Blog 1. Reflections on one or more of the Better Lives lectures and how they have influenced your thinking.
Better Lives unit is taken to keep us socially responsible for us who will become the next generation of leading to the fashion industry in the future. Before listening to this lecture, I had a steady interest in the sustainability issue. However, after hearing this, I found that the range of better lives is broad than I expected. The two lectures that are of particular interest to me are Emerging Technologies in Fashion by Nick Almond and Cultural Sustainability by John Lau as allowing me to broaden my thinking and ideas.
Initially, I mainly thought that changing design and materials was the way to create a sustainable fashion industry. This is because that structure that creates new products as changing fashion distribution structure can produce eco-friendly products. Moreover, a vintage market that is an alternative process of consumption for sustainable fashion is difficult to cover global business because of limited stock and consumers. However, after having Emerging Technologies in Fashion lecture, I realised that new technology can also contribute to creating a sustainable society. New technology can develop supply chains more globally and transparently with an efficient way. For example, I found an interesting business based in New York called RentTheRunway, which is a subscription fashion service that powers women to rent unlimited designer styles for every and occasion. I think this platform can help people to stop buying unnecessary clothes and lead them to do reasonable consumption. This platform seems to represent a good example of using sharing economy for a better fashion industry.
Another opportunity that broadened my thinking was Cultural Sustainability lecture in terms of understanding cultural issue in the fashion industry. This lecture has inspired me to think a lot about how to consume and make media as a fashion media student. As John mentioned, past footage has many interpretations. However, the interpretation may differ depending on the person who interprets it and who the subject is. Additionally, I think Queen Victoria’s painting seems to be linked with modern fashion society in which judgment is made using only one section of an image. Therefore, as a consumer and a creative director, it seems to be an obligation to use fashion with the correct understanding and intention because without understanding the history behind it, it just does not become a fashion, but custom like as he said.
In my opinion, borrowing different cultures in fashion lies within the ambiguous boundaries of cultural appropriation and inspiration. Therefore, when borrowing other cultures for your work, I think that we need to not only look at the recent appearance but also to explore the background in detail. This understanding of cultures and protentional of new technology market give me have a good start point of my ideas to go further.
References
Nick, A. (2020) ‘Emerging Technologies in Fashion’ [Lecture]. Better Lives, London College of Fashion, 2 April.
John, L. (2020) ‘Cultural Sustainability’ [Lecture]. Better Lives, London College of Fashion, 5 April.
How Rent the Runway Built Unicorn Status on Sharing Economy (2019) Available at: https://youtu.be/cNt3Tw_3PX0 (Accessed: 4 May 2020)