Nisha Landa

Peer review of Emanuele Lapinskaite’s reflection 3 

For my peer review, I have chosen to reflect Emanuele’s reflection 3, where she had spoken about how she had overcome the difficulties of working as a group during the COVID-19 outbreak, as well as her and her group creativity that they had used to make the most out of their project. 

During the post, Emanuele has started off by explaining what she had chosen to do for the Better Lives project and why, for instance, she had chosen the Fashion Activision topic because she had wanted to learn more about Creative Direction. Whilst being in this group, she had been partnered with other people and assigned a brand. The brand that she had been assigned to was Lazy Oaf, and they had focused on the brand’s collaboration with the campaign ‘Time to Change’. The focus of the collaboration was to bring awareness to mental health, to mark the start of Mental Health Awareness Week in the UK; the profits collected by the brand will then be donated to the charity. She then went on to explain more details about the collaboration and how it all had a connection with the themes of the Better Lives unit. 

The final project that she has to do was to create a moving image which will be connected to the brand. And due to the breakout of COVID-19, she explained how difficult it was on every ones’ mental health, which she felt brands like Lazy Oaf did greatly to create a sense of support for times like this. Due to her feeling supported by the brand in a personal way, she and her group had created a bunch of small videos stating the message of the campaign, “It’s okay not to be okay”, and developed it into one whole clip. 

Emanuele then went on to explain that due to her group’s effort to work effectively together in a challenging time like this, she felt as though her critical thinking and problem -solving skills were improved; as they all had to push themselves. She then explained the changes that she may make to the video if the times weren’t so difficult, as well as saying that she had found the Better Lives project enjoyable and beneficial to her and the future of fashion. 

Overall, I believe that Emanuele had truly enjoyed herself during the Better Lives project and seems to have made new friends, improve her thinking skills; as well as learning about the different brands that want to make a difference to the industry. Although during her reflection, I fell as though she may have been able to link the project to the themes a bit more, rather than focus on the coronavirus breakout and its impact on her. 

Within the Better Lives unit, I have partaken in the activities which have been with the Navigating through clothing group which is based around costume design. We had been told to create a costume design based around a character which is from Hansel and Gretel, however the costume needs to be made for a performance of our choice and also be influenced by a continent. I had chosen to create an Asian inspired costume for the Duck, which will be appropriate for a theatre production. 

I had enjoyed being part of the Navigating Through Clothing sector of the unit as I had been allowed creative freedom with my designs. As well as this, going to the British Museum and looking at the costume section at the National Theatre had also allowed me to be heavily educated on how costume is made and designed for the stage. My time at the British Museum had allowed me to be inspired by the different cultures and get ideas of new textures and designs which I may feature for my own designs. As well as this, certain lectures had also allowed me to deepen my thinking skills and creative skills when coming up with a character behind my Duck, as this character doesn’t really have a big part in the story; only being mentioned once. I had to use initiative a come up with a back story and meaning for my character. This had allowed me to reflect on the diversity theme of the unit, as I had been educating myself on the different cultures and coming up with different styles of costume for my simple character; trying to think outside the box. 

As well as this, whilst designing my costume, I had managed to come up with ideas which allowed me to ensure that my costume is sustainable, I had wanted to make sure that the materials that I use are not from real animals and are recycled materials. As well as this, I can use the materials that are already on hand, and also use thrifted pieces of clothing to create different parts of the costume. The idea behind my Duck was to make it seem very empowered and to make the costume look as if the Duck is the saviour for the children. 

During this pandemic, I have had to think of innovative ways to create a costume and also think about ways in which the costume would have to be tailored to my actor/actress. By doing this I have to take social responsibility to be smart and use all the resources around me, such as tools like Zoom and Facetime; to ensure that my costume is not only suitable for the actress, however, is suitable for the production that it will appear in. 

The Better Lives unit has definitely helped me understand more about these themes, as well as opening up my mind to the things that can easily be changed  to ensure that I am being more aware of the materials that I buy and their damage to the environment and others. 

Throughout the Better Lives unit, the main themes that are of main focus would be Diversity, Sustainability and Social Responsibility. Since starting the unit, I have become more aware of these themes and what they mean to the fashion industry/community; before I had not played too much mind to the issues that are behind these themes. I am now more conscious of the fact that the industry is not making the most essential and environmental changes, in order to become more sustainable. It is also shown that although the industry has become more diverse in the models they use and the clothing they make, there are still some companies which refuse to make changes to their brand. Ultimately, all are not taking the social responsibility to change for the better and are more focused on the financial side of business and not the environmental side.

One of the themes that had interested me the most during the Better Lives unit was Diversity, being from an Indian background I understand how some brands do not cater to certain cultures and skin colours. As well as this, body shaming is still as very common thing within the industry; some designers such as Rihanna with her Fenty/Savage brands are extremely inclusive. Something about her Savage fashion had presented a huge statement to the world about accepting and seeing all shapes and colours as beautiful. Although, some brands are seemingly ‘diverse’ models are still being labelled as “plus size” or “petite”, which could be seen as a positive as it does differentiate between the shapes. However, slim curvier models do still seem to be confused as ‘plus size’; for example, model Ashley Graham would be considered plus size in the Victoria Secret show, although she is slim and embraces her wider hips and larger bust. 

I had also been presented with the themes of Sustainability and Social Responsibility, I believe that these two themes tie in together very well, due to it being your responsibility to actually change your ways to support and improve the environment. I had become more aware of the worlds state from the information that I had learnt within the lecture, the fashion industry is the 2^nd largest polluter and one of the reasons for this may be the everchanging trends within the community. Fast fashion has played a huge part in environment damage, this is due to ‘throwaway culture’, the cheap materials which are using to produce this clothing may break easy and be thrown away after just a few weeks of wearing. As well as this, brands like PrettyLittleThing have been associated with having some products containing chemicals that cause cancer and birth defects. This has made me more aware of the brands that I shop at and if they are friendly not only for me to wear, however if they are sustainable.

Making changes to your lifestyle is quite hard, especially when you are used to being and doing things a certain way; however now is the time to become more mentally aware of the effects that your daily wear makes to the world; slowly I am trying to make a change. Better Lives is defiantly making me more conscious to these issues.

I had entered the better lives project not knowing what to expect, I was sceptical on how I would approach the module as I don’t really engage in ways to help the environment like I should do. I was most interested in the society lecture because I know that fashion is very interconnected with someone’s identity and social factors. While in the lecture, I had been exposes to the different ways in which society affects fashion, and also the other way around. I had overlooked the way in which dressing is a considered a social act due to the fact that we dress to be creative to express our identity; and communicate of taste, wealth and sex appeal  

As well as this, before attending the lecture, I was very unaware of the term ‘throwaway culture’. Due to the fast fashion model being a social issue, popular fast fashion brands such as prettylittlething and boohoo manufacture cheap clothes which are usually disregarded after a few weeks. I had also disregarded the fact that fashion is not just clothing however all that comes beneath it, the way that you dress and the clothing that you buy allows us to become one with society as it is a reflection of their wealth, religion, style and creativity. This also determines your acceptance within society, as many poorer communities have no choice but to shop in high street or local stores, due to living in low income areas and having low income jobs. However due to their society, some make best of how they live by being creative with their fashion.

The lecture had really allowed me to open my mind to the real figures of how the fashion industry affects the environment and the affect has on society also. I had researched the affect the industry has on the environment and had realised that the fashion industry is the ‘second largest polluter in the world, just after the oil industry’ (Environmental Impacts of the Fashion Industry — SustainYourStyle, 2020). I believe that in order to make the fashion industry more environmental and help the sutainable future of the fashion platform, different ways of distributing and manfufacturing clothing needs to change. As well as this, new ways of recycling clothing can boost creative ways of showing your identity, for example, H&M has come up with ways to borrow clothing and some people also like to up cycle clothing instead of throwing it out and creating unnecessary waste.