Ying-Tung Yeh

The reason I chose to comment on Suze Jessurun’s blog is because I am an earth and ocean lover. I have a passion for anything related to nature as well as the ocean. After watching the lecture by Kate Fletcher and Suze Jessurun’s blog, I was so touched and I also have the same feeling as her. In her blog, she mentioned the resources that the fashion industry wastes and how humans destroy our planet. Moreover, she described her own experience of seeing the ocean be polluted. In her blog, she brought up, “People often forget to think about the long-term consequences of damaging our nature or polluting the air we need to survive.” I can’t agree with her more. People are so selfish that they just want to live in the moment and don’t think about the next generation or the future.

What interests me is that she pointed out the environmental issue with the make-up industry. It cannot be denied that it is a big amount of waste for us to use unnecessary cotton, plastic, and paper after doing our makeup or skincare every day. Being a fashion public relations and communication student, it is obvious that some brands often over-packaged their products to promote their brand. However, not only should the products make in an eco-friendly way, but they also have to be pack sustainably. We should promote the brand and the product in a sustainable way. It is everybody’s responsibility to save our world.

During the coronavirus, people start to think more ethical and environmental way to save the world. Moreover, due to the pandemic crisis, a lot of factories are locked down and fashion brands slow down to produce new products. In my opinion, this crisis can be a good lesson for all the human beings in the world. Because of the quarantine, we spend most of our time at home. During the time, we can rethink about the life we live. Sustainability is not only just about wearing organic clothes, it is a lifestyle. Because of the lockdown, we start to cherish everything we have and we begin to change our behavior and mindset. Everyone has the responsibility to care about the planet and should take action for it.

To sum up, Suze Jessurun’s blog calls for everyone to make a change for the earth. As long as people start to do it, we can make a difference step by step. Through the Better Lives lectures and Suze Jessurun’s blog, I truly combine sustainability, social responsibility, and diversity with the fashion industry. This project greatly make me know more deeply about the fashion world. I believe that we can create better lives for the fashion industry and the world.

The project I chose for better lives was “ In and Outside of Fashion: Sportswear Fashion Language and Sub-cultures”. In this lecture, we practiced some styling techniques and learned the roles of stylists and producers. Through the course, I explored a lot of recycled materials that can be used to style outfits. Therefore, we not only learned about the concept of the themes such as social responsibility, sustainability, and diversity but also put those ideas into practice. As a fashion public relations and communication student, I have never thought about that stylists have to do massive loads of work before styling a model. They are the translators of the clothes. They have to tell the customers the ideas and values to catch their attention and make them realize the background of the look.

For the project outcome, we are tasked to combine sportswear elements with subcultures to inspire a humane lifestyle to overcome this difficult situation. For my look, I chose a plain tank top by Topshop, cycling shorts by Lululemon, a casual sports jacket, which is a uniform in my middle school, a red towel, headband, and a pair of running shoes by Adidas. I style a unisex look to tell that yoga and fitness programs are genderless. Moreover, I combined my middle school uniform to make them look a little vintage, which also reused my old clothes. The bright color of the towel and the headband is to make the outfit more energetic and youthful. Following the themes of better lives, I used old clothes and Adidas shoes which are mostly made of recycled bottles to keep up the idea of sustainability and social responsibility, and the unisex look for the concept of diversity.

The chance to create this look at home during quarantine greatly made a big influence on me. During the quarantine, I believe that a lot of people do suffer anxiety and I am no exception. Through this look, I started to realize that we can overcome every difficulty if we keep working on it just like the fitness program. It is hard work in the beginning but the program will still finish in the end. We all have to look on the bright side and the hard time will be gone soon. Through the Better Lives project, I develop not only practical skills but also some knowledge of global issues. It made me rethink about my shopping habits and my thoughts of the world in a creative and fun way. In the future, I would dig into more ideas like social responsibility, diversity, and sustainability and make a balance between fashion and global context.

I have already studied the Better Lives project for the past few weeks. The concept of social responsibility, diversity, and sustainability is the core value of the lectures. I thought I was already aware of the issue, but in fact, it is such a big problem that people should take action for it.

I chose in and outside of fashion: Sportswear Fashion language and sub-cultures for my project. Our task was to bring our old clothes and turned them into a new look. Every classmate has a different taste of style, so it is really interesting to combine each style to an outfit. I enjoyed the class because it truly taught us sustainability through a creative process. It dawned on me that every piece of clothes has its potential to become such a cool and stylish look. According to a report, the whole fashion industry is the second most polluting industry in the world. Especially fast fashion, to produce more goods and keep up the latest trend, it tends to produce low quality and low-cost clothes. Thus, customers won’t be grateful for what they bought and they might easily throw them away. Lucy Siegle, a British environmental journalist said,” Fast fashion isn’t free. Someone, somewhere is paying.” I can’t agree with her more. Fast fashion damages the environment. Take Forever 21 for example, it uses toxic chemicals, dangerous dyes, and synthetic fabrics, which can pollute water supplies. Moreover, over 60 percent of fabric fibers are synthetics, which are derived from fossil fuels. It is a serious problem because about 85 percent of waste textile goes to the landfill. Therefore, due to the toxic chemicals, they won’t decay in the soil.

After attending the lectures, I started to realize the importance of conscious fashion. We have to have an awareness of the environmental and human rights issues. That is to fight for the safety of the earth and humans. “ BUY LESS, BUY BETTER”. It is important to know about the brand. Before buying garments, we can check if they are made with care to people, animals, or natural environments involved. Besides, due to the increase in green products, the transparency of the companies is also important. Food is to health as fashion is to sustainability. The lectures influenced me the way I shop. All human beings need to protect our planet. We have the most power to change the world. If there are fewer and fewer people buying those inhumane products, the companies will also reduce to produce them. Fashion sustainability is everyone’s responsibility. Let’s create better lives together.

Overall, the lecture caught my eyes is the cultural sustainability lecture which was taught by John Lau. More and more brands are focus on diversity and inclusivity nowadays. However, sometimes it leads to being racist. First of all, in the lecture, John mentioned social equality. People indeed have to be treated in the same way although they have different gender or race. For example, most of the Asians tend to wear more conservative. Nevertheless, people shouldn’t judge others who wear more exposed, and vice versa. People have to be more diverse in various cultures, which is also linked to globalization. Globalization makes the distance from country to country closer. Therefore, it is even more important nowadays to embrace the differences between people and culture. In my opinion, culture sustainability has to be regarded as a part of inclusivity and diversity. Having an inclusive mindset behaves in a way that welcomes and embraces diversity.

Next, I was interested in those images that he interpreted misunderstood especially the Fuji mountain image. It is an extremely famous image, but due to the culture (the way we write or read), we will read the image differently. Different perspectives lead to different imagination and sometimes it causes to mislead the concept that it originally should be. I think fashion can be spread all over the world. Thus, we all have to do some research and know the background before we make any explanation. Last but not least, he mentioned about misrepresentative. As a fashion public relations and communication student as well as an Asian, I often research the latest trend about either luxurious brands or niche brands. I found that some of the design which tries to represent the Chinese culture was made up of western elements. As John said in the lecture,” it’s just a lazy fashion and the design is just designed because it looks nice.” I can’t agree with it more. I believe that different culture has its beauty and it is worthy to dig into them. During this lecture, I rethink the way I look at not only fashion but also the life. Misrepresentative was often based on the stereotype that people have in their minds. However, we have to look more into the culture to prevent the mistake of misrepresentation.

In conclusion, this lecture makes me connect the link between fashion and culture. People have to be more aware of this kind of topic because it might impact not only the product but also the industry.