Better Lives Blog 2 – Themes Reflection
The Better Lives has three main themes: sustainability, diversity, and social responsibility. In my case, through the lectures and seminars, I could learn that these three themes are closely related to each other and play important roles in the aspect of fashion practices. These themes and lectures will have a positive impact on my future works.
My chosen project is Fashion Illustration: View from the Catwalk. In this project, I was able to find various fashion illustrations and at the same time study examples of sustainability, diversity, and social responsibility that designers and brands practice. As a hair and make-up for fashion student, when I researched various beauty brands, I found that many brands and artists are trying to make better lives. It was an opportunity for me to know that I can also try.
Generally, What I have been most interested in among these themes is Sustainability. I researched The Body Shop, a representative cosmetics brand in the UK. This company is a global beauty brand. The Body Shop was started in 1976 by its founder Anita Roddick with simple packaging and products obtained from nature. For more than 40 years, they have shown that being environmentally sustainable, people-centred and profitable can go hand in hand. I came to think that this company is a brand that is deeply concerned about sustainability because The Body Shop is the first brand to prohibit testing on animals among cosmetic brands and also the first company to introduce Fair Trade to the beauty industry. Therefore, all The Body Shop products are vegetarian and free from animal cruelty. This brand also helps communities with Community Fair Trade; Community Fair Trade is The Body Shop’s own independently verified fair trade programme, created to help marginalised communities improve their lives and alleviate poverty.
I think I can also participate in the sustainability they seek and empower their movement by using these brands’ products. In regards to sustainability, many makeup artists’ makeup kits contain a variety of chemicals and disposable products. This can be an environmental hazard enough. We cannot avoid this situation, but I think we can reduce the damage to the environment by using substitutes. It may be a good example to use cosmetics using natural materials rather than cosmetics including chemical materials. In particular, microplastics in cosmetics, which have become a big issue these days, are known to have a big problem polluting the ocean. Scientists say beauty products containing plastic microbeads pollute water supplies, harm sea creatures and leave tiny particles in human food. This means that the environment and humans are connected. Therefore, we should work harder to protect the environment. In this regard, I believe that reducing the use of disposable products or plastics can be an important action when doing makeup especially. Of course, this may not have an effective effect. However, I believe we can make a change by consistently doing small things and making efforts.
Reference
The body shop. https://www.thebodyshop.com/en-gb/(Accessed : 6 March 2020).
BBC News. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-wales-31880720/microplastics-in-cosmetics-damaging-marine-life(Accessed : 18
April 2020).
25th April 2020 @ 4:27 pm
I loved reading this blog post on sustainability, diversity and social responsibility. I liked how the writer mentioned the immense positive impact that brands such as The Body Shop have had on the environment including being the first brand to prohibit testing on animals, and also being the first beauty brand to introduce fair trade to the beauty industry via their verified fair trade programme, which was created to help marginalised communities improve their lives and alleviate poverty.
The tone of this blog post was extremely educating and powerful, and it really did make me consider my own consumerism by evaluating the ethics and sustainability of the brands I wear and the products I use, and I am dedicated to being more sustainable in any way that I can. I also appreciate the hard work the writer has put into researching not only brands, but stating statistics and facts within the writing such as “scientists say beauty products containing plastic micro-beads pollute water supplies, harm sea creatures and leave tiny particles in human food”, this really makes you think of just how easy it is to be unsustainable, and how we must come up with a solution for unsustainable thing’s from obvious things such as plastic water bottles and certain materials to smaller things such as the beauty products that they mentioned in the previous quote.
I appreciated when they gave us their own opinion and recommendations on things such as when they stated “It may be a good example to use cosmetics using natural materials rather than cosmetics including chemical materials.”, saying it in this tone makes the reader feel like sustainability isn’t being rammed down their throat, but at the same time, it is educating them on the decisions that they should make when they consume.
I also liked when the writer put “I believe we can make a change by consistently doing small things and making efforts.”, this enforces that we all actively play a part in how we have and continue to destroy the planet, but also how we can come together and change the world for the better, not only for ourselves and the current people on this planet but the future generations of this planet too. We must stop being so selfish and think of others because I don’t want my children to grow up in an unhealthy and polluted earth, I want them to enjoy the beautiful greenery of the rainforests, the deep blue sea, and all the incredible wildlife this earth has to offer.
The only criticism I have is that I would’ve loved to have seen some of the fashion illustrations that the writer wrote about in the second paragraph of the blog, I think this would’ve made the blog stand out from the other blogs which have been written about sustainability, diversity and social responsibility, but overall it was thorough, detailed, really well wrote and made the writer look at how they themselves consume and the impact they have on the planet.