Jiyong Lee

After reading blog posting for writing peer’s work reflection, I found that a great review written by Yushan Chen. The reason why I choose this blog post is she has a clear understanding of the fashion industry and her interpretation of the fashion industry gives me arouse sympathy, especially the problem of diversity in the fashion industry. Yushan Chen wrote this reflection after reading Carlos’ blog and it is talking about the method that the fashion industry deal with diversity and the impact of the fashion company’s efforts with own interpretation.  

Followed by Yuschan’s argument, I agree that fashion companies are trying to take the lead casting diverse colour of people for models, plus-size models, disabled people, and a full range of ages models for look book, collections or campaign adverts compared to the past. This trend seems that fashion society is paying more attention to diversity and is going in a better direction. However, despite such efforts, the fashion society continues to face problems with the constant chaos of diversity, and the development of the fashion industry can be seen insignificantly. This is not only occurred diversity, but also the sustainability of fashion. It seems that fashion companies use diversity as one of the marketing strategies for creating an ethical corporate image-making, not an accurate understanding culture that they manage. 

In fact, many brands speak of diversity and show off form their collections, but I think the reason why problems continue is they borrow other cultures without a precise understanding. For example, Dolce& Gabbana advert in 2018, describing ridiculously an Asian model ate spaghetti with chopsticks, and 2020 s/s Gucci collection designed garments alluding to mental patients can be representative of the backside of the fashion society. Now the fashion market is globalised, I think that fashion companies need to deal with issues such as cultural appropriation with more attention in order to attract consumers who come from other countries.

In order to get rid of this, I strongly agree with her argument that diversity starts from understanding each other’s culture so that you can fight against discrimination and give opportunities regardless of limitations. Followed by this, I think you start by ‘not being aware of the difference’ between you and others. This is because that by recognising the difference, you might think that you have extraordinary talents or customs, and which thinking can lead to discriminate against each other.  ‘Not recognising differences’ here does not mean neglection, but comprehension so that we do not create a hierarchy from differences. In other words, it cannot be said that having different cultures, customs or races is better for others because differences from cultures are just the way we think about what to use it depends on where we live. 

In global society, it is natural circumstances that you are inspired by different cultures,  and it might be bring interesting outcomes as collaborating between distinct different cultures. However, most important aspect in this process, you have to respect and understand cultures that you do not know as much as you can. As a result, fashion industry seems to become an industry where does not be aware of diversity but accept diversity itself naturally.  After that, we can go to the next step that Yushan mentioned.  

Due to the coronavirus, all lectures of term 3 are replaced by the online sessions. Therefore, all lectures of Emerging Technology have proceeded on the online via Microsoft team. The aim of Emerging Technology during term 3 is to pick up one or two ideas to practice how we visualise this discussed in term 2.  To visualise the ideas, the first important process to do is to SWOT analysation. This process plays a crucial role in preparing unexpected problems and simulating the final outcome beforehand. Through this process, I have learned meaningful key element, which is market strategy depends on what you want to target.

For me, when it comes to sustainability business plan, a significant element was focusing on developing sustain or eco-friendly elements, how my business plan would be influenced by making the world better. However, I realised that a sustainable project is also a part of business, therefore, to secure consumers is important to start a business. No matter how I made sustainable apps or eco eco-friendly products, it is pointless if this does not attract consumer’s needs and interests. There is a good example of this at one of the Emerging Technology lectures. We discussed SWOT analysation of the Local Demand project. This is project came up to revive local economy. For weaknesses, I wrote unstable sales depends on the current local economy. However, I realised that there is an opposite opinion, which is that the other argued with a great local vegetable market example in the UK that it could be more stable in a certain situation because it proves to whoever wants to use this. Having discussed I now realise that I need to be careful in analysing and fully understanding the economy and market I targeted because the system and environment of all local economies from various countries are different.

In addition, I have learned that accessibility via discussing vintage trend SWOT analysation. No matter the application or design we created is good, it could be useless if the consumer does not access and use it. Having discussed I now realised that attracting consumers and advertising are also relevant parts of creating a sustainability project. 

Having experienced Better Lives lectures, I now feel that my knowledge and interest in terms of sustainability and global market trend become more solid and dept and I have significantly developed my understanding of how to approach fashion business to create my own ideas in the future. There are limitations to learn and practice after being replaced by online sessions, however, in general, all Better Lives process allows me to have realisation in terms of my future works. 

Through term 2 and term 3, I have learned about sustainability, social responsibility, and diversity via Better Lives lectures and Emerging Technologies in the Fashion Industry. All of the lectures lead me to have the responsibility of solving problems that the fashion industry faced with. Especially, the Emerging Technology session helped me to produce how I work in the fashion industry as a new creative director who leads to the fashion industry in the future.

Previously, I thought that people aware of their consumption when they are buying clothes or products because, a lot of eco-friendly or vegan products are launched by fashion brands these days and there are documentaries to talk about bad truth of fashion industry. However, through the Emerging Technology session, I realised that consumers do not care about the garment manufacturing  process that I expected. In the Emerging Technology session, we searched about fashion trend via Google Trend. I compared the frequency of search patterns between fake fur coat and leather jacket from 2004 to 2020 in the UK. It shows that there is an incomparable interest of leather jacket. It seems that people keep consuming products made by leather or fur even if alternative materials have invented.

(Google Trends, no date)

Equally, this might be linked with lack of advertisement, especially among major fashion brands that is an industry leader by leading fashion trends.  Even though major fashion brands are trying to produce eco-friendly clothes, it accounts for small parts of company’s product line because it is unmarketable than other clotheslines. For example, H&M launched sustainability collection line, but I cannot find advertisements related to sustainability collection at both H&M online and offline stores. Also, I cannot find any clothes from sustainability collection at H&M offline store in London. Having experienced, I now believed that media is not only an aspect of consumers’ interests but also, a tremendous influence to change consumers’ perceptions and interests. This means that the degree of media exposure, people become more interested or awarded what the company’s focusing on, and eventually, this influences peoples’ consumption.

In addition, I believe that as a new media platform is able everyone to share information, therefore, floated information makes fashion companies struggle to stand it compared to the past.  Therefore, they start to add provocative comments or uncertain information in order to protect existing customers and to attract new customers. However, I think this phenomenon is harmful future fashion industry as well as consumers.

To sum up, I have significantly developed my understanding of the massive impact of mass media and the importance of creating fashion media. This understanding could be useful to me because it encourages me to create the right advertisements that leads a consumer to do ethical consumption. 

References

Google Trends (no date) [Screencast]. Available at: https://trends.google.com/trends/?geo=US (Accessed: 5 May 2020).

Better Lives unit is taken to keep us socially responsible for us who will become the next generation of leading to the fashion industry in the future. Before listening to this lecture, I had a steady interest in the sustainability issue. However, after hearing this, I found that the range of better lives is broad than I expected. The two lectures that are of particular interest to me are Emerging Technologies in Fashion by Nick Almond and Cultural Sustainability by John Lau as allowing me to broaden my thinking and ideas.

Initially, I mainly thought that changing design and materials was the way to create a sustainable fashion industry. This is because that structure that creates new products as changing fashion distribution structure can produce eco-friendly products. Moreover, a vintage market that is an alternative process of consumption for sustainable fashion is difficult to cover global business because of limited stock and consumers. However, after having Emerging Technologies in Fashion lecture, I realised that new technology can also contribute to creating a sustainable society. New technology can develop supply chains more globally and transparently with an efficient way. For example, I found an interesting business based in New York called RentTheRunway, which is a subscription fashion service that powers women to rent unlimited designer styles for every and occasion. I think this platform can help people to stop buying unnecessary clothes and lead them to do reasonable consumption. This platform seems to represent a good example of using sharing economy for a better fashion industry.

Another opportunity that broadened my thinking was Cultural Sustainability lecture in terms of understanding cultural issue in the fashion industry. This lecture has inspired me to think a lot about how to consume and make media as a fashion media student. As John mentioned, past footage has many interpretations. However, the interpretation may differ depending on the person who interprets it and who the subject is. Additionally, I think Queen Victoria’s painting seems to be linked with modern fashion society in which judgment is made using only one section of an image. Therefore, as a consumer and a creative director,  it seems to be an obligation to use fashion with the correct understanding and intention because without understanding the history behind it,  it just does not become a fashion, but custom like as he said. 

In my opinion, borrowing different cultures in fashion lies within the ambiguous boundaries of cultural appropriation and inspiration. Therefore, when borrowing other cultures for your work, I think that we need to not only look at the recent appearance but also to explore the background in detail. This understanding of cultures and protentional of new technology market give me have a good start point of my ideas to go further.

References 

Nick, A. (2020) ‘Emerging Technologies in Fashion’ [Lecture]. Better Lives, London College of Fashion, 2 April. 

John, L. (2020) ‘Cultural Sustainability’ [Lecture]. Better Lives, London College of Fashion, 5 April.  

How Rent the Runway Built Unicorn Status on Sharing Economy (2019) Available at: https://youtu.be/cNt3Tw_3PX0 (Accessed: 4 May 2020)