Blog 3 – Personal Outcome
I absolutely loved the Better Lives unit due to the wide range of topics and enriching my knowledge of the current world. The themes of sustainability, diversity, and social responsibility have been increasingly interesting alongside this. I am very glad and grateful to have been able to study Fashion Illustration within this unit as I have always been interested in it but never had the chance to be taught until now.
Throughout the classes I thoroughly enjoyed and improved my life drawing skills, so I thought this would be great to use for my final outcomes. Although it would have been much more sustainable to create these online, I made sure to use recycled materials so I could be both sustainable but also used the drawing skills I had been very proud of during this project. I also loved the combination of acrylic paint in block colours with charcoal outlines in the foreground, so made sure to use this as a recurring design.
For my first illustration, I focused on the extremely sustainable brand, Ksenia Schnaider. I love the variety of jeans they produce from fully recycled denim! I therefore decided to leave the upper body nude to focus on the jeans as the only item of clothing. Although all three of my illustrations have an overall theme of sustainability, this one focuses on it the most as I used recycled cardboard and newspaper, and used a strong slogan, ‘choose reuse’ to get a point across. Thanks to Better Lives I have already begun changing my habits, such as buying clothes second hand and considering what materials certain objects are made out of before purchasing.
In my second illustration I decided to majorly link the theme of diversity, as well as linking back to my degree course of Hair, Makeup and Prosthetics for Performance. I used charcoal and acrylic paints on cardboard to draw a portrait of a female black model, inspired by Rihanna’s brand – Fenty Beauty. She released a new foundation back in 2017 with 40 inclusive shades where some of the darkest shades were sold out first, proving there was a large gap in the market. I wanted this illustration to encourage people to ‘think [more] diverse’, just like the Better Lives unit has helped me to. In the future, I would love to work on more models of a range of ethnicities, and this unit has definitely inspired me to do so.
My final illustration was based on the ‘Urban Renewal’ collection by Urban Outfitters. After researching, I actually ordered a few items due to how sustainable, yet how great and on-trend they were. I was therefore inspired to take on my own social responsibility of purchasing more sustainable clothes and inspiring my peers around me to do so. I used the parcel bag they were delivered in as my canvas, and I noticed the plastic was 100% recyclable which is great! I emphasised the need of taking on your own personal responsibility of recycling through cut out, bold newspaper headlines, which I thought really complimented the use of the parcel bag.
As a whole, I have been greatly inspired through the Better Lives project and will definitely be changing some of my habits for good from now on.
5th May 2020 @ 12:18 pm
Blog post 4~ Peer review
For the fourth and final section of the better lives scheme of work, I have chosen to peer review ‘Phoebe Nickoll’s Blog 3- a personal outcome’ found at: https://1920betterlivessmc.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2020/05/04/blog-3-personal-outcome/
Overall, I really felt inspired by her level of passion and inspiration stemming from the better lives unit. This was accentuated by her amazing final illustrations that clearly depict the better lives themes in a graphical and aesthetically pleasing way. I thought it was a fantastic point she made about being able to use ‘better lives’ as a way to learn new skills. The fact that the unit gives us a chance to learn new industry skills but in the context of thinking and doing it in a sustainable way, provides great training for future fashion industry workers.
The theme of sustainability runs throughout her three illustrations. Phoebe strongly avoided being hypocritical and actually carried this out by using recycled materials and highlighting sustainable brands. For instance, Ksenia Schnaider and their variety of jeans made from fully recycled denim, that she drew attention to in illustration one, where the model wore nothing but the jeans. Alongside Urban Outfitter’s ‘Urban Renewal’ section where she actually uses the fully recycled delivery bag as her canvas. I loved her catchy slogan ‘Choose Re-use’ that was a simple yet effective message in relaying the importance of sustainability.
She also puts a strong focus on Diversity. For instance, illustration one depicts a black model wearing the jeans, and in illustration two she uses the slogan ‘Think Diverse’ laid over a black female model with a traditional weave. Inspired by Rihanna’s ‘Fenty Beauty’ makeup range that pioneered a wide variety of all inclusive makeup shades, she illustrates patches of different skin tones down the side, in particular, darker tones that have been missed out in the past by makeup brands. I love that Phoebe talks about how the better lives unit has inspired her to want to work with a wide variety of ethnicities within her discipline of hair and makeup.
On a whole I’m really impressed by Phoebe’s work and I feel that she has displayed her understanding and passion for each of the better lives themes incredibly well. The only thing I’d say she could improve on slightly is by going into a bit more depth with the theme of ‘Social responsibility’. She discusses how everyone has a social responsibility of ensuring they purchase sustainable clothes and by recycling. However, it would’ve been great if she went into a bit more specific detail within her discipline as to how hair and makeup practitioners can ensure they recognise and utilise their social responsibility in creative and inspiring ways. Another thing for her to think about, is to maybe conduct a bit of research into how hair and makeup products are generated and to see whether she can come up with some ways to make this more sustainable for the future?
Overall, a fantastic blog post and some amazing illustrations! You should be really proud of your work 🙂
8th May 2020 @ 4:32 pm
For my final Reflection post I have reviewed the final outcome post from Phoebe Nickolls.
It’s really nice to see an instance where the stimulus of the Better Lives unit was really well received by a student, as I myself struggled to see the lectures and direction of this project in an overly positive light at first. It would be really great to know in your response exactly what resonated for you as a topic, because you mention that sustainability, diversity and social responsibility were interesting themes that became increasingly more engaging throughout the project and it might be supportive to find out where your individual development took you with regards to the concepts.
I noticed you adapting your practical work to be more conscious of topics like Diversity and sustainability, clearly taking time and effort to make the choices that you felt were more socially responsible in each aspect, but what was it exactly that brought you to these decisions? What piece of information or lecture was it that really explained the importance of these factors? As the personal attachment you make towards these topics could be a really worthwhile connection with your practise that going forward will inspire genuine agency in how your work evolves to become better in every way, especially in a socially responsible way.
Aside from this your outcomes are really well stylised towards this subject matter of material sustainability, coming across in a very strong recycled and repurposed kind of a way, whilst being very emotive in terms of colour and detail. Also the address of the text on the images directly passes on the response that you took from the Better Lives Unit towards the viewer, imperatively pointing people in the direction of better choices. Even if there was a non-specific stimulus that generated these thoughts towards the concepts, the delivery of the contents works in a playful and attractive way that encourages good behaviour from an agreeable voice, displaying its own prowess in sustainability at the same time.
Phoebe has also backed up these images by saying that her habits have changed in terms of practical work, opting to think about materials she uses before purchasing them. Within her usual specification of Hair, Make-up and prosthetics for Performance, this should allow for creative use of recycled material for an industry that largely looks for product specificity and therefore higher levels of packaging and subsequent waste. In the current global situation of Lockdowns and quarantine, this becomes even more relevant, with people needing to not only look for sustainable materials but materials that are actually directly reusable to them. Clearly, this practise has been implemented here, proving that this work is a model response to the topics of social responsibility in a post-modern world.
Here is a link to the original post for reference: https://1920betterlivessmc.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2020/05/04/blog-3-personal-outcome/