Milana Gurcenko

I was a part of “In and outside of fashion: Sportswear Fashion language and sub-cultures” project. Initially, I have chosen this project simply because sportswear was always something that I was interested in. To my surprise, the project went far and beyond just a title of Sportswear and introduced me into Styling world. Through project time, we explored different kinds of subcultures and their history, deconstruction of clothes and also the general meaning for Stylist and the ability of clothes to tell a story.

As time passed and lockdown was in place, we had to adapt to online lectures and workshops. Unfamiliarised to this kind of situation, I found it difficult to adapt and shift from group work to independent outcome. 

For our masterclass we had to create a sportswear look which would resemble with subculture of our choice and also reflects the mood of your personal experience of current situation. 

To my limited resources, I have decided to create minimalistic look, which is based on 80s athletic style, in which bike shorts were a big part of. However, as everyones knows, 80s colours choice were bright/neon. However, my choice laid on dull/dark colours to represent the current mood. Besides that, I deconstructed the use of bomber jacket and laid it on my hips to create a different shape. Furthermore, I styled the bag around my neck to describe the anxiety (shortness of breath is one of the symptoms), which I experience every day since isolation was in place. Initially, I was trying to link the look to Power, as I still proceeding to continue to fight the anxiety and stress and continuing my study. Besides not having any power on Covid-19 situation, I have a Power of how to react to it and adapt myself and work to get better at it everyday.

However, after receiving the feedback, I have realised how much empathy my look have caused. I could feel through the screen and words how my peers and tutors have reacted, maybe slightly with a bit of sadness, they could understand my struggle. My tutors also proposed that my look is more associated with gothic sub-culture, which does makes sense.

I find it incredible, how just a styled look and a bit of editing based on my emotions and feelings have caused people to feel empathetic.

I could even say, that my outcome is representative of many people in this pandemic. People don’t always speak freely of depression or anxiety, but it is nice to be able to relate to someone and know that it is not just your battle, but we are all fighting together.

Our generation have a great potential to incorporate dramatic changes and shape our future society in better way, which will create better lives. This unit informs and allows us to analyse quite sensitive topics.

All topics are important, but I would like to talk about few of those that, in my opinion, requires immediate change. 

Firstly, Sustainability. 

Even before starting this unit, sustainability was always one of my concern. I make sure I always recycle. I try to replace as much plastic into alternative recyclable materials as much as I can. I always try to avoid buying water bottles from the shop and making sure I have got my reusable coffee cup and water bottle with me at all times and so on. However, this unit allows me to analyse and think further. Studying fashion, I have to understand that fast-fashion has a great amount of imprint on sustainability today. Regardless of me not knowing how it can be implemented into my future career, I can say for sure, that I will continue explore this topic and think how it can be improved.

Secondly, Representation, Diversity and Inclusion.

Representation was one of my favourite lectures, which I spoke of in my first blog. 

Before this unit, I have heard that Fashion industry has a lack of representation, but I did not realise the scale of this issue. Diversity and representation has been improving majorly in the last decade, at least that is what I thought. What actually happened in most cases, is that many designers and big companies adapted the way of Tokenism to satisfy the concern of consumers or because it is simply became popular to be ‘Diverse’. “Tokenism is an industry practice where designers seek to fill diversity quotas by hiring a small number of individuals from under-represented groups to allude to the appearance of equality in fashion.”(Osaghae, 2019) So the question is, how can we overcome tokenism and normalise diversity and representation? 

To conclude, I am so happy to be a part of UAL and being able to explore those topics individually through this unit. I am sure, as more I explore and educate myself, as more ideas “How to create Better Lives” will evolve.

Bibliography:

Osaghae, O. (2019) A Lack of Diversity: Exposing The Dark Issue At The Heart of The UK Fashion Industry. Available at:https://www.rebeccadavi.com/single-post/ALackOfDiversityInUKFashionIndustry(Accessed: 25 April, 2020)

I have chosen to reflect on lecture by Teleica Kirkland on theme Representation. In my opinion, this topic has to be tackled on everyday basis to improve socially and become stronger as a community. 

I was born in Latvia, small eastern European country. Only after moving permanently to United Kingdom, I have realised how much I was culturally uneducated. In order for you to understand, immigration level was and till today is very low in Latvia and you would not call it a “go to” tourist destination. Furthermore, as I can recall, 12 years of History lessons has not included any insights on other than European History and culture. Local media did not had any diversity, it was all centred around white people. It is a great example of Eurocentric outlook, which was mentioned by Teleica Kirkland. Latvian citizens often very prejudiced and frankly racist. By the example of my birth country, I believe, that prejudice towards other races and class is often develops through young age, particularly through lack of education within this sector.

Another issue which often arise from lack of awareness is cultural appropriation. A great recent example would be a runway show AW20 Comme Des Garcons which received a huge backlash for cornrows hairstyle, which were used on the show. Despite the brand coming forward and apologising, explaining the reasoning and inspiration which was drown from Egyptian Prince. Before making such decisions and putting them forward, brands and their employee have to educate themselves, know the origins, know the cultural reasons, learn and more importantly, understand it and only then make a decision if it would be appropriate to use certain elements in their show, clothes and etc. Teleica Kirkland made a great point that problems lay within communication between races and made reference to very successful project “Wafrica”. “Intrigued by his experience as an African living in Japan, and the similarities between the cultures of Japan and West Africa, he set about creating a new aesthetic, one that fuses the elegance and sophistication of Japanese cultural icons with the vibrant colors and flamboyance of West Africa”(Jewell, 2018). This project supports the importance of knowledge and communication between cultures to understand one another which enables to create astonishing outcomes without offending anyone.

This lecture was so informative and eye opening, with many examples which allowed me to connect my past experiences and knowledge to understand how to conquer representation issue, at least within my own social circle and future work.

Bibliography:

Jewell, C. (2018) Wafrica: exploring identity through design. Available at:https://www.wipo.int/wipo_magazine/en/2018/06/article_0004.html (Accessed: 13 April 2020).