Blog Post 3
For my Better Lives unit I studied Fashion Journalism. After attending the Better Lives lectures in the first two weeks, a lecture that I really enjoyed was Nina Stevenson’s sustainability introduction. This lecture presented how our industrial activities have created and shaped the environment around us and how the fashion industry is a huge cultural influencer. I learned more about the actions that we can take as consumers and as members of the fashion industry to become more sustainable. To create and consume media that is fair and environmentally friendly.
In our lectures, Liz Miller talked us through how a feature is written and the different ways that we can present a message to an audience through writing. We looked at how to focus our research and present the best bits to our reader through “cherry-picking” the best parts that are the most meaningful. When writing my feature, I broke down the skeleton and structure of how features are meant to be written. I looked at Liz Miller’s lecture where she taught us how to write a meaningful feature, this was a lecture that I really enjoyed and felt like I learned a key skill in.
In my introduction, I presented the topic of my article which was up-cycling in modern fashion. I talked about how upcycling has become a new trend that has people re-designing clothes by cutting, sewing or altering garments in order to give them a new life. In the nub I explored the instagrammer Melisa Minca who brands herself as the “Upcycling/Sewing Queen”. I also summed up the point of my feature which was to give examples of upcycling and to inspire people to get involved. I used quotes from Camilla Carper and Janelle Abbott who are co-founders of Femail, a brand that is passionate about upcycling and sustainability. The quotes I used were very powerful and their expertise on sustainability gave my feature a fair and well-educated backing. I concluded my feature by encouraging my readers to get involved with upcycling, ending with the quote “We don’t have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world.” This is a quote from Howard Zinn which I thought was a very powerful and memorable line to leave my reader with a thought and to remember this piece.
Better Lives has had a huge impact on my personal development as I now see the huge importance of factors such as well-being, sustainability and social responsibility. It has made me promote a lot of well-being media on my instagram and I have written a few pieces on well-being and mental health which will be published in the second issue of Manchester’s Walrus Magazine. I found the Fashion Journalism lectures mixed with the Better Lives lectures have given me an amazing new skill-set and mindset which is leading me to create more written pieces and influenced me to think bigger in my future creative projects.
Reference:Radin, S., 2020. What’s Behind The Rise Of Upcycled Garments?. [online] Fashionista. Available at: <https://fashionista.com/2019/01/upcycled-clothing-sustainable-fashion-trend> [Accessed 3 May 2020].