Zoe Lee

After reading through many posts I decided to review Ellie Shemmell’s blog post on how the initial Better Lives lectures influenced her thinking. The post was in response to a lecture made by Laura Sailsbury on Inclusive Fashion and Design. Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to watch this lecture and so, through reading Ellie’s reflection, many new ideas we brought up for me as well as hearing her personal thoughts on this lecture. Overall this post helped to spark new ideas for me within my individual work. Ellie made clear points focusing on how this lecture covered the idea of diversity through inclusivity and explored new areas of the industry which I hadn’t really thought about or considered within my work before.

She focused on the idea of inclusivity within designing clothes and how designers should and could easily adapt to be more diverse in their product designs. She outlined ideas of how companies can modify products in order to facilitate to certain races, disabilities, etc. A key point she raised was how, “adaptable designing techniques and smart materials are the beginning of something really positive for the fashion industry.” I strongly agree with this point and believe that as well as this change benefitting consumers, it will also create a more positive industry which is helping out more vulnerable people, not just creating garments for growth and profit to the company. One of the example given for this was something I had never thought of, this is the idea of how wearable technology fits into someones fashion and everyday lifestyle. Many people will experience discomfort from wearing life saving items such as a heart rate sensor, as many clothes don’t consider these other circumstances when designing their garments. However, a garment such as a bra can easily be altered in its design to fit something like this, whilst maintaining comfort as well as keeping the technology as discreet to an outside viewer as possible.

Like Ellie stated, I believe the idea of creating garments as a form of escapism and creating products to help peoples well being, should be an idea which is more present when designing new items. Many clothes which are designed with a specific disability, race or community in mind, lack in style and looks due to the focus full being on the need of the garment. However, as said in this blog, designing fashionable clothes whilst taking these specific needs into consideration has a huge impact on communities, as well as maintaining individuals personal feelings of self worth. I thought this point was made well by Ellie and shows the large impact a small change can have.

Through this blog I have learned a lot more about inclusivity and have taken away key ideas which I can incorporate into my work. I felt that Ellie’s blog successfully covered the idea of diversity through covering many key points from Laura Sailsbury’s lecture. She balanced this with giving her own personal views of each point and how this lecture has influenced her thinking.

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For my chosen project within the Better Lives unit I studies portraits photography. After the initial lectures about the key themes of Better Lives I went into this project thinking about how I would apply these themes into my work whilst still creating visually interesting images.

I put photography as my top choice of project as I do hair and makeup for my degree and felt that knowing more about portrait photography would benefit me in the future and will help me when talking to photographers.

Due to the current pandemic I felt that the theme of social responsibility highly influenced my mind set and also the work I produced. The last few lessons of my course was when we were all inside in isolation, which made taking photographs more challenging however, it made us continue to create images whilst still being socially responsible and staying in due to the lockdown. I did find it hard to produce images due to a lack of models and locations as well as a general lack of creativity due to the circumstances. This meant that I had to develop my creative thinking and explore new ideas of image making, by utilising what and who I have around me to create images for this project.

We had a lecture in which our teacher Daniel Treacy showed us his own work which I felt successfully covered the idea of sustainability. He showed us his work and explained to us how he would often find old garments which had been discarded in random locations and reused these items to create new looks which he would photograph. This changed my thinking own regards to creating images, as before I would automatically think of a fashion photography shoot, in which the clothing are new and everything looks more clean and crisp. However, from his images I learned how you can successfully create interesting images whilst reusing and recycling. If people consider this in their future work it will allow us to create a more sustainable industry.

The theme of diversity was on my mind throughout the whole project as I wanted to photograph a range of models and see if the choice in models effected the feeling within the image. In one of our tasks we walked down Shepherd Bush Market in small groups to take portrait photographs. I felt that these images were the most interesting outcomes I created from this project. They captured people working and not posing or really engaging with the camera, which made the images feel more natural and unstaged. This, in my opinion, makes a viewer feel as if they are at that location and a part of the image.

I felt that all the key themes of Better Lives helped influence my work within my project. I produced images which I was happy with and through the practical tasks within the lectures, have developed my skills and understanding of photography. I now have a lot more confidence with photography and a wider knowledge of how cameras work.

I think the three themes of Better Lives are very current issues within the fashion industry which need to be addressed throughout all specialisms within fashion.

Within my specialism of hair and makeup for fashion I have to consider all of these themes within my current and future work. Through all of the lectures within this unit, it has challenged my thinking when creating my work and has made me reflect on what I could/may change in the future.

Diversity is still a large issue within makeup with many brands not creating makeup for all skin tones and types which has caused a big uproar. Very often in the media we see criticism towards brands and their new releases of foundation and concealer due to a lack of inclusivity within their range of shades. However, newer brands such as Fenty Beauty have realised this issue and are focusing on creating a fully diverse shade range to facilitate to a wider range of skin tones. Diversity doesn’t only apply to skin tones, it also effects any community who aren’t represented enough in the media especially within fashion. In my future work I would like to use a range of models, of different skin tones, dress sizes, disabilities etc to create a more inclusive fashion industry.

Within makeup, sustainability is an issue which brands are trying to encourage within their products and ethos. Over the years the impact of beauty products on the environment has become more apparent which has forced brands to make changes. The packaging of many products is causing harm to the planet due to single use plastic and non recyclable/excessive packaging. Due to hygiene of tools used to apply makeup I go through a lot of single use tools such as q-tips or disposable wands, as these have an impact on the environment I am trying to find products which don’t use plastic or are as biodegradable as possible in order to reduce my impact on the environment.

Social responsibility is an important idea for brands to consider, with many using a percentage of their sales to help out charities. Charlotte Tilbury has created a lipstick which she pledges £1 million of sales will go to the charity Women for Women International and help women survivors of war rebuild their lives. This encourages sales of her products as well as generating money to help people in need. Many other brands also support charities which allows them to use their popularity and income to give back to people less fortunate.

In my future work I have to consider the brands and products I use within my work. Through the themes of diversity, social responsibility and sustainability and the exploration of these themes within this unit, I will look a lot closer into what brands I should be supporting when purchasing items for my makeup kit. This will also make me consider what types of brands I want to work for in the future due to the morals and policies of the company in order to help out as much as I can.

In the first two weeks of lectures we were introduced to the Better Lives unit and its key themes. There are three key themes which were introduced to us; social responsibility, diversity and sustainability. These themes are important to consider when doing any project within this unit and also in the future.

I found many of the Better Lives lectures interesting, with them provoking new ideas which I will keep in mind in my project. The lecture I found most interesting was by Anna Fitzpatrick. Within her talk she discussed the ideas of sustainability and consumerism within the fashion industry and what these ideas mean.

Sustainability is the ability to be maintained at a certain rate or level in ways that sustain people, places and things. Fitzpatrick continued to discuss the ideas of who benefits and who loses from the idea of sustainability. Large shops such as Zara and Primark are high contributors of fast fashion, as they mass produce garments and sell them for cheap which means workers are exploited through a minimal pay.

An idea she mentioned which I felt was interesting was how, if we began to make clothes out of a “more sustainable” material, the production of this will have a knock on effect. This to me makes the idea of sustainability a lot more complex as I began to question if we would ever be able to have a fully sustainable fashion industry. This links on to how fashion is all dependent on land, water, air and animals, therefore the materials used to produced garments can change between being sustainable and not depending on the overall effect on each of these areas.

She also talked about consumerism and the powerful ideology that frames our world view, relationships, identity and behaviour.

Fitzpatrick began to give some statistics about consumerism which personally shocked me. The idea of consumer culture expanded through the course of the twentieth century as clothing prices reduced which resulted in sales increasing. Clothing sales doubled from 2000 to 2014 with the number of garments purchased each year by the average consumer increasing by 60%. I felt that these statistics really made me question how these figures will change over the next few centuries and wonder how we will be able to maintain the fashion industry in the most environmentally friendly way if these figures continue to rise so dramatically.

One of the final points she made was the most shocking to me. She said how in just four years, a CEO of a top fashion industry earns a garment workers lifetime pay. This point makes you realise how unfair the fashion industry is and how influential fast fashion is on peoples lives.  Companies are paying people ridiculously low wages for constant, labour inducing work. I left this lecture really reflecting on my own contribution to fast fashion and what I can do in the future to minimise this in my personal life.