#1 Blog Post – Lecture Reflection
Fashion is one of the most expansive and materials absorbing industries in the world. Its intensity was heavily discussed in the series of the Better Lives talks which all portrayed how fashion can affect the quality of the natural environment and living standards of millions of people. In the era of great extremes, within designers hands lies power to shape and change the future of fashion.
While most of the lectures were inspirational and portrayed close links between three key words of the unit, one of the most attracting attention issues to me was the subject of cultural appropriation that interlinked such topics as social minorities, diversity, empathy and social responsibility. Spreading knowledge and awereness about cultural misrepresentations may be crucial for creating an empathetic designers’ generation to which I would love to belong. What appeared quite intense and memorable to me was the way that Teleica Kirkland gave her speech about the cultural representations and appropriations in the today’s fashion world. Her lecture could be complemented by the previous presentation by John Lau, Social Sustainability whose words on the cultural competence established a clear introduction to the wide subject of misundestandings between various ethnical backgrounds and the fashion world.
I think that most people (including me before listetning to the lectures) are unconciously aware of the phenomenon of cultural appropriation but only few are able to freely have a conversations about it and as Kirkland mentioned, it is essential to create a dialogue between different communities in order to understand history, legacy and usually emotions of other people whose cultural backgrounds sometimes may represent a huge part of their identity. Every person deserves respect, all the more no one has capability of choosing their place of birth. Acknowledging the cultures’ symbols, genres or traditions is a part of being socially responsibile and empathetic and allows to not exclude any society from the global market which at times may appear very monocultural by promoting only narrowed down ideas of beauty. I think that here lies the problem, that people appropriate the visuals without acknowledging theirs origins because they look aesthetically pleasing. Instances may be the cases of Gucci, Prada, Moncler or Katy Perry who all created so called lazy fashion designs, relating clearly to the blackface imagery.
What I definitely carried out of these lectures was the great feeling that as a young designer, I have to make every effort to create more socially empathetic projects and educate consumers about their complicity in creating new trends in fashion. As a creator I have to consider what cultural convictions or even stereotypes my designs can propagate among certain communities and what results it may bring. Origins of the visual symbols are always worth researching, even more when there is always a possibility to create a socially aware merge of different cultural influences, resulting in the phenomenon of cultural appreciation which I will definitely try to include in my own ideas.
References:
Kirkland, T. (2020) Representation, Better Lives Unit, London College of Fashion (accessed on: 19 February 2020).
Lau, J. (2020) Cultural Sustainability, Better Lives Unit, London College of Fashion (accessed on: 18 February 2020).