Phoebe Nickolls

I absolutely loved the Better Lives unit due to the wide range of topics and enriching my knowledge of the current world. The themes of sustainability, diversity, and social responsibility have been increasingly interesting alongside this. I am very glad and grateful to have been able to study Fashion Illustration within this unit as I have always been interested in it but never had the chance to be taught until now.

Throughout the classes I thoroughly enjoyed and improved my life drawing skills, so I thought this would be great to use for my final outcomes. Although it would have been much more sustainable to create these online, I made sure to use recycled materials so I could be both sustainable but also used the drawing skills I had been very proud of during this project. I also loved the combination of acrylic paint in block colours with charcoal outlines in the foreground, so made sure to use this as a recurring design.

For my first illustration, I focused on the extremely sustainable brand, Ksenia Schnaider. I love the variety of jeans they produce from fully recycled denim! I therefore decided to leave the upper body nude to focus on the jeans as the only item of clothing. Although all three of my illustrations have an overall theme of sustainability, this one focuses on it the most as I used recycled cardboard and newspaper, and used a strong slogan, ‘choose reuse’ to get a point across. Thanks to Better Lives I have already begun changing my habits, such as buying clothes second hand and considering what materials certain objects are made out of before purchasing.

In my second illustration I decided to majorly link the theme of diversity, as well as linking back to my degree course of Hair, Makeup and Prosthetics for Performance. I used charcoal and acrylic paints on cardboard to draw a portrait of a female black model, inspired by Rihanna’s brand – Fenty Beauty. She released a new foundation back in 2017 with 40 inclusive shades where some of the darkest shades were sold out first, proving there was a large gap in the market. I wanted this illustration to encourage people to ‘think [more] diverse’, just like the Better Lives unit has helped me to. In the future, I would love to work on more models of a range of ethnicities, and this unit has definitely inspired me to do so. 

My final illustration was based on the ‘Urban Renewal’ collection by Urban Outfitters. After researching, I actually ordered a few items due to how sustainable, yet how great and on-trend they were. I was therefore inspired to take on my own social responsibility of purchasing more sustainable clothes and inspiring my peers around me to do so. I used the parcel bag they were delivered in as my canvas, and I noticed the plastic was 100% recyclable which is great! I emphasised the need of taking on your own personal responsibility of recycling through cut out, bold newspaper headlines, which I thought really complimented the use of the parcel bag. 

As a whole, I have been greatly inspired through the Better Lives project and will definitely be changing some of my habits for good from now on.

Whilst participating in the Better Lives unit I have become exceptionally familiarised with the themes of Sustainability, Diversity and Social Responsibility and how important they are in today’s world. 

After an online life drawing class for my Fashion Illustration project, I have realised how important it is to be sustainable by recycling as much as I can. Instead of using brand new paper, in the future I will aim to use recycled resources such as newspaper or recyclable plastic. This could also add to the uniqueness and artistic effect of the work. By doing this I am ensuring as least paper is used as possible throughout my experimentation process and can further this through taking photos and experimenting online through Photoshop which I have already done below. I used images from magazines to create the original design, then edited it to become a pattern.

In the current day, sustainability is becoming increasingly more of a focus within the fashion industry, and therefore gradually decreasing fast fashion. I aim to focus the fashion illustrations I create in this project on fully sustainable brands. Ksenia Schnaider create jeans out of old denim from the flea markets in Kiev and other donations, so I would love to look into this company further. 

Looking at the theme of Diversity, I have discovered that brands which are more diverse are celebrated much more, and for exceptionally valid reasons. The brand ‘Girlfriend Collective’ celebrates diversity through sizes and skin tones of their models, as well as making their clothes from recycled plastic. Their activewear garments are made in Vietnamese factories which pay a fair living wage to the employees as well as certified safe working conditions, thus covering the theme of Social Responsibility too. 

These brands have truly inspired me for my project and for my future career. In my project I will aim to move as much experimentation online as I can to save resources by advancing my Photoshop techniques. By improving these skills now, it will also provide me other options to make future projects more sustainable where producing lots of designs or drawings is essential. 

In my future career I am influenced towards using more ethically friendly makeup brands which also consider sustainability to reduce my carbon footprint. I am thankful for how much the Better Lives themes have shown me how significant all of us are on impacting the environment, and the little changes we can make individually which will make a bigger change overall. I will definitely put more thought into all the decisions I make from now on due to studying the Better Lives themes of Sustainability, Diversity and Social Responsibility.

References:

Ksenia Schnaider (2020) Ksenia Schnaider. Available at: https://www.kseniaschnaider.com (Accessed: 20 April 2020)

Girlfriend Collective (2020) Girlfriend Collective. Available at: https://www.girlfriend.com (Accessed: 20 April 2020)

As humans, we have the mindset that we are the centre of everything and whatever we do can’t make much of a difference as we are such a small part of the larger population. Most Americans see 4000-10000 adverts a day whilst living their day-to-day lives, so how come a large chunk of the population still seem to be so unsure of how their actions throughout the day have shocking consequences for the planet? We are advertising the wrong ideas. 

It can be argued geographically that Climate Change is a lesser problem in comparison to the rate of change due to the natural glacial period cycles where Earth will always reach the ‘greenhouse state’ (where there are no glaciers on Earth) before heading back towards the glacial period. The rate in which it is happening however is terrifying. This cycle should take thousands of years, so how has so much changed in only the last hundred? We have the power to reduce this rate. 75% of the 100 billion garments made annually currently end up incinerated or in landfill, but why isn’t this exacerbation of the rate of Climate Change advertised everywhere? Instead, the power of social media has led humans into a devastating mindset that the same garment of clothing cannot be worn more than once. If this type of mindset was advertised less by those ‘influencers’ taking up unsustainable endorsement deals in exchange for money and self-empowerment, then maybe people wouldn’t feel such a pressure to rely on fast-fashion. After all, fast fashion is just making the rich richer and more powerful, and aiding the Earth’s race to the bottom, so who is it helping really? 

In the Better Lives Power lecture by Julia Crew at London College of Fashion I was made aware of the ‘Love not Landfill’ campaign towards young Londoners. This campaign encourages people to buy clothes second hand, which is the way we should be advertising. By beginning with changing the mindset of the consumer, companies would soon have to follow due to the threat of losing wealth and power in the market when the demand for their brand decreases.  

Understandably, fast fashion is the most convenient option where we can order clothes one day and have them to wear the next, so how can we make this more sustainable? Urban Outfitters have created their ‘Urban Renewal’ line which is full of clothes that have been curated and recycled into new items. This therefore brings sustainability into the world of fast fashion. The items in this collection are still made in large quantities to supply the demand, however by using recycled materials it can ease people into eco-friendly shopping without drastically changing their shopping habits. By using the power of the media and changing the way we advertise, more online fast fashion companies may take the initiative to do the same, thus changing the impact fast fashion has on the environment, and leading people to live Better Lives. 

References:

Fletcher, K. (2020) ‘Nature’ [Lecture]. Better Lives, London College of Fashion, 12 February. 

Crew, J. (2020) ‘Power’ [Lecture]. Better Lives, London College of Fasion, 10 February.