Blog post 2 – Themes in future work.
After hearing the Better Lives themes being discussed over the past weeks, I now realise I need to think of exactly how I want to incorporate these into my work. Both as fashion journalism student and as a styling student during this better lives unit.
During my first few lectures of styling in and outside of fashion I have felt a really creative side of me appear that perhaps hasn’t been able to be explored in my degree course Fashion Journalism. In ways I have begun to fall back in love with clothes and fashion however part of me is as we were told we need to bring in clothes, in particular sportwear, to lesson for our styling master class. Despite owning gym wear I feel I would not have appropriate items to create at really innovative look. However, this is a perfect example of how I should bring the theme of sustainability into my work. I now realise that this is a perfect time to experiment with clothes and give them a second life. Initially I did think I need to buy something appropriate but now I realise that clothes such as my old hoodie with a hole in the sleeve is perfect for this unit. It is this mindset of reusing and upcycling that I want to carry through my better lives project. I feel this could be a massive inspiration for a lot of my journalism work too, looking at documenting more ethical and sustainable changes that are being made within fashion.
From the very first lecture social responsibility is something that has stayed with me and particularly the idea of clear and fair representation of subgroups is something I intend to include in any future work. The course I am doing for this unit Is not just styling but styling sportswear for subcultures. From what I have learnt about the importance of taking responsibility for your work I now need to ensure I do adequate research into any subculture or group movement I try to use in my conceptualised piece. Whilst in lesson we were given a task to create our own subculture in which my group decided to merge the 50s Teddy Boys with the current English Grime scene. Both groups have this complete ‘cool’ factor as well as an association of violence. Yet I feel the Grime scene is sometimes wrongly categorised as violent, this was proved when we came across the quote in one of Stomzy’s grime tracks where he says ‘Everybody calm down, it’s a tracksuit What the f man? I ain’t gonna stab you.’ Therefore, showing how this sense of identity within the community is very much missunderstood as their chosen clothes make people feel they can stereotype them. In this case it also feeds into racism and this is why social responsibility is so important as it also links into other themes such as diversity. The better lives themes are really allowing me to be self-critical and assure I am not only transparent but sympathetic in my work.
Reference
WICKEDSKENGMAN PART 4, (2015), Published by JME, Written by Stomzy, Released September 10th 2015.