Claudia Szabo

Watching all the Better Lives lectures has really opened my eyes about one thing. If I don’t start making the changes in my own practice, then I can’t complain about the rest of the world. This unit opened my eyes on how bad the situations are around us. As bad as it sounds, I thought we are getting somewhere with environmental, sustainable and ethical factors just because I like to keep up to date about it, and I see a lot of “success stories” and new emerging “ethical/ sustainable brands” however, when I took a step back I realised that that is a tiny percentage of the world (close to 1%).

I’m very motivated to learn more about making the world a better place, in any way possible and as a PR Student I will aim to work with, and/or encourage companies that I meet along the way to be as ethical and sustainable as possible. I currently intern for a company and they’re very strong on only working with companies who give back to our planet, the workers and people who need it the most. I really like this mindset, however I also feel like companies who don’t do these things shouldn’t be left out, they should be brought into the circle and influenced so they can try and do better. It’s very easy for large companies to turn a blind eye to problems, especially if it means more money.

I really liked Jekaterina Rogaten talking about a social study where people got to listen to other peoples’ stories and walk in their shoes. I really feel like that is a smart way to get people to understand what one may be going through, as it’s hard to imagine it without the push.

Another thing that I took from the Better Lives lectures is being more cultural. The world is very big and I feel like most of us get sucked into our Western ways. It’s important to learn, to understand and to pay attention to other cultures, histories, religions and people in general. I want to go and travel to learn about different countries, and why they do what they do. This was always my plan, to go after uni and see the world but now I even want to start a project of some sort to incorporate into my travels. This way other people could learn what I learnt if they wanted to and relate to people and places. It feels empowering when you know more than just your own culture ways of living.

I really like the different ways LCF decided to introduce sustainability, diversity and social issues into our course. I found the lectures very refreshing and interesting. I chose Cher Potter’s Perspective lecture to focus on because it just stood out for me. I really liked the way she spoke about getting deep in cultural history and recreating it through fashion. I’m from Hungary, but I moved away at a very young age so I never really though to connect fashion with my culture at such a deep level.

This inspired me to look a little more into the history and culture of Hungary and learn further about this topic, not only to try and translate it to fashion but also to try and connect with it and understand it a bit more.

I found that the traditional clothing of Hungarians has already been used in todays fashion. Floral embroidery is one of the main factors in Hungarian culture, not only on clothes but also within interior design, art, pottery and any surface they could paint on or embroid into.I appreciated learning about African achievements too as we don’t often learn about that area of the planet. I loved learning how they recreated history as well as how tech advanced they are- this isn’t something we tend to hear about.

Furthermore, I wanted to talk about Julia Crews Lecture on ‘Power’ and the frustration of the awareness of big issues like sustainability and unfair pay, however nobody is stopping it. Who is supposed to? I feel like its such a vicious circle that its impossible for just, for example the producer, to stop this. In order to live in a fair and sustainable world, we would need an agreement from all aspects , starting with the brands all the way to the consumers. I also feel like overconsumption could be resolved in a very similar way because if clothes were a little more expensive, people would make smarter choices perhaps, and would also result to workers being able to get a higher pay that they deserve.

To conclude, I really feel like our generation must really step up and try and make the difference in the world of fashion and open up more ethically correct doors, as well as being a lot more aware of events and people globally.