Suze Jessurun

Well-being is something that has been connected to us since human existence and is essential to our everyday lives. This keeps us happy, and it satisfies our human needs. Of course, it isn’t all that makes us happy, but it is a significant factor and key to self-love and self-appreciation.
Fashion in itself is such a relevant factor to well being, as it allows us to feel happier within, express ourselves through clothing, and allows us to feel comfortable in our bodies. The way we dress up can give us self-esteem, express deeper personalities. Clothes are an extension of ourselves; it can be considered as a second skin— and it lets you design your version of you. This created the diversity that is needed in this world. It is also what makes everyone so unique and special. If everyone was to be the same and dress the same, would we have significant diversity in the world as there is right now? People wouldn’t be accepted the way they are now in 2020. Judgement will always be there, but because everyone has their spot in this diversity, it makes sure everyone has people around them that think, style and feel alike so that outsiders are minimalised. There is a spot for everyone. Fashion can make everyone feel more valid since it expresses identity statements.

Dr Jekaterina Rogaten states that there are two types of well-being: Eudaimonic and Hedonic. The Eudaimonic type is psychological and focuses on the experiences that a person has, such as self-acceptance, personal growth, purpose in life, and positive relations. Whereas, the Hedonic type is more subjective to the positive and negative effects in actions and the mental state of mind. For instance, happiness, affect and life satisfaction. Fashion in itself represents a crucial role in both types of well-being, not just for what we wear, but the way we wear the clothes we choose.

DR Rogaten also discusses if more is always better? As that is something, most people assume. Sometimes you need to have realistic expectations of certain situations because you, as a person, will be harder to satisfy. It also relies on the responsibilities for making decisions. If you make the wrong choice or are unable to pick, it could lead to you being less happy with the choice made (more options makes regret easier). It produces paralyses (with too much choice, it is hard to make a decision), it is also Opportunity costs (when you choose one thing you are not choosing another).
Another striking thing Dr Rogaten mentioned, is a cognitive dissonance theory which states: “Humans have an inner drive to maintain harmony between attitudes, beliefs and behaviour” (i.e., cognitive consistency) (Festinger’s, 1957). this shows that people want to maintain a consistent level of right decisions, and excellent results. So what is a happy life? And how do fashion companies come into it? We as customers need to be satisfied with the products, and staff and employees need to be treated in a humane matter. Often production staff gets underpaid and work in horrible environments. For us, humans its all about, pleasure and individual strength.

Taking care of our mental health nowadays is vital; every single action we make influences our state of mind and have control over everything that we do. How can we improve well being? We can try to be happy with who we are as individuals, chase our dreams, fulfil our needs, and take a step back sometimes. Accept your emotions, take daily risks, laugh and determine and live your values.

Nature by Kate Fletcher was another of the lectures that stood out to me from the Better Lives Lectures. It raised some fascinating and relevant points about sustainability and drastically changed how I will work in the future. It got me thinking about how beautiful and fragile our planet is; and how, as a collective society, we are destroying it this is our social responsibility. Kate Fletcher’s lecture made me evaluate other aspects of the world and from an educational point of view. Especially with the current pandemic going on, the result of us being inside, we have already significantly improved the condition that our nature is currently in. This shows that we are the primary issue. We use so masses of nature’s natural resources like gallons of water, mounts of paper, and loads of cotton. Those are just basic examples of how we take so much from this planet but hardly do anything in return. Majority of us don’t take the social responsibility in our hand to make the difference or even bother making a change.
Oceans cover most the planet. We have only discovered 5% of the capacity of our oceans, and we are destroying its life without knowing how much more they hold. So much plastic is floating in our oceans right now, killing animals, habitats and coral reefs. I remember going to Australia two years ago, and most of the coral reef is gone. More than 95% of the world’s population is breathing polluted, unsafe air. People often forget to think about the long-term consequences of damaging our nature or polluting the air we need to survive. They forget about how necessary the trees are to us and how we need them to breathe. Still, people are throwing away and not recycling items on a day to day basis.
As a student in Hair and Make-up in Fashion, a concerning fact is the regular waste of ‘one-time’ items. Being in the make-up industry myself, I know how much unnecessary cotton, plastic, and paper we throw away after using it once for hygiene reasons. And fashion is the world’s most polluting industry. I want to end my blog post, reflecting on how I can use what I learned from Kate Fletcher and use it for future work. It has made me aware of how fast we as a community can change and impact the conditions of our climate, nature and surroundings. We can use less waste in production, recycle, use grown organic materials, use more energy-efficient manufacturing, have better work conditions, better logistics, use less water etc. This will all improve our pollution and solve many global issues.

Power was one of the lectures that stood out to me from the Better Lives Lectures. It raised some fascinating and relevant points which I felt I could adapt well to my thinking. In the beginning, Julia Crew talked about six key points. Power and Fashion, Money, Media, Consumer, Protest, and You.

Most people, when we think of fashion we think about being ourselves, the creative and fun part of it. Diversity plays a large role in this. However, sometimes we forget that wealth, power and status play such a significant role in today’s society and fashion industry. I felt that this analysis relates a lot to my course Hair and Make-up in Fashion because in everyday life photoshoots, magazines, models, and brands all play a massive part in the different levels of status. How they are portrayed in the industry and how they influence peoples power as connections grow and peoples views change. As Julia Crew stated, fashion in itself is power. It allows us to present our status and its a silent but very visual marker of our identity and how we present ourselves to society. She then discussed how royalty applied fashion to portray their power, through the extravagant, expensive clothing and jewellery they would wear. Through the use of fashion and accesories, royals have exhibited their power of money. The history of how fashion is used by royalty, military and politics are fascinating as it is a concept I had never really acknowledged or thought about in detail. The way the military uses uniforms in a luxurious fancy way shows whos in charge and who gets to wear the more beautiful uniforms to manifest hierarchy and dictatorship.

The discussion on power within the fashion industry was also very eye-opening as it highlights how such a small group of people could hold so much power over a vast money-making industry. However, in this lecture, It was very much based on power within the money. It is crazy to think that such a small group of wealthy people can hold so much power over the world, which is a much larger number than who they are as a group. The interesting point was that a majority of these wealthy people had earned their wealth by clothing while virtually enslaving others. As levels of fashion consumption continue to increase, factories around the world are being pushed to deliver ever-larger quantities of clothing faster and cheaper. This means that workers in the factories are getting paid less and less in inhumane working environments and are subjected to intimidation, harassment, and injury. This is the harsh reality that it takes for us to pick and choose what we like for cheap while shopping.

To conclude, this lecture opened my eyes in regards to all the kinds of power people, the community and the media can have within the fashion world. Because this lecture explored power and fashion from different angles, it raised many questions I had not considered before. It got me to think about how I can refer back to this throughout my degree. Not only my degree but also how I can make my difference as a consumer and to think about decisions that could change the industry forever.