Yizhuo Li

I had read a blog of lecture reflection written by Xinran Meng. I really like this blog that Xinran Meng posted. I totally understood what are you trying to express, and also agree with the point of the person who has power can change fashion trend and affects the fashion field. 

I believe that you said the people who got money and power can pursue fashion, and they can buy more fashion products than poor people in the past. However, I think there are still different classes in modern society but this extreme situation as you say is gradually decreasing. In modern society, people often come into contact with many fashion media, including mobile phones, TV, and radio. These electronic media use advertisements to promote fashion all the time, and through these advertisements, the most popular fashion trends are quickly spread. Fashion brands use this method to give everyone in the city the opportunity to pursue fashion.

“Diversity” the word I learned in the Better Lives unit. Fashion is not only expensive. In shopping malls, there are not only luxury fashion brands but also have cheap fast fashion brands, such as H&M and Topshop. The combination of different price stores in a mall is to serve customers with different needs and customers with different consumption capabilities, so I think fashion is diversified. It is not only reflected in the price tag but also reflected in the clothing. Most of the clothing uses fibre or some natural materials as fabrics now, and the price is only reflected in the workmanship. On the other hand, due to the rough workmanship of a small number of fast fashion brands, which reduces the durability of clothes, it greatly increases waste and hinders sustainable development.

Finally, I don’t agree with your understanding of power in the blog. I think some popular online celebrities can have an impact on the fashion field, such as Kim Kardashian. But the example in your blog is a tik-tok celebrity in China. For me, he is just a salesperson. He can only benefit himself through live streaming and advertising instead of fashion. I think power refers to the ability of designers. The work of fashion designers has a great say in the fashion industry. They use design to change fashion trends and fashion fields.

The opinions in your blog are very attractive to me and bring me very few ideas, we can have a depth discussion in the future.

 Reflections on how the Better Lives themes might change how you work in the future.

During the whole Better Lives project, we are around three topics to discuss which are Sustainability, Diversity, Social Responsibility. What I am thinking is if people reach these three aims, our world will become a well-being society that means everyone will have a happy life with high satisfaction. 

I am always talking about my development of work in the future and how futuristic design in my project. However, today I am going to discuss how well-being and inclusive design will affect our society. 

The question I am thinking right now is except luxury costumes, do the exaggerated makeup will give the audience a strong visual effect in plays. In the performing arts, most of the aesthetics are established by the people who are able, but there are still people with disabilities in this society, such as the blind, deaf, face or sensory disabled people. For these reasons, they cannot enjoy the performance like normal people, and they cannot obtain the character identity and moods from the actors’ facial expressions and makeup. As a result, this group of people lost their ability to appreciate and the opportunities to enjoy performances. I think if you want to improve the satisfaction of society, designers should consider how to serve the disabled and use products to improve their quality of life, rather than ignore their existence in society.

In the course of Break down makeup of Better Lives, I learned about contouring. In the process of doing contouring, first thing need to understand is the facial structure of the model, and then draw a facial map on the model’s face. The facial map uses color areas to express bones and skin Relationship. These knowledges provided me with some inspiration fo my future works. I want to use silicone which is similar to skin texture to make some smart materials. These smart textiles pieces will be combined into a sensor mask that covering the user’s face which are the bone areas. When sensors receives the facial movements of the actor during the performance, at the same time, the different smart textile piece will produce different vibrations at different positions. This way can not only give a disabled person a new perspective to enjoy the performance, but also give them a more stimulating way of appreciation in addition to hearing. I think this smart mask will effectively improve the satisfaction of disabled people in art appreciation and give them more opportunities to communicate with the outside world.

In future performances, I will think more about how to achieve visual, auditory, and tactile design, and use intelligent materials to make disabled audiences comfortable. Call on more designers to increase the actor’s professional satisfaction and the audience’s satisfaction with life in a stylish way.

Reflections on how the Better Lives themes have influenced your project outcome and your personal development.

I studied Break down makeup as the main theme in the Better lives unit. Durning all of the classes, we explored the makeup process, fashion trend and set up our aesthetic. For me these classes didn’t teach me much more knowledge, I would create more about fashion combination and sustainability that can help me to develop myself and my works. 

In today’s society, the word sustainability becomes a popular topic for more and more people to participate in the discussion, whether people understand it or not. But I think it’s a positive sign when people realize the sustainability of fashion.

Sustainability is defined as the avoidance of the depletion of natural resources in order to maintain an ecological balance for the pursuit of global environmental sustainability or the ability to be maintained at a certain rate or level. After learning from Better lives unit, it opened up my horizons. So in my personal view, Sustainability can include materials, industry, and of course, it can also be used to describe the sustainability of culture and style.

Anna Nwankno’s lecture which I attended in the Better Lives theme, Anna talked about how fashion mistakes affect the fashion industries and fashion field. What am I understanding of fashion mistakes are old-fashion products or an unpopular fashion look, but what has fashion mistakes happened nowadays is designers take these fashion mistakes to combined with the newest collection. Because designers used the right way to present their ideas and give the audience a fresh look.

I found some fashion examples to prove that fashion mistakes affect the fashion field. For example, in 2016 CALVIN KLEIN SPRING SUMMER MEN’S COLLECTION in MILAN FASHION WEEK, the designer Francisco Costa brought the style of socks and sandals to the fashion runway for the first time. I think that this style that everyone does not like has continued to influence the future design elements until the fashion mistake of socks and sandals appears in the Gucci Spring 2020 ready to wear collection.Rihanna became the cover model of the September 2018 issue of the British version of “VOGUE”. In the photo, she is wearing a large wreath as a headwear, dark purple lips and deep eyes are very beautiful, but a pair of retro fine eyebrows are very eye-catching. Women in the Renaissance loved thin eyebrows or shaved their eyebrows to show their broad foreheads, and because the fine eyebrows in Clara Bow’s representative film “It” became popular in Hollywood in the 1920s, but now There are no traces of fine eyebrows in her fashion makeup. Even people think it is also a fashion mistake. I think that in Rihanna’s photoshoots, her eyebrows did not look strange because the makeup artist used the right way to present.

This is the outcome of my Make-up Break Down theme. I explored the fashion mistake and color theory these two topics at the same time. In the part of hairstyles, it is much simpler than traditional hairstyles, but I only use some materials that I can find at home, for example, I used two pairs of chopsticks as hairpins. I think this is the embodiment of fashion mistakes. The chopsticks that should have been tableware have become an element that can support my work. For the makeup, I use a lot of white foundation and red and a small amount of black as embellishment. I planned the amount of these three colors and the area on the face so that they would not look awkward. I think that the white foundation with red eyeshadow or blush has been abandoned by the fashion trend, so I redesigned this makeup with the help of geisha culture. This is to make white and red makeup become popular again Gives more space for the development of geisha culture.

Reflection on the relationship between with fashion and nature by Yizhuo Li.
After the lectures’ learning of these few days, they have changed my thinking a lot. These lectures helped me rethink about the relationship between fashion and nature, and what is sustainability for fashion. These questions came from Nature lecture of Kate Fletcher, I totally agreed with Kate Fletcher’s concept which talks about in nature as a human living environment, the reciprocal relationship between people and how did human choices we wear and environmental quality.
Some people believe that beauty and fashion are beyond everything in the world, I was a believer in this point of view. However when some news and reports talk about humans kill animals for fur coats or other fashion products, and people build more and more factories for fashion industries are increasing. I changed my mind gradually and started to consider environments’ problems that exist in our society. Because it is no doubt that human is the murderer will jeopardize nature. Until I attendances Kate Fletcher’s lecture, she gave me some answers to my question and she proved the importance of protecting the nature.

In my opinion, I don’t think that without nature, the civilization of society and humanity will not develop to the present. And nature is above life, including humans, animals, and plants. Human is part of nature, we are not the creator of nature. If human beings continue to use natural resources endlessly and do not make up for losses on time, then breaking through natural boundaries (Safe operating space for humanity.) will lead to ecological imbalances, and the final result is that human beings will perish and fashion will become meaningless.
On the other hand, after Kate Fletcher’s lecture, I think depth about the relationship between fashion and nature. Nature is an enabler of fashion because nothing happened without nature. Besides, nature is a limiting factor for fashion, therefore, the human can not developing fashion industry faster than nature development.
“Does fashion action will impact nature?” this question is Kate Fletcher left for us, and I agreed with it. Indeed, fashion action will affect the natural environment. The source and consumption of all substances in the biosphere is to maintain a delicate balance by using metabolism, so the biosphere is not a repository for waste produced by humans. I think the fashion industry can’t deny the destruction of nature, such as the use of chemical dyes to make colored fabrics and threads, and the wastewater generated during the production process will be discharged into the river, which will cause water pollution. I suggest that the fashion industry should reduce the use of fibre products because all the fibre impacts the natural system. Then people can choose renewable resources in the ecosystem, including wool and silk. Or recycle or using organic materials to achieve sustainable development in the biosphere.