Reflecting on Lecture 1: Teleica Kirkland, Represenation
I have always known how important a broad representation in the Fashion industry is, maybe due to the fact that my parents were immigrants in the country I was born or because I became an outsider myself when I migrated from Spain. Feeling represented by people who share my Colombian roots was something I never experienced growing up, but I also never felt that was an issue. As a child I grew up telling myself I was Spanish and nothing else, because there was close to nobody in the media that shared that commonality with me. Therefor I latched onto my Spanish heritage and somewhat gave up my Colombian side. Before I moved away it never became apparent how huge of an issue that was. It almost was as if I felt ashamed of having that other half when I was in Spain. While listening to T. Kirkland give her lecture I was taken back to the time when I arrived to London back when I was thirteen. A completely unknown place, with a language I couldn’t communicate with and no other people I could relate to other than my parents. Soon I started to understand what being fully misrepresented felt like.
I decided to reflect on this lecture due to the very personal connection I have to this matter. In our generation more than ever before it’s become apparent just how important it is to have people from all cultures, skin colours and backgrounds in the public, specially in such a publicised industry like ‘Fashion.’ Values such as the ones shared by LCF are necessary to move forward as a society that celebrates and integrates every individual. Having a single demographic as the example to follow for everyone is unrealistic in a world where there are so many backgrounds. Feeling unrepresented makes groups of people feel marginalised and undesirable. That is extremely dangerous when you release that such unrepresented groups are exactly the ones who throughout History were massacred and enslaved, such as dark skin people and natives, among others. The Eurocentric standard has always favoured the people who’ve been the most privileged and able, while other groups have been targeted and labeled always as inferior. Having no representation or worst, being robbed of your culture for the personal benefit of someone who is more privileged is something Social Media has punished many times. Individuals who do so are called out by millions of different users across the globe in a matter of seconds. In my opinion it has been this tool of worldwide communication that has allowed the younger generations to become highly familiarised with being in such an inclusive community and it is one of the reasons why we comprehend that not being represented is wrong. This lecture really made me release how incredibly important it is that we see people of all backgrounds in commercials and fashion spreads, because it turns a product being sold through a monocultural campaign into something that is accessible to everyone.
11th May 2020 @ 1:28 pm
While I was reading the first paragraph of the blog, I agreed on a way in which he said that you could leave behind some heritage or roots because on the society you were growing up. It did not feel much of an issue, and as he did not even notice because it always felt normal to him to feel related to his birth nationality than to his parents background. He had to move to another country to experience feeling unrepresented in such a publicised industry as Fashion, when the reality he explained is still seen on many Latin American societies between their own multicultural communities. I say this because in the 90´s, the mayority of advertisments used to have a Caucasian figure that would only represent 1% of the population in my country. Many people became, as Juan Ocampo described them on the blog as marginalised and undesirable, to the point that they started to feel ashamed from their roots to the point of lying about where they were coming from. People feeling unrepresenting in thier own country that`s even harder than being somewhere else.
He addresses Diversity from a very personal experience, and I found it very inspiring because it is on those situations you realice the flaw that the society you are living in has. I liked the way he put in context about the values that LCF shares and the importance they have to move forward as forward as a community that celebrates and integrates every individual, and that is true. Because when someone starts to have those values is when channels like social media have an unprecedent role to speak up for no privileged and unrepresentative individuals.