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Lorraine Gammon’s lecture on ‘Empathy’ illustrates the need for empathy within the design industry by showing powerful examples and explaining the need for user focused design to enhance the experience of consumers. One must really understand audience for which you are designing and have passion for it but also the ability to detach and provide unbiased critiques to progress the work. Social responsibility in design means confronting difficult issues and make the public more understanding (e.g. Highland Rape collection by McQueen, The Is It My Fault? Exhibition) or create inclusivity for an overlooked/excluded demographic.

A particular example that I found very relevant is the designs created by Harriet Harris, Graeme Brooker and Angela Luna. The designs were centred around function and multi-purpose to help a group that does not instantly come to mind when thinking of fashion; Syrian refugees. The different designers created wearable coats/clothing that could also transform into sleeping bags, tents or even floatation devices. This is inspiring as it is both innovative and necessary and supports the idea that art should make a change in the world rather than just exist as a decoration. Artists should be activists. This is also referred to in the lecture by Lucy Orta on ‘Democracy and Activism’ which elaborates on many artists such as, Maja Bajevic or Francis Alÿs, who are constantly questioning political and world affairs with opposing moral stances to highlight inconsistencies and make people think more deeply about the world around them.

Social responsibility is a very current topic, especially during the unprecedented state of the world during the Covid-19 pandemic. Though many negatives have arised with the spread of the disease there has been an increased sense of community particularly in regards to the NHS. Anyone with a sewing machine, particularly those in creative industries seen sewing PPE and scrubs for NHS as a collective effort to support the staff for their brave work even though the government should be doing this not the people. Hospital scrubs are not typically very fashionable but with the efforts of the fashion community in the UK, there has been a certain flair and individuality added to the donated scrubs. Not only does this show a greater inclusivity in design but also shows the seizure of power from government stockists, showing the empathy of the people can be greater than that of government organisations.