William Byrne

Before the pandemic, I had been in contact with TRAID, and they were willing to help us out with this project in any way that they could, I even talked to the head stylist at TRAID and he was very helpful and was looking forward to helping us and working with us to create our desired outcome. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, my group were unable to create the vision we first came up with as we are now dispersed all over the world, and it is unsafe to do the photoshoots with models as planned due to the social distancing measures put in place by the government. However, me and my group managed to have a rethink of our ideas and created a video montage using videos from TRAID’s youtube channel, as well as our own videos, and clips from previous advertisement campaigns such as Stella Mccartney’s winter 2017 campaign, which was shot in rural places as well as a landfill site. We found this advert to be very powerful and gave out the message we wanted too, hence why it was included. We then paired all of this together with a voiceover explaining the importance of second-hand clothing, charity shops and sustainability, and how if we all change just one little thing in our lives we can create a better world for future generations.

I must say I am very impressed with the overall outcome of my groups project. The audio and the video montage work well together, and the message that we want to convey comes across very clearly.  Under the current circumstances we communicated well and worked well together as a team. I do however, wish we had shot more of our previous idea before the social distancing measures came into place, but then again none of us were expecting a pandemic, so I can’t exactly blame myself, my group or the university for the difference in our outcome. I am a person that sees good in everything, but I am also a person that believes that even great things can be improved upon. I feel that we could’ve added a wider variety of people in the videos that we shot ourselves, or even just added more clothing pieces to make the montage a bit more fashion-led, I also feel that we could have talked more about how greedy capitalism is to blame for the mess that the planet is currently in. I do however understand that not everybody can afford to spend a little bit more money on clothes, but if everybody came together and demanded that multi-billion pound corporations change their fast fashion ways by ensuring workers rights, fair pay, fair treatment, both in-store and in overseas sweatshops/workplaces, and a higher quality of clothing produced instead of producing billions of poorly made clothes that will last less than a year. If this uprising happened then the world would be a better, more equal and more healthy place to live.

The better lives project has made me reflect on previous work, as well as work I am going to create in the near and distant future. I feel that in the past I cared about inclusion, about sustainability, about collaboration, about representation, and so many other issues we currently face but during the better lives project I realised just how crucial all of these things are, and how if we all work together we really could create a better world for everybody, including future generations. 

We are the clearest example of a society which destroyed itself by overexploiting it’s own resources, whilst failing to anticipate future consequences. Currently, we are living through a crucial turning point in history, and what we do now during this climate emergency will be judged by future generations who will live in a world completely different to the world we currently live in, and it is our responsibility to do better and be better, not just for ourselves, but all future life on this vast earth. 

I am working on changing life long habits such as drinking cow’s milk, using single-use plastics, and purchasing fast fashion items, which are made in appalling conditions using cheap labour. I am changing my habits to try and make a slight difference to the earth, but it is bittersweet when elites, with their disproportionate power, feel they are somehow detached from the terrifying realities of climate change. Elites can make a massive difference by donating money, owning fewer things, travelling less, driving more eco-friendly vehicles, and owning fewer houses, as well as other things. According to Oxfam, the average carbon footprint of someone in the world’s richest 1% could be 175 times that of someone in the poorest 10%. Studies also show that poorer people will suffer the most from climate change.

“Diversity is having a seat at the table, inclusion is having a voice, and belonging is having that voice be heard” – Liz Fosslien

“I tell my students, ‘when you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else.” – Toni Morrison

So as well as working on being more sustainable, I am also working on being more inclusive and representative of the beautiful range of people we have living on this earth, and I think it is super important to not only include people in front of the camera but behind the camera too. As a white, able-bodied, cis male I have a lot of privilege and power to create real change, and I am working on being more inclusive and using my privilege, voice, and platform to make people aware of the issues and misrepresentation that bipoc, plus-sized, queer, women, and those of a lower socioeconomic background face every single day. Create the change you wish to see in the world.

During the first two weeks of the better lives unit, I attended an array of different lectures, but the lecture that resonated with me the most was the lecture on power presented by lecturer of fashion and sustainability, and course leader of MA Fashion Futures, Julia Crew. 

I found this lecture very insightful, and shocking, especially when she mentioned that sixty-two people have the wealth of half of the world’s population, and according to Oxfam it takes four days for a CEO from one of the top five global fashion brands to earn what a Bangladeshi garment worker will earn in her lifetime. Factories around the world are being pushed to deliver ever-larger quantities of clothing at a higher rate, but with a smaller profit margin, forcing workers to work unpaid overtime whilst being subjected to harassment, injury, and intimidation in cruel conditions, so next time you are out shopping in fast fashion stores, who are owned by the mega-rich, ask yourself who is being exploited for you to be able to buy clothing items so cheap? Is it worth spending a little more money for an item of quality, that will not only last longer, but the workers who made the items are treated fairly and with respect, as any human being so rightly should be? 

In the US, it takes slightly over one working day for a CEO to earn what an ordinary worker makes in a year. The rich are continuing to get richer, whilst the poor are continuing to get poorer. In the world, and more specifically the fashion industry, money plays a huge roll in the work that is created and fashion has been a medium to visually communicate power for centuries including royalty, military power, politics, business, media and music. 

“The media is the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses.”

Malcolm X, Human Rights Activist

For the past three decades, digital marketing has had a great influence on our consumerism, and according to Forbes American’s are exposed to around 4,000 to 10,000 advertisements every single day. Advertising is quick, cumulative and mostly subconscious, with only 8 percent of an advertisement’s message being received by the conscious mind, and the rest of the message is worked deeply within the brain. As consumers, we have a lot of power. We are the driver of trends, and every time we buy something, we’re unknowingly voting with our wallet. Whenever we use our voices, and our wallets, brands listen. We can create real change just by changing where we shop, or you can be more radical and join activist groups such as Greenpeace, Extinction Rebellion, Fashion Revolution Week, Peta and many more. We have to make a change not only for ourselves, but for all future lives on this earth. We need to do better than the generations before us, and we all need to take accountability.