Project Outcomes and Personal Development
The Better Lives unit has been extremely effective in allowing me to think deeply about the three themes; diversity, sustainability and social responsibility and I think that this has been reflected in the outcomes of my Fashion Styling projects.
In our final masterclass with the fashion styling team, we were asked to produce one styled look based around a subculture of our choice, with a focus on sports that people have taken up during our time in lockdown. At first, I thought that this was going to be quite a challenging task due to the current circumstances and it meant that I had to think effectively in order to make the most of what I had to hand. My brother stepped in to model my styled outfits, and this pushed me to experiment further because I have never had the opportunity to style menswear, so this was a new challenge for me. (For reference the subcultures worked into the styled looks were ‘This is England’ as well as football hooliganism, football being the chosen sport.)
Within the first pictured look, there was a heavy focus on the Better Lives’ theme of sustainability, and this project provoked me to consider using an array of clothing items, some new and some old. I reworked several items and took clothes from my parents’ wardrobes (for example, the Burberry raincoat belonged to my mum when she was a teenager) and it was interesting to see how I could play around with old items and rework them into something new and fresh. For the second look I decided to only have the model’s eyes on show, upon doing my own research this is a method often used by football hooligans. I also felt like the covering of his mouth was somewhat of a similarity to the position we, as a society, find ourselves in today. It is parallel to society’s need to wear masks in order to help prevent the spread of Covid-19 – and this ties in with social responsibility.
Whilst diversity is not necessarily a strong focal point in my above project, our outcomes in our first styling masterclass did have an emphasis on this theme. We had both male and female models for our group’s styled looks and we also played around with androgynous fashion. The use of the high-vis jacket on the female model was a nod to the idea that women can be successful in male dominated work sectors. We also looked at effeminacy in one of our male model’s looks and had him wear a deconstructed dress over joggers, symbolising the breakdown of gender stereotypes.
The Better Lives unit has been a thoroughly enjoyable experience and having had to adjust to home learning has given me a greater appreciation for my studies. The fashion styling team have enlightened me as to how much thought goes into producing a well thought out, styled piece and now, even in day to day life of styling my own clothes, I will be thinking more about the items I use and how I wear them.