Blog Post 3
The Better Lives project that I participated in was the Fashion Styling and Production project titled: ‘In and outside of fashion: Sportswear Fashion language and subcultures.’ This project was actually my top pick so I was incredibly grateful that I got to be a part of it. The main reason I decided to select this project was because of my personal interest in styling. As a PR student I don’t get a lot of opportunities to work on styling-related projects however I had the chance to participate in a styling workshop during the first semester which provoked my interests and ultimately helped me decide on selecting this project to work on. I was also intrigued by the concept of sportswear fashion and how it could be translated into styling. Prior to starting this project my main knowledge of “sportswear fashion” was by seeing trends on both the runway and the highstreet, and how sportswear as fashion became an actual trend. More recently people have been giving more importance on self-care and working out, which led towards the majority of clothing brands to produce and put out their own lines and versions of sportswear. On the other hand I didn’t have much knowledge on subcultures at all so I wasn’t entirely sure on that aspect at first.
The FSP Better Lives project consists of lectures which educated us on the basic principles of styling, and also the different sub-cultures in relations toward sportswear. We also had two masterclasses which required us to style our very own sportswear look, the first masterclass taking place just before the break while the second masterclass was done online. I unfortunately wasn’t at the first masterclass so I had to do one at home which I thought was actually really interesting as the styling prompt was incredibly relevant towards the current situation which we are all dealing with. We were to create a sportswear look inspired by how many people are working out and staying physically active during this lockdown period. We also had to keep in mind a relevant subculture which relates to the look and also the Better Lives themes as well. The subculture that I took inspiration from when creating my look was predominantly how sportswear was represented during the 80s-90s-early 00s period. When thinking of sportswear in fashion I’d tend to associate it to the early 00’s Fila and Adidas trends, and how that style of sportswear continues to make a comeback in our current day fashion.
After completing this project I’d say that something which I can work on is doing more research on a subculture so that I can give my look a whole different meaning. I also tried my best to keep the Better Lives themes in mind when styling looks, in which I think that the theme which jumped out at me the most was sustainability, especially because I used pieces from my own wardrobe, and whilst looking for pieces I was able to look through the clothes that I owned and was able to see how I should be wearing more of some of the pieces or even give it new life by upcycling it to create a whole new piece which can work for different looks.