Xiuyijian Jiang

For my peer review, I chose the blog post 1 of Shanyun Luo. I looked through some good blogs and the reason why I chose it is that we are both interested in the Lecture Power. The lecture truly caused us to think about the fashion industry and social issues. I wrote about sustainable fashion, and one of the themes is fashion slavery. She mainly mentioned the power of media that has an important effect. After I read this blog, I think I strongly agree with what Malcolm X said- “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.” As a media student, we are able to have social responsibility. For example, she mentioned social media apps like Instagram. It has a large number of users. Many fashion brands put their ads on Instagram. As a matter of fact, it changed the fashion industry. People can check these social media to know about brands easily. They don’t need to see ads in public spaces. Its bad side is that consumers can not know the details of real products. In China, e-commerce livestreaming has existed in China for several years, it took off in 2019, which was made clear during this year’s Singles Day shopping festival when livestreaming on Alibaba’s Taobao livestreaming platform generated $2.85 billion in sales — around 7.5 percent of the day’s total sales（Baidu, 2020). Consumers spent so much money on online shopping. Media plays a big part in this industry. It also explained that media has huge power and it is hard to control it. All in all, I agree with the confusion that she made. It is because media has big power, we should think of social responsibility while we are making huge benefits. Love, not to deceive.

Baidu (2020) The World of English Available at:  https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1662833692671745183&wfr=spider&for=pc (Accessed:1 May2020)

Shanyun Luo’s blog: https://1920betterlivessmc.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2020/02/25/blog-1-power-4/

Developing a Character is a project using various makeup techniques to create a character. Before COVID-19 spread, I enjoyed several sessions learning new techniques that I’d never experienced before. For my own course creative direction, I might do some makeup on my own when I have a plan to shoot. It was helpful. The first image that I took from class was about Painted Illusion and Distortion Effects. Half face is joy, the other half is sorrow I think. For my project, as I mentioned in my first blog, I am interested in the lecture Power. I chose one of the themes, fashion slavery. There are still many women suffering from sweatshops. They are forced to make clothes with a low salary and some have been tortured and beaten, even sexual assault. The second image was my final design concept. Without makeup tools, so I used Photoshop to paint a model who is suffering from that abuse. I chose needle and thread to express her job- a garment worker. Half her face and her body have several scars due to abuse. The story behind this character is the news about sweatshops in Brazil. In Brazil, most of the workers come from countries near Brazil, especially Bolivians. Some of them were created to be garment workers. The factories pretended to guarantee their working hours, working conditions, and the like. They are allowed to pay the “training fees” that means sometimes they get no money. (Aljazeera, 2016) I was thinking she may be sold to garment factories or abroad as a slave and forced to do this work. She can sew clothes but she needs to be ‘sewed’ her wound. I am glad that my project could have its meaning behind it. It might be perfect if I do makeup on a real model.

AI Jazeera News (2016) Brazil: Slaves To Fashion Available at:https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/latin-america-investigates/2016/12/brazil-slaves-fashion-161229063654192.html (Accessed:21 April 2020)

Throughout the last few weeks I think I have learned a lot from Better Lives Unit. Lecture Power and Culture sustainability are definitely impressive for me. My course is Creative Direction and I chose Developing a Character which I am really interested in. As a creative student, this gives me an exploration of how to create a character. I enjoyed the workshop – we have introduced the principles of corrective color theory and light and shade techniques. This is a brand new direction for me to think in different ways. After only a few sessions, unfortunately, I can not continue to experience this kind of make-up techniques because of COVID-19. Based on what I have learned from better lives, I started to think about how to change my future career. Before I came to study at LCF, I know little about cultural sustainability and diversity, I really appreciate people around me as they are concerning sustainable fashion and for creating a better fashion industry. Media truly has its dark side but I am supposed to call for those who are suffering from fast-fashion and discrimination. For creative direction and makeup, they can not be directly related to Sustainability. I am only able to be a positive one right now.  

In the fashion industry, Love Not Landfill is a good example for me and a leading model that encourages young Londoners to donate their unwanted clothes to charity and make sure they are used in life not the landfill. They are going to hold some events and pop up shops featuring collections from charity. It is a positive impact on those who don’t know much about fashion sustainability. Some people have a bad impression of thrift shops and vintage shops. Because most thrift shops or vintage shops they don’t wash the clothes. It may cause people who are really sensitive to that situation. What media might do is to publicize positive activities or we can do even a trivial matter for better lives. 

Developing a Character project is not only what I’m interested in, but it is a purpose to create an image to warn people the harmful effect of fashion. Media has its power. Maybe the impact on people has been small, but it’s worth it. That is truly my attitude and I will be careful not to cause unnecessary burdens and troubles to others in fashion media. 

Better lives unit gives me a good opportunity to understand how sustainability, diversity, and social responsibility related to the fashion industry. As a SMC student, I know media is top priority in this industry. This unit makes me reflect on how media make better lives. 

The unit gave us a lot of lectures and I really love the lecture Power by Julia Crew. It completely impressed me and made me think a lot about the fashion industry. This industry can not stand the ravages of war, strictly speaking, the ravages of the economy. Benefit from the global economy has stabilized, the fashion industry has been able to develop successfully. We pursuit our desire like beauty, money, and power. Then we create fashion, fashion has everything. 

People consume 80 billion pieces of clothing a month, which is a 400% increase from years ago(2018). It causes a lot of anti-sustainable social issues. But not everyone is conscious of bad impacting on the environment and society. Due to ads and social media, we buy lots of fast fashion items. Not many people can afford luxury brands and fast fashion gets us satisfaction. Behind the fast fashion industry, a lot of clothing workers are suffering from labour issues. Every year G20 countries imports $127.7 billion worth of garments, and these garments maybe “help” aggravate the situation of modern slavery. There are still many sweatshops in the world, and most of these garment workers are women and children-especially adolescent girls and young women. They are working in awful working conditions for low wages. Some get ill by overwork, getting no money at the end. We really need to think twice before purchasing clothes. As consumers, we truly have the power to drive the trends. Modern slave is a big issue and one of the reasons is our desire as consumers. We need to change our minds from our hearts, do not put too much desire on fast fashion. Thinking about who makes our clothes and under what conditions. We should concern workers behind these brands and think if they have their equitable income. As a SMC student, media should become our weapon. It really controls people’s minds. Fashion media and ads are able to promote sustainable fashion. People check social media almost every day like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. They control people to buy more and more clothes. If more and more social media stand up calling for sustainable fashion, people may get influenced by that. Social media may lead sustainable fashion to a purchasing behavior which makes us proud and release. Fashion media still has a large room for improvement to make fashion better and lives better. 

Global Slavery Index (2018) Modern slavery: A hidden, everyday problem. Available at: https://www.globalslaveryindex.org  (Accessed:26 April, 2020)