Blog post 4: Peer review
Having delved into fashion styling during my previous year in the foundation course and within my personal free time, I found Eloise’s blog post extremely interesting because it shed more light on the different ways we can connect the better lives themes of diversity, social responsibility and sustainability to everything we do within fashion.
I completely agree with the fact that the lack of knowledge contributes to the popularity of fast fashion, and the other reason being that not everyone is able to afford sustainable products as they are more expensive. Fast fashion brands produce items that are cheap and that have lower quality, which encourages consumers to buy more often and this is where the problem persists. Brands are unable to sell all the stock that they have produced, and these products end up in landfills and go to waste, which harms the environment. It is definitely important for brands to now focus on producing less and utilising sustainable production methods. Even though this might increase overall costs, the consumer base must understand that this is the correct way forward. The importance and rise of sustainability is definitely a threat to popular fast fashion brands such as Zara, H&M, Bershka, etc that create cheap clothing and have a high turnaround. It is interesting that Eloise, during her styling work, chooses to represent brands that have zero-waste policies, ones that use recycled materials and make clothes that last, because although that might make the process of sourcing clothing for her shoots way harder, she chooses to take that route so that she can spread the correct message to her audience.
Additionally, she delves into the idea of diversity and lends an interesting view that focusing on diversity goes beyond just visual representation, but also involves the people within the team. Her understanding is vital as she mentions that she would like to work with different designers in the future, ones that are not as mainstream, which might make her creative process more fluid. I find that when we focus too much on bringing out diversity, it may seem very superficial to an audience. Hence, enveloping different people with new thoughts and ideas into the process might make it effortlessly diverse and original. She goes on further to acknowledge the role of a stylist and mentions how important it is for stylists all around the world to promote small brands and items created by minority groups, as stylists do influence the way people choose to dress. This connects to the idea of sustainability as well because smaller brands and minority groups create products on a made-to-order basis, which reduces the overall wastage of materials. Furthermore, the aspect of social responsibility connects diversity and sustainability as it is important for brands to promote fair working conditions and fair pay. Customers must be informed of the brands’ working practices and must only support a brand if they are focusing enough on maintaining corporate social responsibility.
After reading Eloise’s work, I was able to look at these themes from a different perspective. Being a PR student, I have definitely looked at the three themes from another lense, and hence hearing her viewpoint definitely aided in my understanding of how we can make fashion more environmentally, socially and consumer friendly.