Vittoria del Balzo

Throughout this Better Lives unit, I struggled to find the connection between the themes of the unit and my better lives project: Makeup. Even though to this day I am still uncertain I have found a way to connect sustainability to the work we are doing in my project class. During these difficult times, we have had to start online classes instead of physically going into university and therefore we have had to adapt to the resources we have access to in our homes. During my first online class, we were given two hours to create two makeup looks; one linked to a fashion mistake and one linked to imperfections. At first, I was rather startled as I had no makeup in my family home but when I started thinking more outside the box I found myself looking for reusable materials around the house. For example for my imperfection look, I used 2 feathers, that I had bought years ago for a party, some tape and a black marker. With these three simple materials, I was able to complete the task by creating an incredibly powerful makeup look. After my class I found myself thinking of how much I had learned. Instead of using materials that I would then throw away, I tried to adjust myself to my surroundings and go from there. I learned that there are many ways that you can create something beautiful by still being sustainable and conscious. When we had to share our final outcomes I was blown away by my peer’s looks and how they, like me, used completely sustainable materials and adjusted themselves to the circumstance. Another very strong theme that was present in this project lesson was diversity. All of our looks told a different story. None of us created a similar look. We all came up with diverse and intriguing ideas which made the whole concept even more beautiful. One-piece that specifically left me speechless was this girl that created a look by attaching balloons of different sizes and colors as well as party confetti wrapped around her neck and lips. I found it a very playful way of creating a makeup look without using any makeup at all. Again by being sustainable and using things that she found around the house. I think that Diversity and sustainability are the two themes that are the most present in my Better Lives project. Putting these themes in action has opened my eyes and made me realize how vast and diverse the community within LCF is.

Better Lives has made me think a lot about social responsibility within sustainability. More specifically when taken in the context of fashion. Through the various lectures, the topic of consumer habits came up a lot. The lecturer showed us graphs and patterns which showed us how consumer habits have a great impact on the environment and how it’s up to us to take the first step in order to change/break these habits. Before these lectures, I was in denial of the fact that my shopping habits may have had an effect on the environment, or maybe I knew but I didn’t want to acknowledge it. Big companies like H&M, Topshop, Zara, and many more are mass producers of cheap products and use toxic materials to produce them which not only damages the environment but also creates an unsafe work environment for factory employers which produce and manufacture their clothes. I remember seeing a video a few years back from a factory that manufactures clothes for H&M collapsing and so many employees got injured. It scared me but I had never really understood that I was just as guilty as these big fashion companies which are fans of mass production, as I was giving them money by buying their clothes and giving them the opportunity to keep manufacturing their products the way they do. The Better Lives Lectures opened my eyes to a whole other part of fashion that I was completely oblivious to. I intend to carry on the theme of sustainability and social responsibility throughout my studies and making my part in breaking the cycle of consumer habits. Although, I do acknowledge that this might not be easy for everyone due to the fact that companies like H&M sell their products at very low prices and many people may have the option to stop buying from these big mass producing companies. This made me realize that there is a whole in the fashion market; we are missing rands that are economically friendly as well as environmentally friendly in order to reak consumer habits and do our part to help the environment. Sustainability and social responsibility are two of themes that have stayed with me the most throughout this Better Lives experience and I will continue to carry them on through my studies y incorporating them in my future projects when doing rand analysis or even in my personal life when I am looking to buy new products I will conduct my research before feeding an industry that is harmful to the environment. 

I found the lectures in week 1 and week 2 very interesting and I took away from them some very interesting things but the one that inspired me and my way of thinking the most was the emerging technologies, in week one. I was fascinated y the emerging technologies lecture as I never explored the topics of AI and XR and to be honest I was never particularly interested in them until now. I was surprised to learn that fashion trends are actually just patterns and that AI’s almost ‘predict the future’. They know what consumers will like before they know they like it. They are optimized to find the best patterns as they repeat the same pattern over and over again until they get the perfect outcome. Being a consumer myself I found myself thinking a lot about this and all the past, present, and future trends I would explore knowing that someone out there probably already knows what they are. I found this fascinating. I was also left speechless when the lecturer talked about virtual reality (VR), mixed reality (MR), and augmented reality (AR). Thinking that these could soon become a new way of living scared me. I find that there is some sort of authenticity in attending a live fashion show or trying on new clothes and feeling the materials or changing your hairstyle and knowing that all of these things can be done virtually feels very weird. There are now apps where you can change your hair color and see what it would look like before actually doing it or even websites that generate new faces that do not exist, new people. Digital humans could become major influencers on social media platforms. You can now also create digital clothing and allow people to ‘try it on’ before it’s even made and turn shopping into an immersive experience and take people to places that don’t currently exist within the store environment through augmented reality glasses. Technology is evolving at a very fast pace and it’s incredible that we can do so many things through it but it also left me quite unsettled knowing that so many day to day activities that are essential to our entertainment can be done through technology without physically having to move.