Joshua Kinsella

For my 4th blog post (Peer Review) I chose Seung Ohs 3rd blog on her project outcome. I found the topic she chose really relatable (Rave Culture) as this was a part of my life before this Covid period. This is a culture I am really interested in and is also a part of my life now and being brought up. I feel that she reflected well on the themes and gave good explanations on how she showed this in her project outcome. I feel that the theme which was best met was sustainability as she discussed using the items and fabrics she had around her to create a fit responding to the project theme and I feel that not using items for their sole purpose is a great way of representing sustainability in fashion.

For the better lives unit my Project theme was Sportswear and Styling. We had 2 masterclasses in which we styled and created our own and collaborative fits in response to the Better Lives themes. They were both extremely helpful and taught me that you can really create some great work when you collaborate well and do the best with what you have.

For our own individual projects we were asked to create 1 fit responding to the current situation at hand we were also encouraged to include elements of our lives and cultures.

My fit I styled using my own garments and items around the house to show sustainability and my love for Hip-Hop culture and how it has helped me through this hard time. During this lockdown in order to stay focused I found that Music is really good at getting me motivated and I wanted to use this in my project outcome.  I decided to use my baggiest clothes to respond to the theme as hiphop style in the 80s-2000s was extremely baggy. I also wanted to express my love for skating and created a hip themed outfit for a skater. I used Hip-Hop artists cd cases and stuck them to my jeans to represent the knee pads and show how diverse and sustainable you can be with the items around you. 

I feel that this unit has really helped and enabled me to be more creative at home and also shown me how I can make a difference to the Fashion industry with my work I create and has defiantly made the way I work completely different as I really would like to help push Fashion to be more sustainable and diverse.

Before the start of the unit I was positive that most high street stores with a huge audience would be following these key themes in our unit. During the start of this course I attended several lectures discussing the themes of Better Lives which are Sustainability, Social Responsibility and Diversity and the lectures opened my eyes to the reality of fashion and it’s impact to the world. After the lecture discussing sustainability and it’s importance to Fashion I decided this was a theme I was going to base my project around and something I will alway try to meet during my future work as I believe this is something really important to fashion and its future.

I think sustainability is something that is extremely overlooked in fashion and shouldn’t be. Due to fast fashion brands being the most popular high street stores constantly restocking items and not being sustainable they are commuting to a unhealthy environment as these clothes that are cheaply made to be thrown away and replaced after one wash are ending up in wastelands which are harmful any nearby civilisation and the planet.

I believe that Sustainability is something I can really respond to and show in my project outcome as you can style outfits reusing object that would usually be thrown away or not used again. 

These themes have made me think a lot more on how I can work differently and make a difference.

I believe this unit is a perfect way to introduce first years to the fashion industry and the lectures really helped address the current problems that are not really being tackled and I think it really motivates you to be more sustainable with your work and try and make a change to the fashion industry and really strive to make a difference.

The first lecture I attended which stood out to me the most was by Julia Crew about power and its relation to fashion and how it visually communicates power for example a suit represents and reflects the image of a wealthy lifestyle and in ways can represent power and higher authority. This was discussed for a main chunk of this lecture and I believe that it was a really powerful statement and example to show how fashion/garments can reflect power. 

We were also shown how the fashion industry is still commuting a lot to modern slavery and the brands behind this like H&M, Primark etc. really surprised me as they are at such a high demand and have such a huge following you would think they wouldn’t commute to things like this. I believe this is something that needs to change fast and something that defiantly shouldn’t be happening today. This lecture really made me think about how I am going to work in the future with my photography and perhaps I may not use certain brands that are affect the world problems and use things that are sustainable and not a hazard environment. It also made me think about how I can use these visual representation to help communicate certain subjects in the industry through my images.