Blog Post (3: Project outcome/development)
For my better lives project, as a fashion styling student I wanted to choose the Make-up breakdown unit because I wanted to learn more about the process from someone else’s perspective for a shoot. It was an enlightening insight and I have learned that there are many careful procedures to follow. Particularly when considering someone’s skin type for choosing the best skin care products. Also having to analyze cool, neutral or warm skin tones for better colour matches.
Even though I didn’t enjoy having make-up applied on myself, I enjoyed learning the techniques and step by steps. Relating my ideas and outcome to the better lives project I have reflected back on my other blog posts. What I wrote in my first post was about fast fashion and how we all try to make more ethical choices from the fast fashion industry. The conflict is that it is harder said than done especially when fast fashion comes at reasonable prices, it’s easy to become influenced by consumer culture for our well-being. Therefore, I started focusing on the topic on how to make fast fashion more sustainable in new ways that would be beneficial to all. The popular ways of being sustainable is by recycling, reconstructing clothes or maintaining clothes for longer. Instead the fashion industry should really often promote sustainability regarding their own brands. A way to do this is to not look back at the past but think about the future and present, and what possible great innovations that could be useful in the fashion industry for being more sustainable. Fashion has only started converging with technology and the relations between the two should not be seen as a clash rather it should be encouraged more. With technology now it has created things we would have never imagined. As said in my last post, we now have the opportunity to create using 3D printing, clothes made from nanomaterials, and the use of solar power cells. As well as creating digital worlds using virtual reality.
Then I thought it would be a good idea to do something digitally for makeup since there is not much about ‘e-makeup’ or ‘digital make-up’. During our online lectures for our final looks presentation our concept title was ‘Fashion mistakes and fashion imperfections’. I was leaning more towards the mistake, as in if fashion technology was a mistake or is it an evolution? For make-up I experimented with augmented reality, by using 3D graphic designs such as face filters or 3D shapes at altering my digital self, which is no difference to real life enhancing (plastic surgery). The benefits for digital makeup is that you can create unique graphic shapes that can be applied to the face and body instead of using actual cosmetics, as well as it being sustainable. Using AR, graphics, animation can bring designs to life visually such as in movement, light and sound. Since most people now live digitally, this would be a contemporary way of visualizing.
A great way in using graphics/e-makeup with fashion would be in editorials, fashion films and product commercials.
7th May 2020 @ 4:01 pm
I can see that Finn has reflected immensely on the Better Live’s theme of sustainability throughout this blogpost and his makeup breakdown project. He firstly mentions fast fashion and suggests practices that consumers and industry can undertake to create a more sustainable system. He suggests ways in which consumers can change the way they use/ buy clothes, his suggestions included recycling, upcycling existing garments and keeping clothes for longer periods of time. He very rightly mentions that the industry should also change and encourage sustainability within their own brands by looking into the future and seeing what innovations they could implement. I believe that this also reflects on the theme of social responsibility, that we need to take actions into our own hands and be more responsible.
He then moves on to talk about the makeup project and his experience, he has combined his knowledge of tech and styling to create “e-makeup”. I found this extremely interesting to read about as I have not engaged with this technology personally and I was intrigued to read about the link between camera filters, cosmetic surgery, and sustainability. Again, Finn reflects on the sustainable benefits that this type of ‘makeup’ has, I assume because there is no waste product, plastic packaging, and a smaller carbon footprint.
Sustainability was clearly the Better Live’s theme Finn connected with the most, he explored how he could make his project more beneficial for the environment and he considered how the industry could change to become more sustainable. I believe that he touched on the theme of social responsibility but could have explored this further by looking into the issues regarding beauty modification and filters, there has been a lot of debate whether the use and production of filters is responsible or not. Diversity was the final Better Lives theme and was not reflected on during this blog post, perhaps Finn could’ve researched how different ethnicities are represented and considered in the makeup industry and how he could positively include that in his final project. Obviously, this may have been thought about in the creative process, but it was not reflected on in this blog post.
Overall, I found that this blog post raised some very important issues and introduced me to a new sector of the beauty and fashion industry which is something I am thankful for and will continue to engage with in the future.