Camille Ceulemans

About Camille Ceulemans

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Fashion Activism : Moving image process, outcome and personal development (Emily Bode)

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During our Fashion activism classes we were assigned a brand and worked in groups to produce a moving image that could be a campaign for this specific brand, a video to post on their website,… Emily Bode is the brand that was assigned to us. To start with, Emily Bode is a New York based brand for men. Their clothes are linked to the past due to their modern shapes made with old fabrics. In other words, Bode uses antic fabrics to produce older patterns styles but with a touch of modernity. We started our project with these informations to build our concept. Here is the process.

Courtesy of Bode (2020) Available at : https://www.wmagazine.com/story/bode-nyc-clothing-brand-designer-style-notes/ (Accessed : 4.30.20).

Project outcome

After looking for some informations about the brand we started to brainstorm to look for some ideas for the concept and project we wanted to realise. We first agreed that Bode was a sustainable brand and so linked to one of the Better lives themes and that it would be the main point of the video. We also noticed that the models on the website were very diverse and that we would use that as well. Due to the older aspect of the brand, we first wanted to shoot a short movie in the streets of London to show the city aspect as a reference to New York and put an “old TV” effect on the video, inspired by the sixties. The video would’ve taken place in the sixties and would’ve been about protests and people fighting for their rights and more specifically black community to link to the diversity of the brand. Models would’ve worn clothes inspired from Bode. Due to the coronavirus outbreak and online classes we had to modify our concept. We decided to forget about the protest part and to focus on the sustainable aspect of the brand and realised it was even better as it represented the brand completely. Our final video ended up being a campaign that would be played in Bode stores and on their website and that would introduce a completely new sustainable collection by using existing footages of the brand and videos about clothes making ,…

Bode (2019) Available at : https://www.ignant.com/2018/09/04/bode-a-fashion-reliquary-for-rare-fabrics/ (Accessed : 4.30.20). 

 Personal development 

To finish with, on a more personal note, I mostly enjoyed working in a group. During my hair and makeup lectures our teachers kept telling us how important collaboration was. I need to admit, I didn’t really collaborate with other people for my first projects as it was the beginning of the year and everything was new to me. But these Fashion activism lectures showed me how important it was to have other people’s opinions. Everyone can contribute and give his own touch to the project which helps to have a more developed concept. Having every member of the group’s specialism helped me developing mine and think of details I might have not think of before. 

On the other hand, communication is what is, in my opinion, the most difficult. We didn’t always agree on everything and sometimes it became complicated to find an agreement especially when we had to work online. 

Overall, it was a great experience that will certainly help me for my future projects and I’ll never hesitate again before asking for someone’s help or opinion.

Link to the video : https://web.microsoftstream.com/video/349aaf94-6301-45bb-9f3a-4d0ee9fe51dc?list=studio

References : 

Image 1 : Courtesy of Bode (2020) Available at : https://www.wmagazine.com/story/bode-nyc-clothing-brand-designer-style-notes/ (Accessed : 4.30.20).

Image 2 : Bode (2019) Available at : https://www.ignant.com/2018/09/04/bode-a-fashion-reliquary-for-rare-fabrics/ (Accessed : 4.30.20).

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Will you change your way of working or will you keep it?

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 In this blog post, I will talk about how the different themes introduced in the Better Lives unit influenced me and might influence my future works and projects. In my opinion, not all subjects can be linked to my future projects but can be to my personal life and personal choices. This is why I decided to include only one of the themes in the development and talk about the others less in details.

The importance of diversity in Hair and Makeup for Fashion

During my Hair and Makeup for Fashion lectures, we worked a lot on each other and so on different skin types, skin tones, eyes and face shapes,… Diversity is in my opinion one of the most important aspect in my subject of study. To touch as many people as possible, you need to have many different models so everyone can identify to at least one of them. It would permit me and what I do to have more visibility and more clients. And even in general, everyone should be able to find someone they can identify to, someone who is wearing makeup and being a model. From small sizes to bigger sizes, from black people to white people and all face shapes and bodies. Back a few years ago Fashion was very inclusive, still is now even though things are finally changing more and more over time. I feel like my future projects and works can help those changes to keep happening and everyone to feel confident about themselves. This power is in our hands and we are the ones who can make change happen. From now on, I decided I wouldn’t always use the same models for my projects like my friends,… and I would try to communicate about different subjects and cultures and that is where the choice of the model is the most important. For my last project, I choose to research about Pakistan and realise different looks about it : I couldn’t choose anyone else than my Pakistani friend as choosing a model with an other ethnicity might have been taken as culture appropriation and wouldn’t have make any sense to me.

Byrdie (2018) Available at : https://www.byrdie.com/diversity-in-beauty-summit (Accessed : 4.20.20). 

To conclude, one of the other subjects that will influence my way of thinking and living but this time in my personal life is well – being and more especially the work conditions of clothes makers and so where the clothes I buy are coming from. Before, I used to buy anything that I liked without really caring about where the clothes were coming from. After the Better Lives lectures, I started to pay attention to what I was buying and try to find informations about the conditions in which the clothes were make. But most importantly, I started to ask myself if I really needed those clothes and if I couldn’t buy something else instead and break, as explained during the lectures, this cycle of fast Fashion where you are never truly satisfied and always need to buy new things. I hadn’t thought about this more psychological aspect and it made me realise it happened at least once to everyone.


Byrdie (2018) Available at : https://www.byrdie.com/diversity-in-beauty-summit (Accessed : 4.20.20). 

References : 

Pictures 1 , 2 and 3 : Byrdie (2018) Available at : https://www.byrdie.com/diversity-in-beauty-summit (Accessed : 4.20.20).

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How Fashion is the key to change and improvement

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In Fashion, every single person involved in the process of making clothes to wearing them has an essential role. It goes from the Designer, to the people who are making the clothes, to those who are selling them, to the consumer,… Unfortunately, important inequalities regarding the salaries are often (indeed all the time) observed, obviously depending on which position the person occupies. Designers get the higher salaries and their work is as important as everyone else’s but the conditions in which the clothes makers work and the salaries they get need to be changed. This is what it is about : raising awareness and so starting to provoke change partially by giving my opinion. 

Are you happy with what you have or do you always need more? 

In today’s society everything is made for people to consume more and more. In order to feel happy, people feel this need to buy new things as often as possible. The problem with that way of consuming? We are never truly satisfied. We are happy with our new acquirement for a few weeks or even days only and we always end up feeling like we are missing something and feel this urgent need to buy new things. But are all those things necessary to our well-being? 

When we think about the process of making clothes, we think of the people who are making them. But unfortunately, these people are most of the time underpaid and can’t buy the quarter of what most of us possess and sometimes can’t even pay for their basic needs like food and warm clothes. It is time for them to feel as happy as we are when we buy new clothes, but by allowing them to survive and work in better conditions. It is time to ask ourselves if we really need everything we buy and what we could do to help ameliorate the clothes makers’ situation. Fashion is, in my opinion, the solution to this problem. But this is in our hands as well. We could start thinking more about what we’re buying, why and where we are buying it from. Fashion journalists and interviewers could start asking Designers and brands how much are their employees paid to make them realise that people are starting to be aware of this problem and that they need to change things. On the other hand, those who are giving their employees good work conditions and salaries could also talk about it and how they did it through Instagram, blogs,… I think that the best way of making change happen is awareness. It is people working in Fashion that mostly have the opportunity to ameliorate the situation and help these people for example by organising a fashion show with clothes realised by the models themselves or even recycled clothes to show that without clothes makers, Fashion is nothing and they deserve and need better salaries and work conditions.

Kuronuma, Y. (2016) Available at : https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/India-hopes-to-overtake-Bangladesh-Vietnam-in-garment-exports (Accessed : 02.21.20).

To conclude, think twice before buying something. Do you really need it? Do you know about the company’s employees’ work conditions and salaries? That is now what I’ll start to think about before buying clothes. Every small step counts. 

References : 

Rogaten, J. (2020) ‘Well – being’ (Lecture). Better lives, London College of Fashion, 17th February. 

Kuronuma, Y. (2016) Available at : https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/India-hopes-to-overtake-Bangladesh-Vietnam-in-garment-exports (Accessed : 02.21.20).


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