Blog Post 1 – Lecture Reflection
When reflecting on the first two weeks of the Better Lives lectures, they all cover a range of themes including social responsibility, diversity, and sustainability. This process allowed me to get further knowledge about topics that I did not have a huge understanding of. It has also created an opportunity for me to reflect on my values and ethics, especially in the fashion industry. I found it very informative and refreshing to listen to these lectures about the topics especially in the climate that we are in. The lecture with Julia Crew, talking about power, allowed me to understand deeper about elements such as sustainability.
The lecture raised ideas that power in the media is one of the most influential forms of fashion consumption. The use of apps such as Instagram is a form of advertising fashion brands and new products to the audience. From a source it stated that 45% of users in Britain say that they follow fashion brands to influence their style so that they can recreate the same look. I would say Instagram is one of the biggest platforms where the younger generation will gather their fashion inspirations from. We are engaged in the influencer’s lives and therefore will purchase anything that they are wearing to recreate their fashion looks. Knowing this Information, fashion brands will collaborate with influencers to create collections as they know that they will be selling to a larger audience. The use of Instagram holds power in the fashion industry as it’s the perfect way for consumers to follow trends and to share their looks. It’s an easy form of advertising for many fashion brands.
Another example where power is highlighted within the media is through television. Brands are collaborating with television shows and getting the people to wear their brand, this is a perfect way of increasing sales and promoting their clothing to a larger audience.
Within the fashion and media industry, there are huge amounts of clothing are wasted due to overconsumption and the idea of only wearing an item once or just for a picture and then never wearing it again this is from the idea of having to look a certain way for others.
A statistic was drawn from the lecture that “we buy 400% more clothing that we did just 20 years ago, and of the 100 billion garments that are produced annually, it is estimated that up to 75% of those will end up in landfill or be incinerated.”
Brands are slowly thinking about being more sustainable whether through the clothing materials, where the products are coming from, or the packaging that the clothing items are sent in if they are bought online.
Across these lectures, this has been one which has stood out to me as I find it interesting how the power of the media specifically can influence fashion. Moving forward I am going to be thinking more consciously when shopping online by shopping at smaller brands rather than fast fashion ones and not buying into the trends.
References
Lecture one, Julia Crew, power, 10/2/2020