BLOG3 project outcomes and personal development reflection

My project for the Better live unit was make-up and breakdown, as a costume performance student, we were mentioned so many time about the importance of aesthetics and I think make-up is a significant way to express aesthetics as well, whats more, make-up plays the important  role in fashion shooting, film and theatre performance and catwalk, thus I want to explore how does make-up influence fashion. 

At beginning I thought the only connection between make-up and better lives themes is diversity, for it matters with what kind of skin color , which gender of the model you gonna use,I think based on this point we were taught the principle of skin tone( image1) that we can know the suitable color tone towards different race of models.  

        Image.1

Then I found that make-up and breakdown also relates to social responsibility. According to Claire Swift’s lecture opinion, social responsibility is to raise the awareness of social issues, and our practice should have wider and greater meaning than ourselves, we should do something for other people, just like what they did for women in the prison. When we were asked to created two different looks based on the word —fashion mistake and imperfection, I was thinking that the definition of mistake and be understood as “contrary to mainstream”Thus I focused on “at-risk” young people and marginalised communities. Due to proper caring, some young people’s life were ruined by drags. I want to raise society’s attention through my work. I used needles as elements, and smokey eyes represent a morbid condition. (image.2)  Whats more, we were told to use diverse materials to put the make-up, like paper, foil, beads and gems, even small toy objects. Now I understood why Shahidha claimed that diversity is not only to race, minority issues. The objects used in fashion can also be diverse, just like we used a lot of non-cosmetics. (image3.) 

            Image.2                

                          image.3

My final design was still based on “at-risk” young people, death  aesthetics is  popular among this kind of people. And another reason I chose this as my theme is that death and blood is easier to raise people’s attention on “at-risk” young people group, so I would have more chance to let more people to notice I used Lucas’s paining works (image.4) as inspiration, referenced his character’s typical smokey eyes and red lips. I gathered all the elements in my final design (image.5) 

IMAGE.4

IMAGE.5

However I didn’t find reasonable connection between my project and sustainability, and I don’t think this is the end of better units, so I am still exploring how sustainability  affecting fashion make-up and breakdown in my further study.