Blog 1: Well-being Within Fashion
Over the past two weeks, the selection of lectures got me to think about the links between well-being, representation and culture within fashion. Well-being is something I consider on a day-to-day basis, within myself and the people around me. So, it was interesting to see the breakdown of the two types of well-being.
Hedonic well-being is subjective, breaking itself down into life satisfaction and happiness. Eudemonic well-being is psychological, looking at a person’s self-acceptance, personal growth, positive relations, autonomy, purpose in life and environmental mastery.
Originally, I struggled to think about well-being in relation to fashion. That was until Telicia Kirkland’s lecture on representation.
In the beginning of the lecture Telicia drew attention to the predication of monoculturalism of a euro-centric ideal. On account to hundreds of years of imperialism and mass-media, people who don’t have the euro-centric features have to fight for representation. When a person sees their community either not being portrayed or being portrayed in a certain type of way, they start to see themselves as undesirable.
Seeing yourself as undesirable due to the way you look effects every single part of the eudemonic well-being. To break it down; undesirability would make a person struggle with self – acceptance, personal growth, positive relations, autonomy, purpose in life and your own environmental mastery, because you are focused on your ability to match the medias standards, instead of focusing on yourself.
Personally, I find this incredibly unfair and almost inhumane.
The UN’s declaration that every human is born equal is almost impossible due to the wealth gap but should be praised upon in terms of the equal happiness/well-being an individual deserves. I think that once a person understands the power of well-being, they can contribute it to any of the issues raised in any one of the lectures.
All of these issues trying to be solved are just to improve the well-being of any individual. Industry workers should be empathetic towards how their creative choices affects the well-being of others. We are making better lives for everyone who contributes to the fashion industry. To have a better life we have to have a better well–being. Even if a person does not work in the fashion industry, they are still affected by it.
Example issues of sustainability, diversity, social responsibility, emerging technology and AI all have the power to degrade an individual’s well-being.
In my future creative practice, I will be heavily empathetic to the well-being of others. I will consider the impact of fashion industry’s issues on a person’s well-being.