Blog 4 – Peer Review
I read Mhari Tyler’s blog and chose to focus my peer review on it as I thought that her points were laid out clearly, her understanding of certain lectures was definite and the way in which she expanded on what she has heard in order to form her own thoughts was good. In the first paragraph she outlines how the relationship between the producer and the consumer within the fashion industry is symbiotic. She was particularly captivated by the Power lecture by Julia Crew. This was a lecture which had not inspired me, and it was therefore interesting for me to have the points explained in a way which became very intriguing. When I listened to the lecture I found the points quite negative as it seems like there is misleading information within every brand in order to exploit the consumer and produce more money. Mhari, however, makes it seem like a more positive relationship. Touching on points about how without input from either party the whole structure of the fashion industry would collapse.
Mhari makes very clear points of the state our industry is in due to many issues which are becoming progressively worse, for example the environment. She speaks about how people are ruining the planet and we need to learn how to be sustainable and save our planet. She quotes Extinction Rebellion in her blog, this is a good elaboration of her point and explains how without the planet there won’t be any fashion industry anyway so we need to make a change while we have still got a planet to save. I have touched on issues of sustainability in some of my blogs and I think Mhari’s writing expresses the same level of concern as I feel towards this issue. The need for change is now. Mhari also goes on to explain how this change needs to come about, and how students such as ourselves should be standing together and using the power that we have as a collective to drive this change and also to influence and encourage people to do the same. It is only acting together which will allow these positive steps forward to happen.
During this time of the COVID-19, there is a lot of talk about the environment. The difference we have seen even in a matter of weeks during the lockdown, with us being indoors and therefore not going out-and-about polluting the planet, is colossal. It is almost as if we have wound back time enough for us to be able to start making a positive change. Overall I thoroughly enjoyed Mhari’s blog about sustainability and power, and I think that the points which she reflected on in the lectures are crucial to the evolution of the fashion industry from now on.