Niall Hodson

in this peer review section of this better lives unit I have chosen Elanka Jiangs second blog post to get an understanding of her topics spoken about review them. The blog post focuses on Diversity during a pandemic and talks about some really interesting points throughout the post, for example Elanka is a Canadian Chinese studying in London who has always been proud of her roots as she mentions but through growing up in Canada which a country that prides itself on being “diversity and views its multinationalism as one of its greatest strengths”. Elanka and her being part of a minority she states she hardly saw people that looked like herself in mainstream media and it made her realize the importance of representation in an individual’s cultural identity. She speaks about how though there has been a rise of diversity included into fashion media however she says that she has faced her own cultural shocks more so in recent times and asked herself what she can do. Something which particularly resonates with me in this blog post is how she speaks about how it’s difficult to keep fighting these feelings of insignificance as our front-line responders are out there facing the real battle and though we have moved our studies online there’s something which seems to be really missing within the what has become the everyday at this point in the pandemic. As she continues, she addresses how all this time we all have on our hands is going to impact of she is going to combat this issue of diversity through her future work by addressing these collective issues and concerns often overlooked in mainstream media. She goes on further to say she wants her audience to feel represented and understood. Issues regarding racism, cultural appropriation, and segregation can be sensitive subjects but through the use of social media and other forms of communication, she wants to let others know that they’re not alone. I think this a really positive blog post and I feel that she has really taken the better lives themes and used them to better herself and hopefully make a change in the future of her work. Though she does not talk about the likes of sustainability the other better lives theme’s the way which she has written this blog I don’t feel like there would be much relevance in including this as the topic of diversity is much of a personal one. 

The better lives themes which I have engaged with in this term have defiantly had an impact on my way of thinking when it comes to looking at future projects in and outside of university. I felt a real immersive feeling to a range of lectures and the themes they spoke about but one of the themes that resonated with me in particularly was Lorraine Gamman Empathy lecture. 

The main aspects of this talk were the idea of when starting a project about a particular theme or idea, being able to step into the position and understand this we must have an idea of the two components of empathy. The first half of empathy is emotional response, feelings and identifying with, and the other is understanding, perspective taking and imagining the other. This small aspect of the lecture gave me a greater understanding of the concept of empathy as it gave me this template to consider when taking empathy into consideration in the future of my own work. Gamman drew examples from her own experiences of this way of working and mentioned here work with prison inmates for her design against crime research. She shared the emotional connection that having empathy and working with inmates had on herself and finds that whenever using empathy physically to help and get an idea of being in someone else’s shoes makes the outcome a lot more rewarding and enjoyable. With this lecture in mind I have already started trying to be more empathetic not only in my work but a little more than usual in my everyday life to become more understanding of how people react to certain situations as I personally feel that there’s a future project in something related to that.  In the end section of this lecture we came to 3 key elements to remember when designing for empathy which were, creating experiences for another but what types of experiences  created are important, the second is was being able to recognise other perspectives of the experiences you have created and finally affective empathy which usually only takes place when there’s direct contact between people.  All these points and ideas shown throughout this lecture has provided some really interesting ways of developing my work and approaching future projects, it has also given me some motivation to revisit old projects which now with the idea of using empathy for design it can now give my work that extra bit of depth. 

Throughout this fashion journalist part of the unit we have been introduced to the range of ways to find and secure data.  In the first few sessions we focus on data taken from the women’s marches in America and how that data was taken and used in an article to support a point. We had ago a trying to make a graph which shows the data retrieved from these march’s in America and then continued to write a small article which talks about the feature of these marches. I focused on how social media would have a huge impact on another march as more and more people have jumped onto the social media band wagon which will have positives effects on documenting things such as how many people attended an event like this. The second aspect of this unit was writing a feature which focusing on the better life’s themes. I came up with the idea of looking at how Gucci is a sustainable after my mum asked about the topic. I began to look into what Gucci are doing to help against this issue and this is what I found. On my first google search the first link to pop up says Gucci has its finger right on the pulse of the fashion industry, as its latest initiative, Gucci Equilibrium, solidifies its position as a sustainable , responsible as well as highly desirable luxury fashion houses quoted by Vivian Hendriksz to fashion united. This was quite a surprise to me, so I continued to see what specifically they are doing differently to other high-end designers to help this underlining problem. In Hendriksz article from 2018 he talks about the resent announcement of Gucci’s launch their new programme and wider 10-year plan to embed a comprehensive sustainability strategy into its brand, one which will be governed by a Culture of Purpose. In turn, this Culture of Purpose dictates Gucci’s operations on a daily basis, which are held in place by three pillars that include the environment, people and new models of sustainable innovation. Under the first pillar, Environment Gucci highlights its commitment to reduce its environmental impacts by setting targets to develop a new standard in luxury. For example, on the new platform readers can learn more about Gucci’s aim to guarantee the traceability of 100 percent of its raw materials by 2025. However, looking at the most sustainably fashion brands when searching online Gucci aren’t in any of the top 5 brands. Instead brands such as DÔEN and Stella McCartney who are constantly on these lists are the biggest for helping to resolve the issue of be sustainable, showing that Gucci still has a long way to go in trying to succeed in there 10-year plan for being a sustainable equilibrium. Finding all this information out about how brands such as Gucci are really making a difference when it comes to being sustainable. 

The lecture I have found that has resonated the most with me throughout the better lives lecture period has been the Laura Salisbury talk about Inclusivity. This lecture started by providing a sort definition for how the word is effective in the fashion industry. So, in my case, it was being able to not just see my work or idea from one prospective but also being able to see it from another, considering both the positives and negatives. 

Laura then continued to provide the class with a range of examples where inclusivity has been accomplished and prosecuted in the fashion industry. One of the main ideas she showed which I was particularly interested in was the nearable strength wearable pods. These pods were initially designed for the elderly but due to their inclusive design were found to be very useful also to people with disabilities such as people who had have strokes or had a muscle impairment. However this is where the argument of being truthy inclusive comes into play , as though very useful for these different minority’s they are possibly have some elements of question for example they might be  very comfy for some of these people or maybe they are difficult to put on so for old people this could be a big deal breaker when considering buying them. 

Laura also provided the class with few different methods when It comes to working with your idea so it’s able to develop and also move into this concept of inclusiveness. the main tool which I found really enlighten and was something I wanted to use in the feature of my research was the double diamond method. This double diamond method works by starting the centre of where the two diamonds meet which in context would be your idea and then working backwards to then develop your idea and gain a greater understanding of what you are working on. The diamond includes discovering your idea, defining it, developing and then delivering it. I think this is a really good and useful  visual tool to use in throughout not only university but also in my own personal projects to create more depth and also more character to my ideas. 

Throughout this fashion journalist part of the unit we have been introduced to the range of ways to find and secure data.  In the first few sessions we focus on data taken from the women’s marches in America and how that data was taken and used in an article to support a point. We had ago a trying to make a graph which shows the data retrieved from these march’s in America and then continued to write a small article which talks about the feature of these marches. I focused on how social media would have a huge impact on another march as more and more people have jumped onto the social media band wagon which will have positives effects on documenting things such as how many people attended an event like this. The second aspect of this unit was writing a feature which focusing on the better life’s themes. I came up with the idea of looking at how Gucci is a sustainable after my mum asked about the topic. I began to look into what Gucci are doing to help against this issue and this is what I found. On my first google search the first link to pop up says Gucci has its finger right on the pulse of the fashion industry, as its latest initiative, Gucci Equilibrium, solidifies its position as a sustainable , responsible as well as highly desirable luxury fashion houses quoted by Vivian Hendriksz to fashion united. This was quite a surprise to me, so I continued to see what specifically they are doing differently to other high-end designers to help this underlining problem. In Hendriksz article from 2018 he talks about the resent announcement of Gucci’s launch their new programme and wider 10-year plan to embed a comprehensive sustainability strategy into its brand, one which will be governed by a Culture of Purpose. In turn, this Culture of Purpose dictates Gucci’s operations on a daily basis, which are held in place by three pillars that include the environment, people and new models of sustainable innovation. Under the first pillar, Environment Gucci highlights its commitment to reduce its environmental impacts by setting targets to develop a new standard in luxury. For example, on the new platform readers can learn more about Gucci’s aim to guarantee the traceability of 100 percent of its raw materials by 2025. However, looking at the most sustainably fashion brands when searching online Gucci aren’t in any of the top 5 brands. Instead brands such as DÔEN and Stella McCartney who are constantly on these lists are the biggest for helping to resolve the issue of be sustainable, showing that Gucci still has a long way to go in trying to succeed in there 10-year plan for being a sustainable equilibrium. Finding all this information out about how brands such as Gucci are really making a difference when it comes to being sustainable. 

The better lives themes which I have engaged with in this term have defiantly had an impact on my way of thinking when it comes to looking at future projects in and outside of university. I felt a real immersive feeling to a range of lectures and the themes they spoke about but one of the themes that resonated with me in particularly was Lorraine Gamman Empathy lecture. 

The main aspects of this talk were the idea of when starting a project about a particular theme or idea, being able to step into the position and understand this we must have an idea of the two components of empathy. The first half of empathy is emotional response, feelings and identifying with, and the other is understanding, perspective taking and imagining the other. This small aspect of the lecture gave me a greater understanding of the concept of empathy as it gave me this template to consider when taking empathy into consideration in the future of my own work. Gamman drew examples from her own experiences of this way of working and mentioned here work with prison inmates for her design against crime research. She shared the emotional connection that having empathy and working with inmates had on herself and finds that whenever using empathy physically to help and get an idea of being in someone else’s shoes makes the outcome a lot more rewarding and enjoyable. With this lecture in mind I have already started trying to be more empathetic not only in my work but a little more than usual in my everyday life to become more understanding of how people react to certain situations as I personally feel that there’s a future project in something related to that.  In the end section of this lecture we came to 3 key elements to remember when designing for empathy which were, creating experiences for another but what types of experiences  created are important, the second is was being able to recognise other perspectives of the experiences you have created and finally affective empathy which usually only takes place when there’s direct contact between people.  All these points and ideas shown throughout this lecture has provided some really interesting ways of developing my work and approaching future projects, it has also given me some motivation to revisit old projects which now with the idea of using empathy for design it can now give my work that extra bit of depth. 

The lecture I have found that has resonated the most with me throughout the better lives lecture period has been the Laura Salisbury talk about Inclusivity. This lecture started by providing a sort definition for how the word is effective in the fashion industry. So, in my case, it was being able to not just see my work or idea from one prospective but also being able to see it from another, considering both the positives and negatives. 

Laura then continued to provide the class with a range of examples where inclusivity has been accomplished and prosecuted in the fashion industry. One of the main ideas she showed which I was particularly interested in was the nearable strength wearable pods. These pods were initially designed for the elderly but due to their inclusive design were found to be very useful also to people with disabilities such as people who had have strokes or had a muscle impairment. However this is where the argument of being truthy inclusive comes into play , as though very useful for these different minority’s they are possibly have some elements of question for example they might be  very comfy for some of these people or maybe they are difficult to put on so for old people this could be a big deal breaker when considering buying them. 

Laura also provided the class with few different methods when It comes to working with your idea so it’s able to develop and also move into this concept of inclusiveness. the main tool which I found really enlighten and was something I wanted to use in the feature of my research was the double diamond method. This double diamond method works by starting the centre of where the two diamonds meet which in context would be your idea and then working backwards to then develop your idea and gain a greater understanding of what you are working on. The diamond includes discovering your idea, defining it, developing and then delivering it. I think this is a really good and useful  visual tool to use in throughout not only university but also in my own personal projects to create more depth and also more character to my ideas.