BLOG 3: PROJECT OUTCOME
Throughout this wonderful unit I got the opportunity to spend hours and hours researching and learning about 3 important aspects that hopefully will shape us me as an individual: diversity, social responsibility and sustainability. Doing Fashion Activism my main goal was to learn a little something about Creative Direction and mostly “test” the waters. I wanted to know what it takes to be a creative director, and thanks to Melodie and Carolina, I can say I managed to push my boundaries and achieve some outstanding achievements. My first setback was teamwork since I am such a bossy individual and I usually take the lead without even realising. I was afraid I might end up in a team with people not at all interested and that did not value the importance of this unit the same way I did. I remember the first lecture; I was sitting at a round table next to some girls that were just as excited as I hoped they’d be. Our task was to create a motion picture for our designated brand – Traid. As a student that goes to Lime Grove – we all knew Traid. We were passing by that Shepherd’s Bush store daily, but we had no idea what Traid was all about. They call themselves a sustainable brand that encourages recycling and upcycling, but in my opinion, Traid is so much more. Traid is diverse from the simple fact that in a store you can find more than hundreds of brands, Traid is sustainable and Traid helps the community and encourages everyone to be more aware of the impact of the industry on the environment. After meeting up multiple times, we ended up deciding how important it was to come up with a video that has an impact. We used some interesting techniques that involved a split-screen, grainy effects and we also used some entertaining music.
A charity store encourages real people to be real. At first, we were not pleased with the way the brand was promoted through visuals even though the content was worth reading! That’s why our new Traid was even more real than ever. We went with the “street as your own catwalk” theme, but in our video, we wanted to promote the importance of social awareness regarding the environmental impacts of the industry. As an explanation of the video, we all agreed on the following: At first, we wanted to make a comparison between luxury brands and waste fields to alert how the fashion industry contributes the world pollution. Then, by showing both nature and runways which are both inspired by sustainable clothes, we wanted to emphasize that sustainable fashion could be both sustainable and fashionable. In addition to that, we used a voiceover of Virgil Abloh to emphasize the importance of a change happening now (due to the pandemic). Even though we were looking forward to filming everything, the pandemic had something to say in all this and forced us to use stock videos. Through Zoom videoconferences we decided upon the direction of the movie and the videos just as if we were in a coffee shop in London!
I have to admit, it was wonderful working with the girls and my team was the definition of “the dream team”. We all had something to say and it was the first time in my whole academic career when I did not feel like I was bossing anyone around! That was such a big development since I always tend to exaggerate and take the lead just because I am not used not to. We all had such valuable skills and those girls managed to make me understand the importance of responsibility. I kept saying throughout my blogs how it’s up to us to make life better, well in this one I feel like I have to say that those girls made my life better – and that’s a start!
https://web.microsoftstream.com/video/3dd3cc18-331a-40da-adcf-b08e99fbf07a?referrer=https:%2F%2Fl.instagram.com%2F – Enjoy our movie the same way we enjoyed creating it!
References
Vogue, 2020, Vogue Global Conversations: The Future Of Ecommerce. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luyvh6vPJX4&t=1312s [Accessed 14 April 2020].