Keer Nika Li

Annabel’s blog had my attention for the 3rd blog post reflecting her project outcome when choosing fashion activism as for her area for better lives unit. I previously do not have a very clear mind on what the unit was about, Annabel explained that what the subject creative direction was about clearly in her blogpost. She also shared her interesting learning details and processes in her blog post, which she and her groupmates were not able to perform their original plan due to the COVID19 situation and still managed to completed the task without meeting up and made use of other platforms. I enjoyed her blogpost as she shared how they did not frustrated with the situation and able to achieve a satisfying outcome and congratulations on winning the best casting awards!

For the other 2 blogs that she had written about the lecture of Empathy and the other two themes, Social responsibility and sustainability. Annabel has a great understanding of knowing the importance of applying these 3 concepts into a brand / a company’s daily practices, which I agreed with her and had mentioned in my own blog post above. I felt like Annabel could include more contents about sustainability. 

Annabel’s blog had my attention for the 3rd blog post reflecting her project outcome when choosing fashion activism as for her area for better lives unit. I previously do not have a very clear mind on what the unit was about, Annabel explained that what the subject creative direction was about clearly in her blogpost. She also shared her interesting learning details and processes in her blog post, which she and her groupmates were not able to perform their original plan due to the COVID19 situation and still managed to completed the task without meeting up and made use of other platforms. I enjoyed her blogpost as she shared how they did not frustrated with the situation and able to achieve a satisfying outcome and congratulations for winning the best casting awards!

For the other 2 blogs that she had written about the lecture of Empathy and the other two themes, Social responsibility and sustainability. Annabel has a great understanding of knowing the importance of applying these 3 concepts into a brand / a company’s daily practices, which I agreed with her and had mentioned in my own blog post above. I felt like Annabel could include more contents about sustainability. 

Annabel’s blog had my attention for the 3rd blog post reflecting her project outcome when choosing fashion activism as for her area for better lives unit. I previously do not have a very clear mind on what the unit was about, Annabel explained that what the subject creative direction was about clearly in her blogpost. She also shared her interesting learning details and processes in her blog post, which she and her groupmates were not able to perform their original plan due to the COVID19 situation and still managed to completed the task without meeting up and made use of other platforms. I enjoyed her blogpost as she shared how they did not frustrated with the situation and able to achieve a satisfying outcome and congratulations for winning the best casting awards!

For the other 2 blogs that she had written about the lecture of Empathy and the other two themes, Social responsibility and sustainability. Annabel has a great understanding of knowing the importance of applying these 3 concepts into a brand / a company’s daily practices, which I agreed with her and had mentioned in my own blog post above. I felt like Annabel could include more contents about sustainability. 

the brand that I’ve chosen is Gucci, with Alessandro Michele. I was personally very impressed by the new Gucci’s aesthetic and multiculturalism. In the better lives units, under ‘Cultural Representation’, I’ve learned that Gucci was accused of creating offensive items towards the black community with its Black Balaclava sweater. It has drawn my attention towards the issue and found out that it is very easy for a brand to kill their own public image even though they did not intend to be offensive in the very first place. I’ve also learned that it is always essential to carry out deeper research towards one culture from the group’s own perspective before applying the elements onto the collections/campaigns. And I had come across on how Gucci had made up with the whole crisis – they deeply apologized for their mistakes, withdrawn the sweaters. After that, they’ve set up a culture awareness learning program for their employees, and also hired a chief officer for the inclusivity department. As fashion is still a growing market, I felt like this is the right way to deal with a PR crisis and improved. Gucci now aimed to ‘put culture – self-expression, and inclusivity at the center of what they do’.

My first illustration:

On the right side of the image is a model wearing Gucci 2016 Spring Summer Collection, which I personally felt that this outfit had represented the multiculturalism in Alessandro Michele’s design concept. In this Illustration, It represents Gucci’s Diversity while including different design elements from different cultures. The one fake eye that was grown on the model’s forehead, and the dragon standing on the model’s shoulder represents the minority group of people for being different from the others and how strange they could’ve felt being treated as ‘freaks’ in their daily life. The model on the right is also genderless. 

The skeleton represents that, even though we’re all so different on the outside, we’re all still human beings and it is right to treat everyone fairly no matter the cultural background or how we look. The olive branches the model was holding means peace, and anti-racism. 

My 2nd Illustration:

A girl wearing Gucci’s signature runway collection was lying on the floor reading Gucci’s <CHIME ZINE 01>, a publication funded by Gucci aimed to promote gender equality and self-expression, raising awareness for female rights, which I see as evidence of Gucci was engage in being socially responsible. The Gucci candlelight represents hope in the scene. 

My 3rd illustration:

During the researches, I found out that Gucci is the most environmentally friendly fashion corporation in the world for being entirely carbon neutral, with the support of the Kering Group. The illustration shows the model wearing Gucci pieces is holding a flag, facing her back to the audience. It represents that Gucci is one leading brand in the industry and they’re ready to go further. 

The brand that I’ve chosen is Gucci, with Alessandro Michele. I was personally very impressed by the new Gucci’s aesthetic and multiculturalism. In the better lives units, under ‘Cultural Representation’, I’ve learned that Gucci was accused of creating offensive items towards the black community with its Black Balaclava sweater. It has drawn my attention towards the issue and found out that it is very easy for a brand to kill their own public image even though they did not intend to be offensive in the very first place. I’ve also learned that it is always essential to carry out deeper research towards one culture from the group’s own perspective before applying the elements onto the collections/campaigns. And I had come across on how Gucci had made up with the whole crisis – they deeply apologized for their mistakes, withdrawn the sweaters. After that, they’ve set up a culture awareness learning program for their employees, and also hired a chief officer for the inclusivity department. As fashion is still a growing market, I felt like this is the right way to deal with a PR crisis and improved. Gucci now aimed to ‘put culture – self-expression, and inclusivity at the center of what they do’.

My first illustration:

On the right side of the image is a model wearing Gucci 2016 Spring Summer Collection, which I personally felt that this outfit had represented the multiculturalism in Alessandro Michele’s design concept. In this Illustration, It represents Gucci’s Diversity while including different design elements from different cultures. The one fake eye that was grown on the model’s forehead, and the dragon standing on the model’s shoulder represents the minority group of people for being different from the others and how strange they could’ve felt being treated as ‘freaks’ in their daily life. The model on the right is also genderless. 

The skeleton represents that, even though we’re all so different on the outside, we’re all still human beings and it is right to treat everyone fairly no matter the cultural background or how we look. The olive branches the model was holding means peace, and anti-racism. 

My 2nd Illustration:

A girl wearing Gucci’s signature runway collection was lying on the floor reading Gucci’s <CHIME ZINE 01>, a publication funded by Gucci aimed to promote gender equality and self-expression, raising awareness for female rights, which I see as evidence of Gucci was engage in being socially responsible. The Gucci candlelight represents hope in the scene. 

My 3rd illustration:

During the researches, I found out that Gucci is the most environmentally friendly fashion corporation in the world for being entirely carbon neutral, with the support of the Kering Group. The illustration shows the model wearing Gucci pieces is holding a flag, facing her back to the audience. It represents that Gucci is one leading brand in the industry and they’re ready to go further. 

My chosen and assigned project for Better Lives unit is Fashion Illustration: View from the Catwalk. My lecturer, Sue Dray herself is a well-respected fashion illustrator, hence I’ve got to understand more what fashion illustration means to the industry from her own perspectives while she’s teaching. 

First of all, I’ve got to know a wider range of fashion illustrators and their work during classes. Fashion Illustration is one of my very own personal interests, and that’s why I’ve chosen this topic as my Better lives project.  I once thought that fashion illustrator is a niche occupation since the fashion industry is a place that relies on photography very much. When an industry’s visual presentation had built its dependent on realistic recordings like photography, it seems that there’s not much platform for fashion illustrations to perform, besides the inspiration sketching of fashion design pieces when one’s creating a collection of garments.  

Out of my surprises, fashion illustration was actually very widely used in the industry, and being widely ignored too – I’ve seen many of the art pieces before and amazed by the illustrators’ talents but never seem to care to look for the provenance. A picture tells a thousand words, even though many fashion illustrators always do not get enough attention and appreciation that they deserved as other creative contributors in the industry, what they’ve created are still powerful – diverse and convincing. 

The fashion illustration pieces were presented with different feelings, vibes, and effects due to the diverse background of each illustrator – era, country, and cultural background, the use of media. And the difference in the presentation had made each of them and their work to stand out and shined as an individual. These specialties were made used in different regions in the fashion industry, brought this industry a more diverse way of presenting visuals. 

I have had spent some quality time while watching Sue’s Online Tutorial. I got to try many different styles of drawing and experiment illustrations using different media and methods – pastels,  chalk, oil paints, drawing while standing up and drawing freely on the cardboards of our delivery parcels during the quarantine. 

Being part of the next generation who will take over the fashion industry in the future, it is our duty as fashion majored students to get to know what is currently happening in the industry. The Better Lives units had enabled me to develop a better, deeper understanding of the essential knowledge of the humanity truths and phenomenon in the industry’s daily practices.  Hence, I felt that I was further educated on certain topics throughout the units, which had impacted my thinking while performing tasks in the future.

Even though we talked about ‘Diversity, Sustainability, and Social Responsibility ’ all the time in our daily practices in LCF, I found myself that I was being too shallow after sitting through the units. 

We talked about ‘Diversity, Sustainability, and Social Responsibility’ all the time, we promised to perform the thinkings in our projects and works all the time, but we never truly care and wanted to understand the needs of the minorities that we want to include both physical and psychological needs.

I’ve left a very strong impression while I was watching the lecture about inclusivity, and how the lecturer was to design garments for the disabled. I’ve learned that when you’re designing something for a group of minorities, even though you’ve known and researched the group well before you started, it is still essential that to take advice and experiment with your outcome with the actual person from the minority. Understand and studied one’s difficulties well doesn’t mean that you’ve experienced and felt what they’ve been through on a daily basis, and learning from another’s perspective will allow you to be more considerate when designing and engaged with their lifestyles. The same rules will apply to our practices when creating work/art pieces that involve other ethnicities and cultures. 

As one of the classmates mentioned in the lecture of Representation, some brands were just made use of Asian/black models when they wanted to show that they’re ‘inclusive’, while many more other ethnicities, e.g. Arabians or southeast Asians were neglected in the scene. The industry is shouting and wanting to prove that they’ve grown and able to perform diversity, in order to make profits from their public image while they did not actually carry out any deeper researches into the minorities that really need more attention. That had made me reflected on how could we, our generation of creative minds to be more comprehensive in the future.

Being one of the future fashion practitioners, it takes courage when we want to challenge the stereotype practices of the industry as an individual. But, challenges are exactly what we need in this growing and diverse industry that will be targeting more and more population. I felt that the unit had encouraged me to have the strength to give out different voices while participates in projects, and only participation will bring more innovations to the scene.