Talita Di San Marzano Pereira Leite

After six weeks of the project, we completed our moving image. It ended up being five different gifs for Lazy Oaf’s Instagram pages. Each gif is 0.3 seconds long and features the members of the group in three different images following the same aesthetic. Each gif has a different colour background and follows Lazy Oaf’s vision, colourful, minimalistic, and fun. While we were developing the gifs, we thought it would be nice to include captions that relate to the name of the charity “Time to Change”. Therefore, we created the following statements, “Time to Talk”, “Time to Listen”, “Time to Think” and “Time to Act”. We also included graphics, which resemble Lazy Oaf’s patterns. This was done with the purpose of making them more “Instagramable”. 

The captions made the gifs more relevant to the collaboration, as it related to the necessity of talking, listening, thinking, and acting, in order to feel better with ourselves. Doing these actions can also help the people around you feel better. All statements are using the imperative, imposing that the audience should take part in the action. Furthermore, through the captions, the theme of Social Responsibility, which is the core of the brand’s collaboration with the charity, is expressed. The themes of diversity and sustainability are not visible at the first instance, but if the audience takes time to contemplate the moving image it will realize that the students represented on the images are diverse in the way of how they approach the problem of mental health, which is a serious issue among young adults. The theme of sustainability can also be identified after some thought, in relation to how the content was produced.

This project thought me several things. First of all, it showed me the importance of organizing myself and the group schedule in order to complete a given task. If we would not have arranged weekly meetings and kept up to date with our tasks, we would not be able to finish on time. Working with technologies like, photoshop and gifs, that I was not very familiar with, helped me develop my creative skills, which will be fundamental in my future career. Most importantly, it thought me that creativity can still bloom under restrictions. In this case, due to the lockdown, we had to work with fear resources and limitations, but this did not hinder our final outcome.

From my previous group experiences, I always felt like they hinder the outcome and that if I would have worked by myself the result would have been better. However, this project showed me that if from the beginning all the members contribute to the creation of the concept, the group work will only boost creativity. Each member came from a different course; therefore, more ideas were put into it. I felt that we manage to combine all the ideas in a balanced way. For these reasons, pleased with the result and with my personal development.

After watching the lectures and being in the middle of my project, Fashion Activism, I came to realize what I have to do differently in my future career. The Better Lives themes are Social Responsibility, Sustainability, and Diversity. Through the lectures and the seminars, I now have a better understanding of what they mean, especially in the fashion context. I now see that in order to produce powerful and successful content in the fashion industry all these themes have to be represented on the work. I am part of the Fashion Activism project, which focuses on creative direction for fashion, meaning that through the lessons I learned how to communicate the Better Lives themes through a moving image.

In the future, I would like to work producing campaigns and events for fashion companies. Before this unit started, I knew the importance to consider Social Responsibility, Diversity, and Sustainability throughout this practice, but I had never realized how fundamental these are if you want to succeed and make a difference.

In the Fashion Activism project, we were supposed to create a moving image to a specific brand or brand collaboration. My group was assigned with the Lazy Oaf and Time to Change collaboration, which is about mental health. Lazy Oaf is a young brand with street style-inspired designs and the collaboration main idea was around the slogan “it is okay not to be okay”. 

When we had to start to create ideas, I first identified which Better Lives theme directly relates to this collaboration, and this is the one about Social Responsibility. Social Responsibility is directly related to this because it promotes the idea of dealing with social problems like depression through fashion. The brand is aimed at young people, which makes this collaboration very relevant, as this is an issue that involves many youths and is not always discussed. After identifying this, I thought about how my group and I could implement the other two themes when creating our moving image. 

First, we had the idea of creating a video using the members of the group for the cast. However, due to the current situation, lockdown, we had to change the concept. Together, we came to the agreement of each member producing a gif, which expresses our own vision around this issue, and then editing them together into one video. We decided to follow the brand esthetic: plain colors, minimalistic, and fun. Due to self-isolation and online classes we agreed on guidelines that have to be followed when creating each individual gif so that we have the same layout.

I want to express the theme of Sustainability in this project in the way that we are producing the content. This means, creating a moving image that does not produce waste and turns to be something positive towards others. Diversity will be implemented to the project when we edit all gifs into one video, as each member from the group comes from a different part of the world and has different viewpoints in relation to the problem.

My favorite lecture was during the 19th of February and talked about representation. Understanding representation in fashion is essential in our modern society. Fashion has always been known as exclusive, so to overcome this problem we must understand the essence of representation. The lecture made me realize that in order to have equal representation we must have an equal understanding of someone else’s culture. In other words, the lack of conversation leads to a lack of representation.  Fashion is our interaction with everything; thus, it must be used as an object for change.

The speaker also mentioned the conspicuous consumption theory. This is used to explain the action of consuming expensive products in order to elevate someone’s status. Bringing up the idea of a social class is not only about having money but involves other concepts such as culture.

Another aspect to consider when talking about representation is the idea of cultural appropriation and the idea of cultural appreciation. I agree with one of the speakers when saying that cultural appropriation occurs through a relation of power and privilege, more in detail, when elements of someone else’s culture is taken without its appreciation. In controversy, cultural appreciation is the respectful representation of someone else’s culture. Cultural appreciation can only be achieved through a full understanding of someone else’s culture.

This made me realize how unconsciously I might be culturally appropriating another culture in my fashion practices. Therefore, I can say that this lecture made me more aware of social implications in the fashion industry that must be considered to prevent negative content in the future. In addition, it inspired me by showing examples of cultural appreciation, showing how fashion can be used as a means to promote positive change.

The lecture about sustainability during the 13th of February also shaped my thinking about how fashion can create better lives. It made me realized that in order to have a successful fashion career we must understand fashion’s relationship with nature and humanity. We are living the Anthropocene where human’s impact on natural systems is significant. The speaker brought up views that enhance the idea that in order to change this system we must look at fashion not only from an economic perspective. Another thing that I understand from the lecture is that everything is connected, and that sustainability is a fixed stage. It requires complexity and has the terms culture, nature, society, and economy embedded in its meaning. In addition, we must keep aware that resources are diminishing, meaning that fashion has to respect our world barriers.

In conclusion, to promote positive fashion, we have to establish our values and what we want to sustain within our practice. We need to consider the fact that equity and home come first. In order to improve our outcomes, we have to consider nature, culture, society, and power as perspectives to promote better lives and social changes.