Jude Sallows

I really enjoyed looking through my fellow SMC Better Lives students blogs for insights that I had previously not thought of throughout my own unit – giving us all the chance to learn from all different types of fashion practices. But the blog I wanted to review was from you, John Bloom.  

I loved the way that you made your blog personal and genuine to you, drawing from your own struggles through the COVID-19 pandemic. Through speaking on mental health discussions with his friends to describing his own feelings as “drowning”, which I think was a good word choice to communicate to your readers feelings of helplessness. Which I think a lot of people are feeling like right now so it’s nice that someone is speaking up about it. The Better Lives unit as a whole is about looking into societal and environmental issues from around us and trying to better those and this is exactly what you have done this by twisting the lockdown into a positive since we still have each other at a ‘click of a button’.  

I also really appreciated how keen you was to learn more about different fashion industry practices when this unit started. It seems like you would’ve put your all into any course chosen for you to diversify your practice and learn more technical skills. This is also what the better lives unit is all about, diversifying us to make us the best fashion practitioners we can be. Bloom spoke about after this Better Lives unit its now shifted the way that he thinks about portraits, and probably all art. Having more of a respect for the practices now. This is so nice to hear and it shows how the Better Lives unit has impacted him forever. 

You showed a diverse amount of knowledge about the course you got put on, Portrait Photography. A subject I before didn’t know much about. Bloom spoke about Portrait Photography as a “performance” where the props were the actors. “Using space to bring upon sensory feelings” Blooms’ knowledge of the subject helped him be able to create conceptual portraits, using techniques to highlight and dramatize certain things which in turn made his portraits more conceptual (the concept being technology through time). I did notice though, there wasn’t much talk of the Better Lives themes as much as you did in your other blog posts and if you didn’t know how to link it the Better Lives lecture by Nick Almond: emerging technologies in fashion, this could’ve have you some points to help link the topics together for easier writing.  

This week I finally finished my final piece for my Better Lives: Fashion activism project. This project had me looking at the streetwear brand Lazy Oaf as I had to create a moving image campaign to advertise Lazy Oaf, whilst pushing the Better Lives themes. As creative director, I also had responsibility to consider brand aesthetic whilst representing them – yet it was still my vision. I did want to play around with the aesthetic of the brand and evolve it slightly, using the themes that have inspired me (from the lectures Society, Representation and Culture) which I have spoken about in my previous posts. 

Firstly, I was inspired by looking into British modern society, as I particularly wanted to look at their views on stereotypes/subcultures. Currently online there has been many tweets, and on other social medias, going viral. It was captioned “I want to dress like this but all people in the UK know is Nike fleece” with pictures of more outlandish, slightly artsy clothes. This tweet sparked up debates on my timeline at really interested me and I represented the point I wanted to make well. As many people were pointing out the same thing – which was dress how you want to? Why do you care if everyone else in the UK is in casual clothing? But a lot of people were pointing out that in society today, especially in the UK, we can become negative and judgmental on others. This has a direct impact on how we consume clothes and even what clothes. I think this is a good example of British culture and it shows that people are still scared to push the norms. This theme would single handedly accurately represent Lazy Oaf since they are known to not conform to the norm and is for ‘misfits’, even having the slogan “keep it weird” and this is a running theme in their brand. 

My submission was a series of short moving images, intended for a series of Instagram advertisement type campaign. I made a series of gif-like illustration videos showing someone fighting with identity. I think that you can imply the meaning behind these gifs easily and I featured the tweet in one of them as well so this means people would imply the meaning through the tweet (this could also make it gain more attention and relevance on social media). The illustration shows a male wearing a tracksuit in a urban setting, and then I used Lazy Oaf’s childish doodle style illustrations to imply that he wasn’t being himself. I want to make people question themselves with this and I’m hoping to change people’s relationships with clothes – you can use them to show your actual personality, which I think makes fashion more fun and less of a dull task. 

I feel like my work has improved already throughout this unit because beforehand, when studying Fashion imaging and illustration I would design my work because I liked the outfit or the composition but this has little meaning and no concepts behind it, all be it a bit boring. I think it is much more interesting to have a concept/issue behind your work, this also makes it more interesting and relatable to people – hopefully causing some people to think along the way. 

This week I started my first ‘Better Lives: Fashion Activism’ lecture. In this course I was to be a creative director for a moving image campaign – keeping in mind brand ethos and possibly change brand perception. Whilst keeping in mind the Better Lives themes of social responsibility, diversity and sustainability – the ‘pillars’. Which in todays world, are more important than ever. The Better Lives lectures have made me way more inspired, thinking of the possibilities and changes that I could carry out as a fashion communicator to better the industry. 

As visual communicators, I now feel like I have a duty to shed light on the issues and spread awareness of how damaging some of these issues have on our world since fashion is our industry, so it is our responsibility to keep the issues concerned with it under control. After all, fashion impacts every single one of us on a daily basis. If we realize it or not. 

The Better Lives lecture ‘Society’ – by Caitlin Tufail’s topics were still on my mind. As it made a point that we would have to investigate society to understand consumption, and change society to change consumption. I believe peoples relationship with clothes is so important to how we go about consumption.  

I feel like there are definitely some Better Lives lectures (like Society) that are going to stay with me through all my practices from here forward. Its opened my eyes to many ideas/thoughts surrounding so many different concepts (from stereotypes and identities to fast past fashion retailers) that I want to work around more. As a fashion illustration student, for me I am thinking of ways that I can evoke emotion out of my audience (empathy is a good way to get people to connect and care) with concepts that are important. 

For example, I want to base my Better Lives: Fashion Activism unit on people’s relationship with identities through clothes – with this project I am going to try push stereotypes and merge ‘cliques’ together in the hopes to open more people up to be more individual and defy the social ‘norm’. The thoughts that I want to imply through this will be what makes an aesthetic? What are stereotypes? Who’s opinions on fashion impacts you the most? What does this say about our society? Can we experience these aesthetics without having to buy anything? 

To start of the Better Lives unit I was set the task to attend different lectures, surrounding the themes of the Better Lives’ unit (consisting of sustainability, diversity and social responsibility) to see which topics we naturally connected with.  

For me, I found the lecture by Anna Fitzpatrick – ‘Culture’ was the most thought provoking to me. In this lecture Fitzpatrick spoke on sustainability in an eye opening way (and sustainability is a subject I have based previous projects and had interest for). Fitzpatrick spoke about how sustainable fashion was more of a mindset than an actual product – this basically means that to be fully sustainable it’s not about making a sustainable product as much as just thinking sustainably. This made me think about how there isn’t “one answer” and just making a upcycled garment isn’t helping to solve the problem as much as you would wish.  In the ‘Culture’ lecture Fitzpatrick was very useful in criticizing the fashion industry. This highlighted all the holes in the industry that I was ignorant to such as consumerism, which frames our whole world. Possessions are now top priority and consumers buy 60% more than they need every year. According to Fitzpatrick the percentage will be higher in 10 years time. But why do we only now need so much more? Is consuming the only way to experience fashion? 

Possessions have become so important to us that they have become a part of our extended selves and differentiates you to others. Fashion brands are used to communicate personalities and stand central in the making of ‘in’ and ‘out’ groups, based on stereotypes. This makes fashion very important in social situations, leading friends to be the biggest influence over consumption choices. This was another point that got my brain ticking. Who inspires how I dress? Is individuality going to die out? If society is our biggest influence, is that where the solution lies? 

“The Law, Culture, and Economics of Fashion” law professors Scott Hemphill & Jeannie Suk define fashion as being simultaneously characterized as ‘differentiation’ and ‘flocking’. Since fashion went digital everyone has access to the same information at the same time – leads us to a lack of individuality. This is because fast-pased fashion retailers have the same goal – to make money & expand. Therefore, they must look out for trends that can be adapted for the mass market (the majority) meaning everything looks the same. But how do we make individual clothes, for everyone? 

These Better Lives lectures have opened my eyes fully and have given me a broader look into the fashion industry as a whole, looking at the good and the bad in order to give me, and the rest of my generation, the knowledge to better the fashion industry in the future. So overall, so far the Better Lives unit summed up in one word for me would be…Inspiring.  

reference: https://www.premierchristianity.com/Blog/Why-consumer-culture-could-be-killing-your-faith