Ciara Amos

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Blogpost 3 – reflections on how better lives themes have influenced your project outcome and your personal development

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In blogpost three I will be reflecting on my work in the ‘Developing a Character’ in Hair, Makeup and Prosthetics unit I chose for Better Lives. I have always been enthused by the area of hair and makeup and beauty. That is why I chose this class, out of my PR and Communications course I work as a makeup artist and beauty enthusiast, therefore this course immediately caught my eye. 

The beauty industry is one of the fastest growing industries, and just like fashion falls under the PR and Communications field. Makeup was traditionally seen as something minor worn by women to enhance their natural features, however 21st Century makeup takes on various different purpose’s. It is now accepted as an art as well as to purely mske someone ‘look better’. Throughout the first couple of weeks of the unit, the techniques I was taught consisted of creating different illusional effects on the skin to make for example, bruising, veins, trauma to the skin and ageing. Due to the current Coronavirus Pandemic I was unable to phsycially finish this unit and get to try out all of the different techniques, however it was then showed and explained to us via virtual sessions. Having to adapt and learn virtually rather than being able to see and feel the products being used and try it out myself has actually been quite a struggle as I have always found myself to be a Kinesthetic learner, especially so used to also exploring new makeup looks and artistry looks on myself I was listening and watching the sessions and found them so interesting yet really wanted to try it out myself. 

One of my favourite of the two sessions we had was the one where we learnt how to create bruises and veins on the skin through the use of alcohol paints which to my surprise was actually very similar to working with water colour which I had done in the past. To know how to create these looks on the skin you first had to learn about why we bruise and what stages a bruise has. I found this part so interesting and it also made it much easier to create the bruises once you actually know the knowledge of a bruise too. I decided to create a crescent shaped bruise under the eye, as I was working on it I feel I started off too scared to 

just go for it but after encouragement I decided to really go for it and make it look a lot more red and added a deeper red bruising on the inner corner of the eye which, to my surprise, made it look a lot more realistic. After working on the bruises we then worked on veins, to create a 3Dimensional look to the veins Steven showed us a trick which was to draw the line from the side angle of the brush – lots of small horizontal strokes – rather than just sweeping the brush down and drawing the lines, this is was created the more realistic effect. 

I think the Better Lives unit has encouraged me to think about ideas and themes of Sustainability, Diversity and Social responsibility in more depth and it has also encouraged me to question more to get that depth. For example in my previous Blogs, I spoke about how as a PR you need to question the brand, influencers, the teams behind the catwalk and find out the true reasonings behind the decisions and how that brand interacts with their consumer, the ‘Developing a character’ in Hair and Makeup and Prosthetics has taught me similar. For example in order to create a realistic bruise or vein, you have to ask questions like what makes a bruise? Whats caused the trauma? What are the different stages of a bruise? And why does a bruise go so many different colours? Once you have the answers to questions like these only then will your finished product look believeable and realistic.

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Themes Reflection blogpost 2

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In blog post 2 we are asked to reflect on the Better Lives themes and how it is going to affect the way we approach work in the future. The three themes in which are discussed are Sustainability, Diversity, and Social Responsibility. These topics are so widely spoken about everywhere now not just in fashion as society is trying to become more inclusive as a whole, each of these work together to create that. I am currently on the Fashion PR and Communications course, and through the exploration of the Better Lives themes and attending these lectures I have learnt that as a PR you need to be aware of these themes and topics while working in the industry. By exploring these topics I have learnt that the industry as a whole needs to consider being more mindful of being morally and ethically aware. 

Through engaging with the Better Lives lectures and exploring their themes of social responsibility, sustainability and diversity I feel as though as a student and a PR I should always be questioning a brands work or why they did what they did, investigating  a brand or publication in so much more depth. Asking questions like, who did they have working backstage on the runway (not just who they had on display on the catwalk)?, whos the person behind the brand running it currently? What makes this brand diverse or inclusive? Asking yourself questions such as these to explore the true reasoning behind a brand, for example just because a brand preaches about feminism and “girlpower” doesn’t always mean it is a feminist brand, one example is Missguided run by a male dominated board comprised of all men, yet try and advertise themselves and true womens brand. Maybe if they put a female on the board they could maybe call themselves a “girlpower”. This is when we start to question whether this is ethical or not, is this a form of lying? Is misguided trying to promote themselves as a brand that they just factually are not?

However these themes have allowed me not just to view brands with more depth in negative and eyeopening ways but also in the positives, for example, each theme: Diversity, Social Responsibity and Susatainability are all important topics in which need to be spoken about as much as they can, and as they are a growing topic of conversation it is forcing brands to change and become more diverse and inclusive. We are seeing more diversity on the catwalk for example Rhianna’s Savage X Fenty show included the first ever transgender model on a catwalk. Of course there is the question about the reason behind it, was it for pure inclusive intent or because it caused this catwalk to be the most spoken about in 2019, therefore for publicity motives. We don’t fully know however either way, we see a change happening. 

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  1. Fatou Kwame: Blog 4: Peer Review For the Peer review segment I have decided to peer review Ciara Amos Blog 2 post…

Blogpost 1 – Culture Anna Fitzpatrick

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In our first blogpost we were asked to attend and watch a series of lectures across the first two weeks of the Better lives unit, these lectures all explored the themes of sustainability, diversity and social responsibility and how these themes can impact they way we interact with fashion. I decided to write my first blogpost about Anna Fitzpatrick’s lecture on culture. Fitzpatrick speaks about sustainability in relation to our cultural context and in particular our consumer culture. Fashion impacts our culture so much, however one thing that impacts everyone of us and doesn’t discriminate is our planet. The environment is one of the few things in which we can and cannot control. Our bad habbits that we have developed over the years is weighing in on our planet and in this lecture Anna Fitzpatrick speaks about how we have less than ten years to change our ways to fix our environment before what we have done to it becomes unuchangable. This lecture truly highlights how important sustainability is in fashion now more than ever; and how fashion is “dependant on land, water, air, animal”. The way we experience fashion; and each do so in an individual and different way, however the demand for such fast fashion and new and always changing trends is becoming uncontrollable, this is negatively impacting our environment, this topic had always interested me as it wasn’t up until recently enrolling at this university is it that I was made aware that fashion was one of the worlds biggest polluters. Anna Fitzpatrick discusses how consumer culture is a large factor in encouraging fast fashion and how we as consumers perceive fashion this is one of the key reasons we demand the newest look and trend and want new, however we need to all be more socially aware of what is going on. Fitzpatrick finishes the lecture by addressing the topic of social media and how social media and consumer culture go hand in hand. There is such a large market now for selling via social platforms whether that be through an influencer or a shop established through Instagram but also addresses how this  affects the mental health of the consumers. Influencers have the power to start a brand new trend or bring something back into fashion and even making something ‘unfashionable’ howeverthe minds of their followers are so impressioble that platforms such as ‘Instagram’ can cause negative imapacts. I find this so important to speak about as social media impacts all of our daily life and whether we see it or not, it does impact what we buy and what we decide to like, Fitzpatrick said in the lecture “consumer culture encourages us to seek happiness through consumption” therefore our happiness is measured by and through having physical products and items of clothing that we can post online. This is a harsh truth that we all have to accept is our life now. I personally think it sounds horrendous to say it outloud however, it is the truth that Instagram is seen as more of a ranking app or who gets the most likes or followers or even the nicest pictures. 

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