Alma de Ganay

I have chosen to reflect on Callum Baylis’ first blog about the Better Lives lectures. He has focused on the theme sustainability, especially on Nick Almond’s lecture about emerging technologies in fashion and “Blockchains”.

Not having attended this lecture and not being aware about the content, which Callum summarized very well, the blog gave me a good overview about Blockchains and their use in the fashion industry. He wrote about the function of blockchains and their positive and negative aspects: “There are already plans to use blockchain in the fashion industry, however rather than being used to make the industry more transparent, its instead being used as authentication technology.”

The blog was well written, creating a flow which helps reading and understanding the text. He used some personal anecdotes concerning the theme Sustainability stating, “Before these lectures I believed that the responsibility was solely on the producers to produce sustainable fashion, however over the course of the lectures, this way of thinking I had was changed.” This made the reader understand his personal view better, giving an insight on his experience.

The blog made me want to watch the lecture and dig deeper into the subject of emerging technologies in the fashion industry.

In addition, I have been inspired by the enthusiasm Callum has shown throughout his blog to learn about sustainability and act: “The better lives lecture I have attended have helped me see that I also am responsible due to my own personal consumer choices, and to be more thoughtful when purchasing something in the future”.

He only wrote about the theme sustainability, leaving inclusivity and diversity out, but as it is his first blog, for which the briefing was to talk about one or more lectures, I cannot judge the fact that he has mainly talked about sustainability.

So, all in all, well done!

Blog 1: Lecture Reflection

As a creative direction student, I am used to base my designs and creative outcomes on detailed and deep research into the chosen themes. All my work starts with learning about the theory behind design and desk research.

For better lives, I wanted to do something more practical, learn a skill which shows immediate results, so I chose make-up breakdown.

Besides the main themes of better lives, Diversity, sustainability and inclusivity, we talked about the principle of “The fashion mistake”, which means allowing the accident to participate in the project. Being a non-professional in make-up, this concept came in handy, as I was prone to make mistakes along the way of learning and creating.

I was interested in what we define as a “mistake” and why, so I deepened my research in this subject. The official definition of a mistake is “an act or judgement that is misguided or wrong”, although this didn’t give me an insight of who’s the judge of calling something a mistake. In the creative world a mistake is often something that is seen as aesthetically unappealing (keeping in mind that aesthetic values change over time and space).

In today’s western culture we see symmetry, smoothness and levelness as aesthetically pleasing. Interestingly enough, when googling synonyms for “even” words like “unwrinkled”, “undamaged” and “featureless” come up.

This inspired me to create my make-up looks around that subject: The beauty of mistakes.

While watching many of the Vogue make up tutorials on YouTube, I observed the different processes of various celebrities doing their makeup. I paused the videos at random points of the routine, capturing an awkward face in the moment the makeup is applied and not evened out yet.  I used these stills to recreate the make-up looks, filming myself while doing them in order to take similar screen-captures.

It was a fun project, a way not to take myself and the beauty world too seriously. I was open to all mistakes I would encounter, including them in my creation.

In these times of Covid19 especially, when we all have to stay at home, being isolated and restricted, it is important to create a fun space, where everything is allowed, including mistakes.

Better lives is a unique project, giving us the possibility to widen our horizon towards socio-political and environmental topics. There has been a need to understand and design future processes for the fashion industry, technical and mental, especially in the times of Covid19. I feel like the Better Lives Unit is there to pave our way of creative thinking, more than teaching us technical, hands-on ways to design.

The lectures presented within the Unit were as well informative as inspiring, giving me thoughts and ideas to base my future projects on. As I have written in my previous blog, Kate Fletcher’s lecture on Nature has had a big impact on me, but also Jekaterina Rogaten’s lecture on wellbeing, who discussed the importance of well-being and its influence in the fashion industry, amongst others.

I chose Make-up breakdown as the workshop for Better Lives, as I have always been interested in this medium of art and communication and as we only had a few hours of workshop within the Unit, I thought it would be more efficient to get into something practical rather than theoretical. Throughout this course, one main topic was the “fashion mistake”, a creative approach that leads us from allowing ourselves to make mistakes, to using these mistakes for our advantage in our work. We would “allow the accident to participate”[1].  This sentence really inspired me and gave me the push I needed to embrace my mistakes I made and will make.

I observed my thoughts during and after the Better Lives Unit and saw that the focus, when working creatively, has shifted: when thinking about the essay I need to write for the Cultural and Historical studies course or other personal projects, I try to incorporate and create my ecological and sustainable identity. Nature has always been a big part in my work, but now I embrace it even more and want to try harder, even if it means I have to take risks and make mistakes.

The corona virus forces us now to reflect on our times and create innovative, even revolutionary ways to design for a safe and productive planet. We have been ignorantly exploiting our planet, without planning to slow down. Only the virus made the world take a break, and with this break come catastrophic consequences, as we have only been thinking globally, not locally: our health care, production and food system is dependent on the rest of the world and not the own country and therefore crashing. The current situation will affect mine and hopefully all of our future projects and designs in a positive, effective way.

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[1] Anna Nwanko (2020) ‘The fashion mistake’[Live]. Lecture2: Make-up breakdown. Better Lives. London College of Fashion. 02/03.

I have listened to several lectures within the Better lives unit, each of them being very interesting, but especially Kate Fletcher’s lecture on “Nature” caught my attention. In the first part of the session, she broke down the differences between the terms “Nature”, “Environment”, and “Sustainability”. Nature being “the self-originating material and spiritual world of which we are a part, including the powers that sustain and govern it”[1] as Michael Bonnett stated, the “Environment” being a geographical term and “Sustainability” the “Dynamic process which enables all people to realise their potential to improve their quality of life which protect and enhance the earth’s life support systems”[2].

Fletcher continued by telling us about the History of the Easter Island and its extraordinary 1000 sculptures, whose origin we don’t exactly know, as a comparing example for our current global situation: After the first inhabitants arrived sometime near 1200 AD the population grew to about 15000 people, which then dropped to 2000 by the time the Europeans arrived in 1722. A scientifically accepted theory for this drastic depletion is the deforestation that took place on the islands for cultivation and the transportation of the enormous sculptures. Before the inhabitants came to realization, the last tree was chopped. Deforestation causes loss of biodiversity, increase of greenhouse gas emissions and soil erosion, and the disruption of the water cycle which makes a place unliveable.

This example struck me, but what Kate talked about next had an even bigger impact on me. She talked about planetary boundaries which need to be in perfect balance to make earth safe and productive. She stated that if any of these boundaries were transgressed, our planted would experience catastrophic changes.

The breaking news is that already three of these planetary boundaries have transgressed. We are now experiencing these catastrophic changes.

The problem is, Kate stated, that we don’t see the connection of the geological system to our daily life, we live in an era “where humans see themselves at the centre of everything”[3] even though Nature is the centre of everything.

She talked about our relation to nature, that it is only seen as “a resource, a means to an end, nature only exists in order to meet human needs”[4].

We need to connect and associate with Nature, with our environment, and design to grow our ecological identities.

I have always been interested in the ecological impact fashion has on nature and the other way round. This lecture gave me the inspiration to dig deeper and go further with my projects and to keep in mind that “Nature is the enabler of the fashion system, the fashion’s limiting factor and or source of material”[5].

Fletcher raised the important question we need to ask ourselves: “Can we find ways to reinforce our experience of nature as the context for fashion provision and expression?”

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[1] Kate Fletcher (2020) ‘Nature’[Live]. Lecture5: Better Lives. London College of Fashion. 13/02.

[2] Kate Fletcher (2020) ‘Nature’[Live]. Lecture5: Better Lives. London College of Fashion. 13/02.

[3] Kate Fletcher (2020) ‘Nature’[Live]. Lecture5: Better Lives. London College of Fashion. 13/02.

[4] Kate Fletcher (2020) ‘Nature’[Live]. Lecture5: Better Lives. London College of Fashion. 13/02.

[5] Kate Fletcher (2020) ‘Nature’[Live]. Lecture5: Better Lives. London College of Fashion. 13/02.