Blog 3 – Project outcomes and personal development reflection task.

I was a part of “In and outside of fashion: Sportswear Fashion language and sub-cultures” project. Initially, I have chosen this project simply because sportswear was always something that I was interested in. To my surprise, the project went far and beyond just a title of Sportswear and introduced me into Styling world. Through project time, we explored different kinds of subcultures and their history, deconstruction of clothes and also the general meaning for Stylist and the ability of clothes to tell a story.

As time passed and lockdown was in place, we had to adapt to online lectures and workshops. Unfamiliarised to this kind of situation, I found it difficult to adapt and shift from group work to independent outcome. 

For our masterclass we had to create a sportswear look which would resemble with subculture of our choice and also reflects the mood of your personal experience of current situation. 

To my limited resources, I have decided to create minimalistic look, which is based on 80s athletic style, in which bike shorts were a big part of. However, as everyones knows, 80s colours choice were bright/neon. However, my choice laid on dull/dark colours to represent the current mood. Besides that, I deconstructed the use of bomber jacket and laid it on my hips to create a different shape. Furthermore, I styled the bag around my neck to describe the anxiety (shortness of breath is one of the symptoms), which I experience every day since isolation was in place. Initially, I was trying to link the look to Power, as I still proceeding to continue to fight the anxiety and stress and continuing my study. Besides not having any power on Covid-19 situation, I have a Power of how to react to it and adapt myself and work to get better at it everyday.

However, after receiving the feedback, I have realised how much empathy my look have caused. I could feel through the screen and words how my peers and tutors have reacted, maybe slightly with a bit of sadness, they could understand my struggle. My tutors also proposed that my look is more associated with gothic sub-culture, which does makes sense.

I find it incredible, how just a styled look and a bit of editing based on my emotions and feelings have caused people to feel empathetic.

I could even say, that my outcome is representative of many people in this pandemic. People don’t always speak freely of depression or anxiety, but it is nice to be able to relate to someone and know that it is not just your battle, but we are all fighting together.