Rogaten’s lecture was how calm yet confident call for action it involved. Jekaterina demonstrated how fashion and well-being may correlate, impacting each human being. It means that every one of us, from a young lady doing her weekly fast fashion shopping at Primark to billion-dollar companies greenwashing their harmful actions, needs to step forward and have their day in the fight for better tomorrow.

References

Iyengar, S. and Lepper, M., 2000. When choice is demotivating: Can one desire too much of a good thing?. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79(6), pp.995-1006.

McMahan, E. and Estes, D., 2010. Hedonic Versus Eudaimonic Conceptions of Well-being: Evidence of Differential Associations With Self-reported Well-being. Social Indicators Research, 103(1), pp.93-108.

Meyer, B., Enström, M., Harstveit, M., Bowles, D. and Beevers, C., 2007. Happiness and despair on the catwalk: Need satisfaction, well-being, and personality adjustment among fashion models. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 2(1), pp.2-17.

Rogaten, J., 2020. Well-Being.

During the first two weeks of the better lives unit, I attended an array of different lectures, but the lecture that resonated with me the most was the lecture on power presented by lecturer of fashion and sustainability, and course leader of MA Fashion Futures, Julia Crew. 

I found this lecture very insightful, and shocking, especially when she mentioned that sixty-two people have the wealth of half of the world’s population, and according to Oxfam it takes four days for a CEO from one of the top five global fashion brands to earn what a Bangladeshi garment worker will earn in her lifetime. Factories around the world are being pushed to deliver ever-larger quantities of clothing at a higher rate, but with a smaller profit margin, forcing workers to work unpaid overtime whilst being subjected to harassment, injury, and intimidation in cruel conditions, so next time you are out shopping in fast fashion stores, who are owned by the mega-rich, ask yourself who is being exploited for you to be able to buy clothing items so cheap? Is it worth spending a little more money for an item of quality, that will not only last longer, but the workers who made the items are treated fairly and with respect, as any human being so rightly should be? 

In the US, it takes slightly over one working day for a CEO to earn what an ordinary worker makes in a year. The rich are continuing to get richer, whilst the poor are continuing to get poorer. In the world, and more specifically the fashion industry, money plays a huge roll in the work that is created and fashion has been a medium to visually communicate power for centuries including royalty, military power, politics, business, media and music. 

“The media is the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses.”

Malcolm X, Human Rights Activist

For the past three decades, digital marketing has had a great influence on our consumerism, and according to Forbes American’s are exposed to around 4,000 to 10,000 advertisements every single day. Advertising is quick, cumulative and mostly subconscious, with only 8 percent of an advertisement’s message being received by the conscious mind, and the rest of the message is worked deeply within the brain. As consumers, we have a lot of power. We are the driver of trends, and every time we buy something, we’re unknowingly voting with our wallet. Whenever we use our voices, and our wallets, brands listen. We can create real change just by changing where we shop, or you can be more radical and join activist groups such as Greenpeace, Extinction Rebellion, Fashion Revolution Week, Peta and many more. We have to make a change not only for ourselves, but for all future lives on this earth. We need to do better than the generations before us, and we all need to take accountability.

Throughout the Better Lives lecture unit, every lecture has been of importance, yet I was able to identify the most with Jekaterina Rogaten’s lecture on Well-being. Primarily, I was fascinated by the way in which Psychological Well-being is applied in most aspects of life; as the lecture continued, it was made apparent that consumer’s/worker’s well-being is a key factor within the fashion industry. 

In this modern day, fast fashion takes a lead in this social media influenced consumer age. In many ways, well-being is the reasoning behind this. Through Rogaten’s lecture I became enlightened through learning of both Hedonic (subjective) and Eudaimonic (psychological) well-being. One subject area that stood out to me was the Paradox of Choice. It can be argued that by maximising your choices, you maximise your freedom whilst maximising your decision-making. This can be applied to several instances within the fashion industry; reflecting on this from a personal perspective, it can be applied to my wardrobe and shopping habits. Through the constant pressure to appear well-presented and ‘on-trend’, it could be argued that myself and others feel the need to purchase garments from fast-fashion brands. It has already been well-established that fast fashion has an incredibly negative effect on the environment, yet its effects have not necessarily been portrayed within personal lives. It is of my opinion that through the large quantity of clothing items I own, the number of choices I have to make in the day increases due to me choosing an outfit to wear in the morning. This should mean that as my decision-making has been maximised, my freedom should be as well; as previously mentioned, the constant evolving trends lead this to be incorrect, as now only a small selection of clothes are deemed ‘fashionable’ and ‘on-trend’. This could therefore lead to a depletion of happiness, as consumers are arguably reminded that their outfit is not complete without a new pair of shoes or a new jacket etc. 

To conclude, this particular lecture has allowed me to understand the power of choice and the effect that this choice has upon the fashion environment. Through self-acceptance and self-realisation, we as consumers have the power to change the fashion industry. Perhaps by becoming happy and content within ourselves, we do not have to purchase another garment or clothing item to feel accepted within the ever-changing and evolving trends of the modern day. In many ways, it could be argued that the fashion industry projects and enforces a level of toxic pressure amongst younger consumers; as we purchase a top for £4 alongside a year’s worth of next day delivery for £7- we as the sole consumers have to understand that this is not ethical, as we should educate ourselves and through this self-realization be aware that it surprisingly is more than ok to wear the same outfit twice.  

Reflections on how the Better Lives themes might change how you work in the future;

Now we are into the second phase of our ‘Better Lives’ unit, I am focusing on contemporary portrait photography being tutored by Danny Treacy, during this we have been shown more personal works of Danny’s like ‘Them’ a collection of images Danny created where he distorted his own body by layering and disguising the face to tell a story through his images and also many different guest lectures inspiration where we were introduced to photographers like Juergen Teller, Ethan James Green and Samuel fossa. They have shown us that what is most important is connecting with your subject is the best thing to be doing to get a good image. Also, good lighting and direction on set. ORGANISATION IS KEY. Firstly, scout out a location, mood board, test shoot, shoot but ALWAYS a test shoot and be professional.

During this we have been mingling with students from hair and make-up, creative direction and 3D fashion animation getting to know each other through group excise, for example as a group we were asked to go out to the market and make a collection of images that inspired us works we wanted to focus on lighting but also have a similar feeling aesthetic going through our images so we went for an orangey color scheme. We were able to achieve most of these images because these lovely ladies setting up a restaurant inside of the building let us look around and exchange conversation. we have also been looking at basic camera controls and training like changing the ISO, Aperture and shutter speed during this.

The better Lives unit is helping me change how I work in a more positive way by making me more professional making new connections with friends that will help me with collaborations in the future. I went into contemporary portrait photography class not knowing anyone apart from like 3 individual that are in my styling and production class, now I can at least say I feel comfortable and happy to talk to everyone in the class.

We also have a social responsibility to show what happens in the world today into our images, as Kate Fletcher said in her Nature lecture, nature is the enabler of the fashion system however Nature is also fashion’s limiting factor and we need to get this point across, without cotton or silkworms there won’t be any clothes, we need to stop taking for granted what we already have and start being greener and these alarming facts should make you do so as well, did you know that all living systems are now 50% in decline or that there was 2x as many birds, animals and plants in the 1970’s then there is now on earth.  contemporary portrait photography as shown me that having your own aesthetic is key in making it in the fashion industry, so my aesthetic is going to be all GREEN only, upcycling, remaking, renting, reusing. NOTHING NEW.

The Better Lives unit and specifically the lectures about money and power raised some fascinating points in reference to the evolution of the clothing industry throughout history and powerful icons which included: royalties, politicians, business professionals and musicians too. This brought me to genuinely reflect on how wealth and fame shape our epitomes in relation to the “self” and our fashionable identity.   

Many social scientists claimed that: Fashion, most commonly in urban areas, is a form of showcasing of the “self” by which everyone is free to express its uniqueness and beliefs through the external appearance of our own style and apparel. I partly agree with this belief as fashion has always allowed me to disclose and celebrate my inner identity and moreover, to detach from the social crowds who are currently living in my hometown and in London too; this is predominantly analogous to my enthusiasm related to my sexuality and sympathy towards the fashion industry.   

On other hand, I arguably think that the whole industry shaped in a way through which marketing powers affect societies worldwide by unconsciously exploiting our true identities, therefore, constructing and forging similar models of human association. Indeed, it is not ambitiously difficult to identify who holds power within the actual fashion industry. Media, marketing associates and more specifically, social networks are the pioneers of nowadays fashion’s power, as they have a quick and subconsciously impact on our ideals and market power. 

Many social identity theories came out with the belief that Identity is indefinable as humans tend to shape and move from a group to another, although, marketing power forces can be identified as leaders of this phenomenon.   

A pure example of this argument is the even more expanding social media influencers controlled through strategic marketing planning. In other words, the social model of the influencer aims not only to sell brand’s items but is nowadays the main point of reference through which particularly younger generations build not only their closet but their appearance and ways of thinking. 

Generally, I really enjoyed the points that the lecture Julia highlighted over the lecture. Indeed, I think this Better Lives unit is crucial to make us think outside the box and to critically explore the variou aspects of the industry. Indeed, discussing in detail the impacts of power on fashion and society was very mind-boggling and made me further reflect on the roles of social media who took over the global fashion scene by persuading us and our aesthetics.  

Overall, I believe societies around the world should mindfully limit their obsessions and repercussions of the before mentioned influencers, this is because, our aesthetics, style and skills is what creates and portray our own “Brand”. The lecture about powers made me think that who and what holds higher authorities should solely be a model of inspiration and not identified as a way of living. Therefore, we should be the influencers of our personal brand, only this way we can break the boundaries of social insecurity and categorisation. 

Generally, I really enjoyed the points that the lecture Julia highlighted over the lecture. Indeed, I think this Better Lives unit is crucial to make us think outside the box and to critically explore the variou aspects of the industry. Indeed, discussing in detail the impacts of power on fashion and society was very mind-boggling and made me further reflect on the roles of social media who took over the global fashion scene by persuading our aesthetics and analagously transforming identy.

BL Lecture 11 – Representation, Diversity / Teleica Kirkland

At the beginning of this unit I thought I will reflect on more than one of the lectures and my body of work would be a mixture of what I have understood about them. Later on, however, I found out that maybe my reflection will be much more thorough if I addressed only one of the themes of the lectures. For this very reason I chose to work over Lecture 11 – Representation and Diversity.

As I myself come from a not so big and not so commonly spoken of country (or at least not in a good way), the representation and diversity theme was really interesting for me. I am from Bulgaria and I have seen many fashion shows or photo shoots inspired by my homeland (For example : John Galliano Fall 2010). However, not often do I see any kind of “shout out”. Nobody really knows what is happening over there on the border between Europe and Asia. I am not bitter or angry about it, my sole interest is that people start learning about us and do not only assume. I have heard many times “Aren’t Bulgarians racists?”, “Weren’t you Russian?” and so on. Obviously nowadays people do not ask you “How is it there?”, “Who are you?” etc., but straightforward assume what the answer would be. Experiencing this on an everyday basis, when Teleica Kirkland said “Not talking doesn’t solve anything.” I thought “Yes, it doesn’t and I shouldn’t assume vice versa, that every Westerner thinks Eastern Europeans steal their job, or are racist or can only work as cleaning ladies or plumbers, I should just ask.”

Before this lecture I myself did not really know what cultural appropriation or appreciation meant, I have read and heard of it, even discussed it, but listening to this lecture and understanding it, I found out that it is easy to label different people. For example, black people can be involved only in sports or music, Spanish and Italian can work only in hospitality, Chinese are fit to work only in the fields of science, Eastern Europeans can only work as cleaning ladies or janitors. But this is a fallacy. All people are born with the same capabilities, we all dream, aspire and we all can learn.

It is common knowledge that we learn the fastest through seeing, observing our environment. Our eyes are the primary source of information, words come thereafter. Consequently, when we meet new people we observe their appearance first and then we speak. The first impression of someone is their clothes, the second is their words. It is said that one cannot judge a book by its covers, but we can learn a lot about peoples heritage, culture by only looking at what they wear, which is absolutely spectacular. Fashion is what connects us all, modern one as a matter of fact. In my opinion, it is the main tool, with which we can create bridges between different cultures, as long as we truly appreciate and not judge each other, or do not understand culture and fashion as pure profit.

“Design, fashion is all conversation.” says Telicia Kirkland and she is right. I feel tremendously grateful and happy, that fashion designers and brands find inspiration in Bulgaria, in our many-sided culture. However, I want people to interpret my culture with a deep understanding and not only, because it looks “exotic” or “other-worldly”, just as I will always strive to do with theirs as well. Therefore, what this lecture taught me is that fashion, culture, people, we should talk to them in order to fully understand them, and there is nothing wrong about asking or talking.