Stefan-Adrian Cimpeanu

A blog which I found to be really standing out was Juliette Eleuterio’s writing on project outcomes and personal development. What truly impressed me was the very personal writing style. I find it very empowering when somebody does more than a simple description of a certain act, but actually invest feelings in the way they present a concept.

Following a concrete introduction is a paragraph that opens up about the idea of imperfection, which one of the most important aspects of humanity. Moreover, Juliette also showcases the idea of how common is for young individuals to compare themselves to certain social media people who promote unrealistic beauty standards. Essentially, she was one of the many little girls feeling imperfect, more precisely, feeling that being imperfect is something intrinsically negative, because of the socials norms.

Later on, she tackles the oxymoronic concept of the “no makeup makeup look”, trending for many Youtube content creators years ago. This created the creative base for her project – conveying a look without makeup.

To sum up, the conclusion reiterated the ideas around self improvement over the years. Self esteem issues are a ubiquitous problem in today’s ever evolving society, and the <<Better Lives>> course became a tool used to begin a chain of inspiration and of seeing life from new perspectives.

From the perspective of a Fashion PR and media person, the way a product / scene / concept presents itself visually is a key component that contributes to success. That’s exactly the reason I chose Contemporary Portrait Photography for my Better Lives course.

Up until the lockdown, being part of the photography class was an extremely interesting experience for me. Firstly, my expectations regarding the course differed from what the structure really was about. For example, instead of acquiring a new palette of technical skills, the group was introduced to the importance of conceptualisation in photography. Moreover, using a variety of limitation, such as relying on our phones and capturing Shepard’s Bush in a whole new light was of much aid to our creative expansion. Immersing ourselves in the local culture surrounding our university was a rewarding experience, followed by a discussion with the tutors and peers regarding what we created.

However, because of Covid-19, a majority of students had to return to their “past” lives at home. If leaving London, one of the most active, dynamic and multicultural capitals in the world, wasn’t hard enough, being quarantined in locked down cities certainly was. Most of the times, setting certain workspace parameters can improve creativity, and the limits set a space for evolving in innovative ways. Personally, that was not true for my photographic journey. Essentially, the first few weeks in self isolation were a blessing in disguise, finally being able to spend time on my musical creations, catching up with university work and enjoying time with my parents.

Unfortunately, there was one catch. Seeing the same computer, same garden, same people everyday made life seem a bit dull. It is true that beauty can be found in having time to smell fresh roses from the back yard and waking up at 12 P.M. without needing to do much everyday, but this type of schedule really made me question if creating anything was still worth it. Things became uninspiring, and the lack of energetic exchange took a great toll on my perspective. The online human interactions were artificial and mainly lacked depth, and the worst thing of them all was certainly having Coronavirus conversations with everybody, reiterating the same questionable ideas onto Facetime calls with poor connection

The project I did was one of the few things I could think about at my parents’ place in the countryside : photographing the normality of caging animals in certain cultures, only now, it is normal for us, people, to be caged as well. Although animals do not have a blog to post their feelings on, we can certainly know how it feels to live like them, at least for a brief amount of time. Maybe this times will make us question the morality of zoos and non-bio farming more in depth.

At the end of the day, some people really found motivation to immerse themselves in new universes of ideas, but I couldn’t. The reason we do university, go to work in physical spaces, have meetings is not because we want to exchange cold information, but because we need energy. We need to vibe, feel, add emotion even to the most common cigarette breaks at our jobs, or those courses during which we spend more time gossiping with our friends than listening to the teacher.

Empathy should be a key factor in determining the personality of a fashion brand, their designs and the way they communicate their vision and ideas. Lorraine Gamman’s lecture, Empathy, truly broadened my horizons and made me have a better understanding on how psychology and fashion fuse together, as well as the importance of taking empathic design decisions.

Art in all forms is created by people to people. However, in order for a fashion statement to have a visible impact, it needs to be clearly addressed to a certain community of individuals.  Ranging from celebrating an underground subculture, to combating gender inequality or to sending political messages, the art who is wanted to emerge to the top needs to deliver a strong message.

But what is the meaning of empathy in the process of creation? I believe that in order to understand a community’s needs, one needs to fully engage with its members. Only then, a designer, communicator or photographer can feel what the bigger purpose of a underground societies is. By embracing a group’s real wishes and desires and transposing them onto a piece of fabric, reconstructing and rethinking how personal messages can be sculpted, fashion can become an authentic method of representation.

Unfortunately, because of  materialistic motivations that fuels a variety of designers, the pure intention of promoting a glimpse of culture, or tackling serious political issues can degenerate into an idea that simply sells itself out. Diversity turns into tokenism, underground becomes mainstream and suddenly ego driven individuals are rapidly hopping on the “niche” and emerging trends that loose more and more bits of their identity.

One example concerning this situation is what followed UK’s “Second Summer of Love”. Investors of all types saw great potential of gaining profits, but the Smiley Face that appeared on pre-made tie dye T-shirts was one of the signs that unfortunately announced the beginning of the end. Cash started flowing, followed by a massive increase of uneducated people (for that specific context) attending events, who did not fully understand how to respect the culture.

Moreover, the same exact concept emerged at companies such as Zara and H&M regarding pieces of clothing with the name and aesthetic of alternative bands, building a superficial category of people who wear a Guns’n Roses graphic hoodie without knowing who Axl Rose is.

Fortunately, it is not to say that there is no respect for culture anymore. Companies such as Nike are making great steps regarding empathy by including a Hijab for muslim women who practice sports, as well as Alexander McQueen’s SS show from 1999 portraying society’s perception of women in the past.

To conclude, this lecture really made me think about how important it is to make empathic decisions in order to celebrate and preserve culture effectively.

Being a student at LCF, it is clear that the environment I’m part of is extremely considerate towards all types of differences. It’s widely agreed that, because of the fact that we live more and more diverse lives in multicultural cities, we have to adapt our individuality so as to be able to accept new, uncommon perspectives.

The question is, how can we integrate people that differ so much from eachother organically? The answer to this question isn’t that simple. Although the Better Lives lessons offered me a new perspective regarding these concepts, I believe that sometimes pioneers from the fashion industry have an artificial, almost tokenistic take on how to integrate minorities. Moreover, some minorities are taken into consideration more than other, especially individuals considered as “different” by the masses, but still live a privileged life.

In my opinion, one of the hardest things to achieve about integrating change refers to opting for the right nuances. Time has shown us that making people feel special is inherently wrong and reduces a person’s personality to a word that says nothing. Even hearing the words “you are special, you are loved” projects a utopian, unrealistic state of mind. How are we supposed to be special and loved if everybody is – unless, obviously, humanity were built on love.

A considerable mistake made by actors of any scale is the following – giving power to the word <<different>>. It is only fair to acknowledge the fact that people are stand out because of differences, but, following the same rhetoric as above, if everybody has differences, do they truly exist? And even if they did exist, how fair is it to build an entire culture around one aspect of one’s life, later on to build personality traits and impose them on large numbers of individuals? Even if the intentions are pure – integrating different people and their culture, just considering that all different people can be labelled into this huge crate of “difference” only aids to creating stereotypes.

For example, I am gay, but rarely feel comfortable to talk about this because I feel that it says absolutely nothing about me. Because people would associate a man having a relationship with another man to listening to Lady Gaga and Britney Spears, watching Rue Paul’s Drag Race and attending the Pride every year. There’s really absolutely nothing wrong with doing all of those activities, the two singers represent icons, the show is glamorous and the Pride is very important, but people can start feeling that they do not really belong to a certain community when they do not tick those boxes. LGBT+ people come in any colour, shape or size and it is important to be mindful of these factors.

I believe that the only way to integrate difference is to listen to each and every <<different>> voice about what integration means to them. Some people need help and assistance, whereas others might want to go unnoticed in the crowd. At the end of the day, we are all humans and the breaking of these social barriers should come naturally.