Shannon Zaccardo

For my final better lives blog post, I will be reviewing on of the previous blog posts of one of my peers. Upon reading through several blog post of other peoples thoughts on the unit, I decided that I would be reviewing the third blog post of Liv Carlsson title ‘Reflective and Personal Development Post’. I chose this specific blog post for my peer review as I felt that this individual fully expressed what she has learned from their chosen project and gave an informative insight of how emerging technologies can be a benefit in the future of fashion.

 I appreciate the sense I optimism she has for her chosen topic as she states that she chose a topic that she doesn’t have much knowledge or interest in. Having done so, she took the initiative to experience a different area of the fashion industry and also use the skills she already possesses to collaborate with others and create a final product that would potentially help to promote sustainability, diversity and social responsibility within the future of fashion. Liv also makes the point of working with others who she wouldn’t normally work with as well as individuals from different places in the world; I like fact that she is using the opportunity to get other viewpoint from her team members as they may provide knowledge and resources that she may have not been accustomed to.

Nearing the end the blog post, Liv explains the final outcome of her groups project and how they’ve designed it to be more suitable for the sustainability of the fashion industry. She describes how her group had create an app that could be used to analyse vintage trend forecasting around the world and doing this through a database that doesn’t drain on funds and is accessible to anyone and everyone. I like the idea of her groups final outcome as it is designed to encourage others adopt a more sustainable and diverse mindset toward fashion and the fashion industry, as well as providing the knowledge to individuals who wouldn’t normally have the privilege of getting access to.

To conclude my review, I feel that Liv has shown her full understanding of the better lives unit and has used the knowledge given to her from the lectures and collaborative project to reflect on the themes of diversity, sustainability and social responsibility and apply it to her own working practice in the future. She has also demonstrated the understanding of how these three themes will impact the future economy and environment around us in regards to not just the fashion industry, but all other industries that we considered to be vital to us.

Liv Carlsson’s Third Blog Post:

As fashion activism was the project, I chose to do for the duration of the better lives unit we were required to create a moving image whether it’d be a GIF, a meme or a small ad, to promote the given brand we was assigned in groups. 

For my groups brand we were given Traid; a charity shop that focused on the ethos of recycling clothes instead of giving into fast fashion, as well as raising funds for their many different well-being projects such as stopping child and women’s labour in clothing factories. Due to Covid-19 and the nationwide lockdown, my group was forced to change the concept of our moving image and start from scratch. In the end we managed to create a fun trend challenge that still spread the message of Traid through these difficult times; all members my group filmed their parts from their location and then edited all of it together. Although we were concerned about the final outcome due to the lack of preparation, we still received a positive response from our peers and lecturers and made me realise that through these hard times we are able to still share these moments of positivity and creativity to one another. 

The group project really pushed me to take the initiative and fully express my ideas and opinions to the members of my group, this project has also given me better insight to themes of better lives and their importance when applying it to real world issues. Even though I am a hair and makeup student, I chose fashion activism as I want to use the power of hair and makeup to convey any message whether it is political or something that’s just symbolic. This project also introduced me to so many creative individuals who work within different professions than mine and were able to share each other’s knowledge to further our progress as creatives in the same industry. Looking back at my experience in this project, I feel that was able to grow through the members of my group as well as the lectures and the lecturers themselves as I feel that if this project was of independent work I believe I would have struggled.

Reflecting on my personal development, I believe this Project really brought me out of my shell and encouraged myself and others to use their creative talents to fully embrace ourselves through specific fashion mediums that some of us wouldn’t normally experiment with. Better lives has also given me the opportunity to better myself in terms of my own working practice and to be more considerate of everything cross paths within the future. Of my career. Another point to add in regards of personal development; myself and many others in the world have come to realise the damage we have done to our world as well as. Our future economy and how the pandemic has opened everyone’s eyes to realise that we just need to stop for a moment and think about the actions we should take next.

Final outcome moving image – Traid Rewear Challenge:

https://web.microsoftstream.com/video/a04bc328-d043-47a9-b086-374112bb07c7?channelId=490f8d2f-85d4-4daa-9b6d-cdc70dfe01c6

Social Responsibility, Diversity and Sustainability; these are the three themes of the better lives unit that we are aimed to focus on through the duration of our chosen projects and apply to our professional practice in the future. During the beginning weeks of the unit, we were able to look at the three main themes more up close and in detail and gave us the opportunity to have a better understanding of how these themes are important during the era of the fashion industry. I’ve found that I have already made different changes to the way I work both within my professional career as well as my normal day to day life, which has turned out to be quite a huge benefit considering the world we are currently living in. Such things include saving money on food, transport and what some consider as luxury items such as clothing and personal care products.

 Through the themes of social responsibility, diversity and sustainability, we can use our influence as creatives in the industry to support these themes and encourage others to take on the same mind set to help improve the environment before it’s too late for us to turn back. Reflecting on the main themes, I have recently been thinking about how certain themes like diversity and sustainability can impact my work ethic as a fashion hair and makeup artist in the future. Taking a closer look at the theme of diversity, I believe that diversity in general has always been an important factor for me, having been raised to be accepting of everyone and everything. After starting the better lives unit, I have found that there are even more aspect of diversity that I have never considered before within my practice. The theme of Diversity has driven me to take my own initiative in my part of the industry to further make an impact of what products can become even more available to people who still aren’t being catered for in regards to hair and makeup, including creating cosmetics that are suitable for individuals like myself who have to take the leap of faith with their beauty products.

Looking at sustainability, there are more and more brands adopting the concept of sustainable fashion and what not to make the fashion industry become eco-friendlier. Through some of my years as a makeup artist both in professional practice and training, I have considered in different aspects of my practice to be more sustainable such as using biodegradable wipes or purchasing products that can be reused rather than just throwing them away. Better lives has given me a creative platform in which I cannot just use to improve my own sense of sustainability, but to also promote to others how sustainable practice within the industry can improve the way we create fashion in the future and do it without destroying the environment. If we want to improve our work and the impact it has on others, applying factors such as sustainability is good start.

Blog One: Lecture 4 – Inclusion

After attending the inclusion lecture by Laura Salisbury, it made me think about certain factors of the fashion industry that I never really stopped to think about beforehand. A key factor in the lecture included Laura’s plans for inclusive fashion by constructing a special yarn to then later develop into a unique textile to create clothing that is specially designed to aid the recovery of stroke victims, sufferers of Parkinson’s’, Cerebral Palsy, etc. The difference between this lecture and the other lectures I attended is that it really inspired me to think about the future of the fashion industry and how I could make a difference. I thought although I am a fashion hair and makeup student, what could I do to make this part of fashion more inclusive, what could I do within the beauty industry to make it more inclusive? 

The inclusion lecture put fashion under the magnifying glass so we could what was right in front of us; the fashion industry is still picking favourites. What I mean by this is, yeah, a lot of clothing brands such as pretty little thing, misguided and forever 21 have more inclusive ranges such a plus sizes, petite and tall; the main majority of fashion is still on exclusive to anyone that can slip into a size 10 and don’t think to broaden their fashions to the like of curvy women. These fashions are also mainly catered to young women or teens who would thrive in the latest fashion that brands are putting out, but why does no one ever consider the members of society such as individuals who are not body confident and still want to look good or others that can’t wear some of these clothes because their beliefs, cultures and morals. 

The lecture also discussed the use of advanced textiles used for creating garments that can be used for an extensive range of situations which I found very interesting and considered to be a very fresh take on fashion and clothing. One example that I was specifically fascinated by was the cute circuit sound shirt; this was a shirt that was especially made to provide music and real-life concert experiences to the deaf community. This was done with the use of special tech that was built into various parts of the garment in which the music was converted to sound data, to then be transmitted into vibrations all over the body so the individual wearing it would be able to feel the music rather than listen. What I learned from this was, even though fashion is often seen as a superficial factor of society we can also use fashion to lift others up that aren’t normally included and provide them certain experiences that we take for granted every day.

To conclude, inclusive fashion is a huge step for the future of the industry and as a part of this industry whether it be specialising in hair and makeup or actual fashion design itself, there is an opportunity for anyone to do so.