Blog Post 2 – Themes Reflection
It has been made very clear to me as I have progressed through the Better Lives unit how entwined the three central themes of social responsibility, diversity, and sustainability are. While I had a passing knowledge of each of these before the unit, Better Lives has deepened and expanded my knowledge of these overlapping themes, changing and redirecting my creative progress and encouraging me to make more conscious creative choices with these themes in mind. Without the serious consideration of these issues the continued growth and development of the fashion industry will not be able to continue. My goal for the unit was to gather as much knowledge as possible about these themes and find ways to implement them into my process and let them inform the creative choices I make.
Better Lives made me realise the links between sustainability, culture and power, which I had never considered before, only thinking sustainability related to nature, recycling and the production of renewable resources. Anna Fitzpatrick’s Culture lecture made note that through rise of consumerism and over consumption of fashion, traditional cultural practises and art forms relating to fashion and textiles are being lost and that these need to be protected as culturally important heritage skills. While I was aware that heritage skills were in decline, I had never considered that this was a direct result of fast fashion and the race to produce as many garments as possible. As a costume designer, moving forwards I would want to help in the protection of this vital cultural skills by working with artisans and making the protection of culture a priority. Additionally, zero-waste pattern cutting, water-way safe dyes, and sustainably sourced fabrics which I have learned about in lectures and through background reading are all things I would like to work with in the future and take forwards with me from the unit.
More generally, a sharp move away from consumerism is required to save the planet. The promoting of second-hand and charity shops needs to occur, alongside the shunning of fast fashion. Slow fashion needs to become the norm, as should mending clothing rather than throwing it away. Overall, we need to move away from the idea that clothing has a sell-by date and that it is culturally unacceptable to wear the same outfit twice. Ideas of disrupting the fast fashion cycle by mending clothing and keeping hold of it for as long as possible resonate with me, and I think this would be a way to bringing ideas of sustainability to people in a way that would be doable for most.
My project for Better Lives is Make-up Breakdown. We are exploring the themes of the unit by looking at ideas of the fashion mistake and imperfection. This has been an interesting introduction to diversity, and sustainability within makeup. We are working towards creating an innovative look that will encourage social change.
References
Fitzpatrick, A. (2020) ‘Culture’ [Lecture]. Better Lives, London College of Fashion, 10 February.