Chloe Fennell

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Blog Post 4 – Peer Review

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BLOG THREE.

For the peer review, I am discussing Kaylee-Rose Payne’s third blog post where she reflects on her project and better lives experience. Like myself, Kaylee chose ‘In and Outside of Fashion: Sportswear’ (Styling) as her project brief for better lives, therefor I thought it would be interesting to discover another’s point of view and experience of the same subject. 

She begins by discussing the benefit that better lives gave her an opportunity to try and learn something new, and the realisation of how important styling is. I agree with this statement as, by taking part in those activities that other creatives, that you will most likely be working with do, it allows you to appreciate them and their work more. In terms of the styling and production project, you realise how much goes into arranging visuals and how a stylist’s choice can make or break a look/ an image. 

Kaylee then goes onto talking about learning about the idea of messages portrayed from the body and camera positions, and how these signals can be interpreted globally so it is important to be conscious of class and culture appropriation. I think this highlighted well the issue that education about diversity, and ethical issues surrounding it, is essential to know before creating work, especially studying fashion journalism, so you don’t offend anyone or cause controversy that could possibly ruin a career.

Kaylee perfectly reflects the better lives theme of sustainability by giving ‘1 dress, 365 days’ by Sheena Matheikin as an example of recycling looks and being innovative with garments. By highlighting the issue of ‘posting for the gram’ – outfit pictures through the popular hashtag ‘#ootd’, she reflects on social responsibility on social media with these trends growing the need for new garments to be socially acceptable. I also liked the fact she pointed out that many trends are cyclical, so by keeping garments that may come back into fashion, a person can be sustainable instead of throwing them to waste. 

Reflecting on the styling workshop, Kaylee describes how she worked with aspects of the theme diversity to explore body shapes, adding padding to the biceps and shoulders to create a typically masculine figure on a female model – the idea that women can also be muscly. Her group chose 80s rave as a subculture and portrayed this era with bright colours and shoulder pads, however I feel the subculture could’ve been made more specific by working with a more typically popular example such as Acid House, Punk, New Romantics – maybe this is something to explore further in future. Also, as part of the masterclass, Kaylee seemed to explore sustainability by recycling materials to make garments – drawing on paper to repurpose the print for a skirt. Something I particular like about Kaylee’s reflection of the project, is that she discussed how she added what she learnt about body posture and camera positions into her images of the styled look, exploring diversity through the strong and powerful stance of the model – symbolising empowerment of women and the feminist movement. 

The only thing I would suggest to improve the work to make it more relevant to today’s world, is that Kaylee could’ve mentioned how COVID-19 effected the six-week project and how the better lives themes can be applied to this situation when working from home. 

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Blog post 3 – Project Outcome Reflection

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Never before have the better lives themes been more apparent and relevant than during recent COVID-19 times. At the start of the six-week projects, I was able to attend the first ‘In and Outside of fashion: sportswear’ styling masterclass at Lime Grove just as normal, where I could interact with my fellow peers, as we styled and dressed one another in our own garments with on-hand guidance from the styling tutors without any social distancing. Now, we’re all having to work remotely from home, taking part in the masterclasses online. It has been incredibly weird for me especially, as I’ve had to move out of London, and am now living back in my parents’ house in Rossendale, 225 miles away. Having to adjust to learning in this environment has been difficult, and I’ve struggled with having my independence taken away. However, I am fortunate that my parents are both key workers, so they have a stable income so can provide for the family. In terms of social responsibility, I am leaving the house less as I don’t have to shop for my own essentials and I don’t have to travel to visit my parents anymore, therefore I am at far less of a risk of spreading the coronavirus to vulnerable people in the community. 

All this means I haven’t been able to meet with many of my friends so we’ve had to be inventive; we cannot go out on a Saturday night to dance in clubs as we normally would so online interaction to appreciate music has been our alternative. The ‘Hacienda’, an old (now shut-down) club in Manchester that was famous during the Acid House scene (my chosen subculture for my sportswear styled look) was revived by numerous DJs coming together during an international live stream, performing sets from their own homes on the 11th April 2020. I facetimed my friend Cerys from my bedroom; we both listened to the live stream whilst drinking and dancing with strobes to recreate a club environment the best we could. After this, we worked together to style a number of sportswear looks by using sustainably sourced vintage garments from our wardrobes that were either donated by older family members or bought from second-hand stores. I collaged my items together with hers to create full outfits; I was only required to produce one look, however because of my great interest and collaboration with a friend, I thought I’d include all the looks we came up with. Running with the better lives theme of diversity, all the items of clothing are unisex so can be worn by anyone, with many items being intended for males that both me and my female friend own. This better lives project has helped me think more innovatively to create work, and use what limited resources I have to hand whilst still being responsible regards sustainability, diversity and social responsibility by working from home, social distancing to keep the community safe, whilst still collaborating with other creatives online.

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Blog post 2 – creative practice reflection

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Before the better lives unit, I had considered themes, or similar, of sustainability, diversity and social responsibility within my work to a small extent but was not aware of the greater impact on the fashion industry from my individual choices.  Since I started at UAL/LCF in September, being surrounded by like-minded people studying creative subjects, I’ve been encouraged to practice responsible habits by my fellow peers and students. 

One of those habits which better lives has further encouraged me to participate in when shopping for myself/for a shoot, is to disregard fast fashion, and use charity/second-hand/vintage shops as a source for garments. Not only is it financially rewarding by buying second-hand garments for a fraction of the original price, but it is morally rewarding by not letting the garments go to waste or purchasing other items from a retailer that is not sustainable. I’ve also started selling a lot more of my own clothes that I do not wear, reworking existing items into new garments, and giving items that do not sell to charity so I’m not adding waste to land fill sites that have a strong negative impact on the environment. 

In terms of social media, mainly Instagram where I am following many creative practitioners and influencers to gain inspiration and ideas for my work, I have decided to actively stop supporting, and unfollow any account that promotes any fast fashion or other brand that I do not believe is working sustainably within the fashion industry. When working and creating content in my creative field of fashion photography, I wouldn’t normally work with a person or brand whose vision doesn’t resonate with my own aesthetic. Additionally, after considering what the better lives themes have taught me, I’ll refuse to work with clients promoting unsustainable fashion, or ones that do not exercise equality and empathy for diverse and minority groups such as disabled workers, and most certainly clients that push a white beauty ideal, as I do not believe any of these factors are morally right. 

Further considering diversity when working as a fashion photographer, I will try and work with a diverse range of people and clients to gain insight and inspiration from other cultures, ethnic and social groups. This will also make me aware of any issues that may arise so that I can be empathic and change my ways of working so no one is offended/exploited or violated within my visual practice, for example any appropriation of culture or racism that could be interpreted. 

I also now believe it is more important than ever to share other creatives work and collaborate with them, especially minority social groups such as the LGBTQ+ that have been oppressed by society, to promote equality within the community. When promoting my own work, I will make a conscious effort not to create or share anything with a large amount of photo-manipulation, to celebrate imperfections and diverse body shapes as a norm. 

Overall, the better lives themes have taught me to be more ethically aware of issues that may arise when making work and that I need to be a responsible creative to benefit the fashion industry. 

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Blog post 1 – lecture reflection

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During the first two weeks of the better lives unit, I watched six lectures titled: ‘Power’, ‘Culture’, ‘Inclusion’, ‘Emerging Technology’, ‘Empathy’ and ‘Well Being’. Thinking generally about the better lives themes, I feel the ‘Power’ lecture by Julia Crew had strong links with social responsibility discussing issues such as brand control, with big names having big industry influence; the idea of a power imbalance causing a wealth imbalance which is abused in the fashion industry for labour – CEO’s being worth millions, whilst workers physically creating the garments in sweatshops barely earn enough to live. One notable part of the lecture that I was able to relate to was the idea of social media being used in today’s day and age to advertise to consumers; Instagram now seems home to thousands of influencers sharing and promoting products mainly from fast-fashion companies such as ‘PrettyLittleThing’ and ‘Missguided’. These influencers have the power to be seen by the millions of people that use social media countless times a day seemingly being subconsciously coerced into feeling the need to purchase more and more throw-away fashion items. However, influencers also have the social responsibility to share and promote the right message; social responsibility for sustainability. Fast fashion most certainly is not sustainable as it produces large volumes of garments in such a quick turn-around time that a lot of waste is left to landfills, with the chemicals damaging the environment substantially. 

An aspect that got my attention most was the idea that consumers have all the power within the fashion industry (without consumers, fashion simply would not exist) and they are responsible for the choices they make. 

I’ve been interested in reading about mental health lately, therefore the ‘Well Being’ lecture was of great interest for me. However, before this lecture, I was introduced to the unsustainable culture of consumerism during the ‘Culture’ lecture by Anna Fitzpatrick. I learned that consumerism focuses on the individual instead of a diverse group creating a selfish idea that they are only responsible for themselves. Change comes from people working together and being selfless; for the fashion industry to be sustainable consumer culture needs to change. 

I’ve recently read ‘Reasons to Stay Alive’ by Matt Haig which is a novel about his struggles with anxiety and depression, and within it he discusses the idea that the economy has created a consumerist anxiety – if people were happy with their lives and what they had then the economy would be poor. This links with Jekaterina Rogaten’s well-being lecture, where she discussed the hedonic treadmill – consumers are never satisfied, once they purchase one item, the need to purchase more increases, as they believe it will make them happy. In both the lecture and Haig’s book, the culture of consumerism is made out to be toxic for a person’s happiness. From both of these resources, thinking about the better lives themes of social responsibility and sustainability, it has made me aware that individual’s attitudes and behaviours need to change; shopping more sustainably (such as second hand) and doing good for the environment not only benefits other social groups, it also positively impacts a person’s happiness. Doing good is proven to make you feel good. Being materialistic, on the contrary, only has temporary positive effects, until the need to buy more is fulfilled.  

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