Blog 2 Themes reflection
Throughout the Better Lives unit, the main themes that are of main focus would be Diversity, Sustainability and Social Responsibility. Since starting the unit, I have become more aware of these themes and what they mean to the fashion industry/community; before I had not played too much mind to the issues that are behind these themes. I am now more conscious of the fact that the industry is not making the most essential and environmental changes, in order to become more sustainable. It is also shown that although the industry has become more diverse in the models they use and the clothing they make, there are still some companies which refuse to make changes to their brand. Ultimately, all are not taking the social responsibility to change for the better and are more focused on the financial side of business and not the environmental side.
One of the themes that had interested me the most during the Better Lives unit was Diversity, being from an Indian background I understand how some brands do not cater to certain cultures and skin colours. As well as this, body shaming is still as very common thing within the industry; some designers such as Rihanna with her Fenty/Savage brands are extremely inclusive. Something about her Savage fashion had presented a huge statement to the world about accepting and seeing all shapes and colours as beautiful. Although, some brands are seemingly ‘diverse’ models are still being labelled as “plus size” or “petite”, which could be seen as a positive as it does differentiate between the shapes. However, slim curvier models do still seem to be confused as ‘plus size’; for example, model Ashley Graham would be considered plus size in the Victoria Secret show, although she is slim and embraces her wider hips and larger bust.
I had also been presented with the themes of Sustainability and Social Responsibility, I believe that these two themes tie in together very well, due to it being your responsibility to actually change your ways to support and improve the environment. I had become more aware of the worlds state from the information that I had learnt within the lecture, the fashion industry is the 2nd largest polluter and one of the reasons for this may be the everchanging trends within the community. Fast fashion has played a huge part in environment damage, this is due to ‘throwaway culture’, the cheap materials which are using to produce this clothing may break easy and be thrown away after just a few weeks of wearing. As well as this, brands like PrettyLittleThing have been associated with having some products containing chemicals that cause cancer and birth defects. This has made me more aware of the brands that I shop at and if they are friendly not only for me to wear, however if they are sustainable.
Making changes to your lifestyle is quite hard, especially when you are used to being and doing things a certain way; however now is the time to become more mentally aware of the effects that your daily wear makes to the world; slowly I am trying to make a change. Better Lives is defiantly making me more conscious to these issues.