Juan Ocampo Echeverry

For my personal choice of project in this unit, I decided to do ‘Messaging Fashion.’ To briefly explain, its goal was for us as a students to learn how to produce an effective collaborative campaign with a charity that was true to the brand, from a PR standpoint. In coherence with the Better Lives unit, I picked the brand ‘Patta.’ It is a black owned urban brand from Amsterdam, that is targeted to a young diverse audience. Our choice of charity was Patta’s own foundation, who’s purpose is to fund and back the youngs who want to pursue a career in the sports, music, fashion, culture entrepreneurship and social consciousness. We believed there was no other charity that could encapsule and be more true to the brands own values, than their own foundation itself. My choice was greatly influenced by the themes being taught in this unit and this is a brand that celebrates and supports diversity and inclusivity. It’s incredibly satisfying to learn about brands that do put a big spotlight on such important topics. 

Due to Covid-19’s tremendous impact in our daily lives, the Messaging Fashion project drastically changed and so did our approach. The initial idea went from creating a campaign that would send a percentage of proceeds to the brand’s foundation, to drifting the project towards a plan that would also respond to the current pandemic and its effects, while shifting all events and in store activities to online. This was an opportunity to also bring together a much broader community together during this very difficult time. 

I believe this unit and the project have helped me in various ways very positively. Working in groups with people from different deductions, backgrounds and with the same interest in Fashion, is always a great experience to learn something from. My take on this project was really, reinforcing my already existing opinions on the different Better Lives themes, with a better understanding of what these mean and how important they are for us as an always improving society. 

Every generation throughout History has always tackled the previous’ mistakes. A good example that we are currently living is ‘Global Warming.’ Pollution has become a topic highly connected to our times that is currently being fought by the younger generations, while mostly being disregarded by the older ones. I’ve always thought of humanity as a species that fights its self for growth and improvement and the current values we should implement are in fact the ones being taught by our college: sustainability, diversity and social responsibility. These are I believe the pillars we need to adopt now, in order to move forward as a less egoistic, selfish and politically incorrect society driven by capitalism. 

In my previous blog post I briefly explored how diversity is necessary for us to create a society that values all as equal, but now it is also immensely necessary to learn that just as we should respect all humans the same, we should do so as well with the planet and environments that houses us. The negative effects that we are creating in the planet affect not only us in a wider time frame, but also other species that share these valuable resources we are taking so carelessly. Our selfish way of consuming with ignorance and such huge lack of care are causing irreversible impacts that will define whether this planet is able to sustain us for any longer. Capitalism has created a way of living that is unsustainable in every single way. After learning and educating myself on these first two themes, ‘Social Responsibility’ follows as the third. It is us as consumers who have the choice and also the responsibility to take educated and mindful decisions when shopping for products that are widely known to have a big impact on the environment. We as ever evolving individuals have the duty to become more conscious and knowledgeable of the actions we decide to take, because after all we are responsible for our own decisions and their effect wether its positive or negative. And it is also our duty to teach others and give visibility to these very important topics. 

I’ve realised my way of work will change from now on like it always has after I learn a new thing. Now I will try to focus and back my work as a photographer to give visibility to diversity and environmental consciousness, as it is my responsibility to do. As a visual artist I will do so, through my images. And just like I will, I hope others do through their own occupations. 

I have always known how important a broad representation in the Fashion industry is, maybe due to the fact that my parents were immigrants in the country I was born or because I became an outsider myself when I migrated from Spain. Feeling represented by people who share my Colombian roots was something I never experienced growing up, but I also never felt that was an issue. As a child I grew up telling myself I was Spanish and nothing else, because there was close to nobody in the media that shared that commonality with me. Therefor I latched onto my Spanish heritage and somewhat gave up my Colombian side. Before I moved away it never became apparent how huge of an issue that was. It almost was as if I felt ashamed of having that other half when I was in Spain. While listening to T. Kirkland give her lecture I was taken back to the time when I arrived to London back when I was thirteen. A completely unknown place, with a language I couldn’t communicate with and no other people I could relate to other than my parents. Soon I started to understand what being fully misrepresented felt like. 

I decided to reflect on this lecture due to the very personal connection I have to this matter. In our generation more than ever before it’s become apparent just how important it is to have people from all cultures, skin colours and backgrounds in the public, specially in such a publicised industry like ‘Fashion.’ Values such as the ones shared by LCF are necessary to move forward as a society that celebrates and integrates every individual. Having a single demographic as the example to follow for everyone is unrealistic in a world where there are so many backgrounds. Feeling unrepresented makes groups of people feel marginalised and undesirable. That is extremely dangerous when you release that such unrepresented groups are exactly the ones who throughout History were massacred and enslaved, such as dark skin people and natives, among others. The Eurocentric standard has always favoured the people who’ve been the most privileged and able, while other groups have been targeted and labeled always as inferior. Having no representation or worst, being robbed of your culture for the personal benefit of someone who is more privileged is something Social Media has punished many times. Individuals who do so are called out by millions of different users across the globe in a matter of seconds. In my opinion it has been this tool of worldwide communication that has allowed the younger generations to become highly familiarised with being in such an inclusive community and it is one of the reasons why we comprehend that not being represented is wrong. This lecture really made me release how incredibly important it is that we see people of all backgrounds in commercials and fashion spreads, because it turns a product being sold through a monocultural campaign into something that is accessible to everyone.