Xingyu Chen

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Blog4 Peer Review

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Blog 4 – Reflection on peers’ work (Jolin Tung’s)

After I read a couple of blogs, what stood out was Blog1 written by Jiahui Yan, because the lecture she referred to was the same as mine by Julia Crew about Power and Sustainability. After reading the beginning of her writing, I found that we have a completely different perspective to write about the connection between power and fashion. As far as I am concerned,since my major is about makeup and stage a lot, so I rarely thought about the relationship between fashion and power, but this writer can easily cite various interesting examples, which is also my reason that very attractive to me to read.
 
As can be seen from the examples she gave, she is a loyal supporter of Alexander McQueen, and the writer knows his works and experiences very well. She even used a lot of words to describe McQueen’s experience to show his political power and later influence on the fashion industry. However, in the second part of her article, another theme was proposed, which Julia mentioned in the lecture, which is the statement that fast fashion makes sustainable development difficult. Because fast fashion produces relatively cheap clothing for customers who want to change their wardrobes regularly based on trends (House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee 2019: 6), this unethical behavior brings great convenience and benefits to producers. But this also means that in order to improve cost competitiveness and meet market demand, the factory refuses to pay workers according to legal requirements, which violates the minimum wage law (House of Representatives Environmental Audit Committee 2019: 6).
 
I think what the writer wrote well is that she knows very well what these topics are all about. But what I think is a little lack of beauty is that she lacks a lot of connecting words or connecting sentences, so when she sees the second paragraph, she suddenly feels awkward because she jumps directly to another topic. Or maybe this is her writing style, so these are just my thoughts. After all, in her article, I still learned something.
 
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Blog3 Project Outcome Reflection

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Have you ever seen a makeup face without makeup? As my topic choice is Fashion Mistake, I did more research.

I found that there are over 15 million results if you searched for “fashion mistakes” on Google, so we might find the real shock: most of these articles are wrong. Maria Denardo supports 5 fashion mistakes that really count on the fashion spot. of everything, participating or forgiving cultural appropriation. Second, by following the rules of the body type of judgment. We should throw away those rigid “rules” that make the body ashamed and focus on what fits and feels good for you. Four, ignoring how your clothes and accessories are made. It is an easy guide if you are interested in making your wardrobe more sustainable and ethical. Finally, refuse to shop when your weight fluctuates. Spend money to buy some new pieces that fit your body, even if you try to change your body. It doesn’t mean you’re “giving up”. It just means that you appreciate yourself, regardless of size.

In addition to dressing, makeup also has a lot of “Fashion Mistakes”. But in the final analysis, I think in fact this theme means dressing yourself up in a way that doesn’t suit you.

Regarding the previous topic when it comes to the unsustainability of cosmetics, I decided not to use cosmetics to present my final. The last time I used color tape was actually very limited in terms of color. When I was reading my magazine, I suddenly thought that this time I can use another way which is magazine cutting. In order to present the theme, this time I didn’t even apply the foundation, but cut out the colors and shapes I needed, and applied false eyelash glue to the face.

First of all, I found a black and gray eyebrow shape cut from the magazine and attached it to my face. Then because I found that color mascara is very popular recently, I found out the purple plate from the magazine and cut out different lengths and shapes to replace our long eyelashes. Eyeliner is also indispensable. I found a black block from the magazine and cut a small triangle to stick to the end of my eye. Because of the influence of the anime character Maruko, I think I cut out two oval pink pieces and put them on my cheeks as my blush. As for the lipstick, I think that in addition to red tone lipsticks, because we can find out various colors from magazines, we actually have a lot of choices. Finally, I chose to cut out a yellow block with text. It proved that it was not painted, but from a magazine. Finally, I also used a three-color sealing clip that catered to my “makeup” to clip on my hair to highlight the theme of fashion mistakes. I think my work seems to describe a person who can’t make up but she is trying to give her face a sense of color.

In the end, I think this outcome may not be as perfect as I imagined, but after this round of better life study, I think I have the confidence to create better works because I find that I can consider more aspects , And hope that as the topic says, we can create better lives for people!

Reference:

5 Fashion Mistakes That Actually Matter
https://www.bustle.com/articles/151068-6-super-common-eye-makeup-mistakes-youre-probably-making-how-to-fix-them
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Blog2 Theme Reflection

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There are a couple of aspects that need to be considered in the theme of “Better Lives” with diversity, sustainability and social responsibility. During I realized all the topics, I found sustainability is the most inspiring thing for me. Because my Better Lives elective course is Make-up Break Down, I will contact the course content to conceive my theme and design.

However, the research on cosmetics attracted me deeply. I found that in modern society, with people’s hobby of makeup, all kinds of skin care products and cosmetics are produced. However, the shelf life of many skin care products and cosmetics is actually not long, some may be stored for several years, but some products can only expire one week after opening. But as we buy more and more products, there will be more and more expired products that need to be abandoned, and we will throw them away. Because if you continue to use it, it is likely to damage the skin. This is actually not conducive to sustainable development.

In my opinion, for cosmetics, of course, I hope we could try to use more organic and long-term storage. But for me, I should do some makeup for connect with this topic, in my make-up break down lessons. In the course, I learned the basic makeup knowledge clearly, which is more brilliant and more experiment rather than in my major classes for performance makeup, especially the basic theory of skin colour for choosing foundation and the contour role. I think that helps a lot through those lessons. And then, we also learned about two topics, fashion mistake and imperfect. In the practice of the class, I also tried to make it for a limited two hours.

The first one is imperfect, I tried to present a perfect makeup, and used eyebrow pencil to spot a lot of spots in the middle of my face, which symbolizes a little lack of beauty. The makeup is perfect, but the spots on the face take away part of the beauty and make it imperfect.

The second one is fashion mistake. I have been thinking about the topic of fashion mistake for a long time, because in fact at the beginning, I did not particularly understand this topic. But the mentor said that this makeup is not necessarily classic makeup, you can use various materials to replace cosmetics, so I still did it according to my feelings. After I finished the foundation and tried to find materials to connect with this theme, I saw colorful tape on my desk, and my idea comes out: I drew one eyebrow and the other eyebrow was replaced with black tape; I drew blue eye shadow on the right eye, then cut a small piece of blue tape and attached it on the left eyelid; blush, I I drew the face on the left, and I put red tape on the right face; finally I applied lipstick on the upper lip, and then put another red tape on the lower lip to replace the lipstick.

I think this is an interesting theme, so I also plan to choose this theme, do more research and development, and finally make my final design. I will also consider the subject of sustainability. I think that after studying better lives this time, I will consider diversity, social responsibility, and sustainability more in my future works and strive to make better works in my better lives.

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Blog 1 Lecture Reflection

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After two weeks of lecture study, I have benefited a lot from it. Among them, I think what impressed me the most is the first lecture from Julia crew speech. The topic theme is Power connected with sustainability, which surprised me because I never imagined that power has any connection with fashion. Julia suggested that it has been Fashion to convey power visually for many of years. Then she started with six aspects to talk about their link, that is Royalty, Military Power, Politics, Business, Media, and Music.

“The media is the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses.”(Malcolm X, Human Rights Activist) This is a code Julia talks about media. I think this sentence really reflects the development of modern technology and the portability and speed of information communication. This reminds me that in the days of our parents, it often took a few weeks for them to communicate by writing letters, but now a simple message is posted on the Internet and even millions of people see it in seconds.

In the fashion field, the increase in information exposure does have a great advantage in spreading fashion. As Julia mentioned, people tend to learn to imitate their favorite influencer outfits on various social software. It must be mentioned that the Kardashian family has influenced many people specially in the fashion industry and they have a lot of fans. Regarding influence, this reminds me of the latest news. Because of the epidemic, the US government requires that everyone stay at home not to go out. Later, the people did not pay attention until Kardashian persuaded everyone on Instagram.

I have to admit that in this era of information explosion, various media have an indispensable role in the development of fashion. However, it also exist a bug: People love to share their different outfit everyday. However, it must be said that under the love of sharing their new clothes, fashion products will tend to be unsustainable, because people do not want to wear the same clothes. As Julia mentioned, young people are more willing to wear new clothes every time and present a “perfect” life online, which is actually not conducive to our mental health. In my opinion, as consumers, we should still learn to buy items that are suitable for ourselves, and we should not throw them away after one use.

This lecture really let me learn a lot, and let me understand the problems that I have not been found before. No one can deny that studying art is a profession that wastes money and materials. As far as I am concern, we are aware of this problem now, and we should work hard to fix it and improve it. I hope that all our works could be sustainable in the future, and the materials should be as sustainable as possible. I think the protection of the environment is the responsibility of all human beings, including ourselves. Isn’t that what we who study art and fashion should do? 

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