Blog1
- Reflections on one or more Better Lives lectures and how they have influenced my thinking
Better Lives is useful unit which helps to develop thinking and enhance knowledge about different elements of fashion theme.
Fashion includes a lot of aspects such as design, technology, psychology, business, art, performance, engineering, science.
This unit is about sustainability, diversity and social responsibility .
Lecture about culture and sustainability influenced on me most of all. Our planet has limits of resources and climate emergency is not a fairytale. We all have to change our relationship to nature We have to leearn how to operate with world and how to exist together in the way of creating solutions for problems.. The cultural point of sustainability is equality. All humans born equal and we have equal rights. The science part is presented by scientists who warn us about actual problems of planetary boundaries including clomate change, land use etc. All the systems are linked between each other. So, sustainability is a possibility for us, for social relationships,for existiong together, ability to sustain things and how are we able to do something. The cultural context of sustainability comes from history. Historically it is focused on economics sustainability, ecological sustainability,politics and culture. Cultural purpose is thinking about the meaning/practices of our everyday lives.how to develop ideas, custom/social behaviour. We learn the culture. Our cultures influences or relationships, ideas, what we produce and in what way.If we talk about fashion, we divide culture to material and non-material. Sustainability includes both of them. For instance, Kawamura(2005) argued that fashion and clothing are distinct concepts;fashion is immaterial,while clothing is material. So, all in all, fashion is not just about money,economic system,shopping clothing etc.
Fashion is about our identities ,ideas, emotions and relationships. But it still also made from nature which is dependent on land,water,air,animal.
So, sustainability is just a starting point for talking about equality, justice, fairness (which includes thinking from both a human and non-human perspective). We need to think what to sustain and how, what is working/not working for whom and why. What the actual abilities do we need to have and use? It includes consumerism (non-material form of culture) which is an ideology that reflects our worldview, identities and behaviour and encourages us to seek happiness through the consumption and things. It’s also related to capitalism, mass production and continious growth.
So, sustainability is not just about creation of sustainable things but cooperating of human beings with nature.
Human beings have to consume resources of our planet consciously.