Blog Post 1: Lecture Reflection
Having attended live stream lecture on Nature as a part of Better Lives unit, I have decided to explore the subject of the correspondence between fashion industry and nature. In order to do so, it is essential to define what is fashion and the meaning of word nature.
According to the classical book, “Adorned in Dreams” by Elizabeth Wilson, fashion is defined as:
‘Dress, in which the key feature is the rapid and continual changing of styles. Which suggests that fashion might be defined by a process of planned and continuous obsolescence’
During the ‘Cultural and Historical Studies’ lecture on ‘Obselescance and Sustainability’, the speaker interpreted the definition given as “the cycle of regular and systematic change in the styles that are considered to be desirable and appropriate.” This made me realise that the thing that connects nature and fashion is the change, which is caused by human actions.
Meanwhile, let us consider the meaning of the world ‘nature’. During the lecture on Nature by Kate Fletcher, the definition caught my attention the most is the one from Collins English Dictionary.
‘The phenomena of the physical world collectively, including plants, animals, the landscape, and other features and products of the earth, as opposed to human creations’
Those two terms, fashion and nature are tightly linked by human influence on each of them, which makes them comparable. In the case of the former, the change that human actions have created and still are resulted in a desirable progress and ‘upgrade’. Considering the results of human creations on natural environment, those are rather controversial, what I mean by that is the fact that over the ages of human existence on Earth, people have created both positive and negative environmental changes. The negative impact on environment might be creating a pollution of the air, water and earth, which causes even more damage in natural habitat. On the other hand humans have established various ecosystem protection systems. Here comes the bond between fashion world and nature protection services. Fashion has huge impact on world culture, which is a reason for creating ‘eco-friendly’ collections and presenting them during Fashion Week runaways.
Another aspect of the relation between fashion and natural environment is the use and quality of materials that are utilized in fashion industry. There is a common phenomenon among people that with the great price comes great quality, which means that for designers it is desirable to be able to produce a piece made of good quality materials. For that reason they are searching for textiles of natural origin. This process might be devastating for the environment, considering the limited resources on the Earth, and if all those resources were used, it would be an interaction of chain reactions existing.
Taking all into consideration, there is a great bond between the world of Fashion and the natural environment, as it is connected by the impact of change on both. Human actions might be destructive for the life on Earth and at the same time through fashion culture people are able to integrate ecological protection changes into the demolished environment.
References
Fletcher, K. (2020) ‘ Nature’ [Lecture]. Better Lives, London College of Fashion, 12 February.
Wilson, E. (1985) ‘Adorned in Dreams: Fashion and Modernity’, New York.
Kirkham, N. (2020) ‘Obselescance and Sustainability’ [Lecture]. Fashion Cultural and Historical Studies, London College of Fashion.