Blog post 1 discussing power, sustainability and ethics

My favourite lecture was the one which explored power in fashion by Julia Crew. The key reason is because I appreciated how the lecture was structured and how the aspect of power is extremely relevant in every aspect of the industry, yet it is key what you choose to do with the power. I especially enjoyed the fragment on power and media as I was extremely shocked by how much power advertisement has over our spending. In the lecture Julia said that power of media is important as it helps sell to others, however I question what if it is helping us sell the wrong things? In a text called ‘The whites of their eyes: Racist ideologies and the media’ Stuart Hall raised a few alarming points such as the fact media is never free because it is coming from an individual with an opinion there for it is skewed.  I think because of the fact media is always going to be skewed as people are responsible for posting/ sharing the media online we need to make sure we are being  socially conscious and ethical when we do so, and as people simply coming across the media we need to acknowledge that not everything we see/ read is a fact and that we must stay true to our beliefs and be open minded when we do so. Another key aspect of the lecture that I enjoyed was the idea of power and protest as I think as a consumer we have the power to make a stand for what we believe in and the a lot of the time we tend to do this through our clothing and how we dress. A key example of this is the mothers of plaza de mayo who in protest for their children going missing during the dirty war wore a white shawl over their heads. I think this related back to Julia’s lecture where she mentioned utilising the power of media.

Another key lecture that I was fond of was by Katelyn Toth- Fejel where she looked at sustainability and the society. I felt as though I really understood the metaphor she made about fashion not being a car or machine and that you can’t just change a singular part and hope the whole system works better. I think the aspect that a lot of people don’t realise is that you need to change the entire system. Carolyn Mair wrote a text on the psychology of fashion which in my opinion really related to the idea of consumerism as it discussed the social compensation theory which states that our success is based on where we see others as we aspire to surpass them. This makes us believe that sustainability is near to impossible when individuals have this mentality. Relating back to the idea of machine parts, if everyone’s mindset is a machine part the system is bound to fail as it is impossible to change all these people’s mind sets.

In conclusion, I found the better lives unit insightful so far as it’s given me perspective on ways I can strive to be a more ethical practitioners within my own field. I think its also expanded my knowledge of issues relevant issues in the fashion industry allowing me to form and strong opinion on said issues.