Michelle Bellucci

It was very tough for me to choose which blog post to review. Each blog post is extremely interesting and with a different point of view. 

Despite this, one in particular caught my attention. I decided to review Maja Bebber’s second blog post. It was inspiring to read that her motivation is to give a voice to those who do not have it. This is something I always try to not underestimate. Being in a position to help others and give them a voice, especially trough a journalist position, it is an important step to support who most needs it. Although I study fashion styling and production, I recognised myself in her words and on how Better Lives themes will influence her future work. As she mentioned, words are powerful and fundamental to inspire others. Trough my stylist position, I hope I will be able to tell stories and inspire others thanks to my styling.
What I strongly believe is that Better Lives unit influenced in a positive way our way of thinking. We all want the same: social justice for everyone, a more sustainable system, diverseness and inclusivity. Some of us were already informed about this side of the world, some others were not. 

One thing is for sure: from Maja’s words, it is clear how much involved we all are now. 

As Maja’s wrote in her post, fashion industry has changed a lot over the past few years but still it is not enough. Our generation is the future and we have the power to create a more conscious fashion industry. The only way we can do it, is to do it all together. 

Through all the blog posts I had the chance to read, I particularly decided to review Maja’s post because her words touched me deeply. It is clear that she truly believes in her ideas. I hope she will be able to inspire people with her stories and to influence society in a better way as Better Lives influenced us. I am sure she will be able to do it and her name will be remembered for this. 

 I have always been interested in photography in general. Since I started studying fashion styling and production, I immersed myself in photography more and more. 

But I never approached myself to contemporary portrait photography before. When the list of projects came out, I already knew portrait photography would be the one I would choose.
At the begging, I was scared to not being able to keep up with the project, but during the process of it, I realised how much interesting and easy it actually was. Especially with the great work of our tutors. I had the chance to discover a portrait photographer that fascinated me a lot, Francesca Woodman. I love how she used to manipulate lights, angles and perspective to make her pictures unique. Sadly she killed herself really young but it has been inspiring to see her work, especially during this hard time where we are supposed to stay home.
The pandemic we are living in, helped me in a sort of way to get closed to portrait photography. I have spent most of my time alone with my family and I enjoyed to take portraits of myself and of my beloved ones. Although we are all distant because of COVID-19, I had the chance to visit a hospital during this hard time. I decided to take a single picture of one of the empty corridor, opposite to the COVID-19 department. It was a sort of mix of a peaceful and a tragic moment at the same time. It may not seem to be related to Better Lives themes, but it actually is for me. 

Seeing all the doctors and nurses working together to help their patients, it reminded me how strong we can be when we work all together to fight a common “enemy”. It reminded me on all the classes I attended for Better Lives unit, where we talked about power, inclusivity, diverseness and social responsibility. As we are fighting against COVID-19, we can do the same to create a better and more conscious fashion industry.

Since I started my student experience at UAL, I immediately felt a strong consciousness about sustainability, diverseness, equality and social responsibility. I have been pushed, unconsciously, to immerse myself more and more in this “conscious” system. When the Better Lives unit started, I was really excited to follow the classes and the workshops. Even though I was already aware of few topics of the classes, it has been really interesting to immerse myself properly and to collaborate and communicate about it with the other peers and tutors.
Arguments that I was taking for granted before following classes have become a new way of approaching myself to the fashion system and to our world in general. 

The question I keep asking myself recently is: what can I really do to make a change in the fashion system? Not only about sustainability, but also about inclusivity.
Unfortunately, I could not respond to myself yet. Sometimes it looks to me that even the smallest form of progress I make to see a change is useless. But if there is something I learned during the Better Lives experience, is that we are stronger together. Even if I feel down sometimes and I feel like I am contributing in this “sick” circle of consumption, I keep in mind why I have decided to dedicate my life and my future career in fashion. Most importantly, I keep in mind that I am not alone and I am part of a bigger project which my generation is leading. Even the smallest changes we try to make, it actually means something. 

Small actions can help generate big changes, as the Theory of Chaos argues.
Better Lives themes already changed the way I work. I am more conscious and I pay attention to details that I did not care about before. Not only on my university tasks or work but also as a consumer. Most of all, I learned a new approach to make others aware about the Fashion System. 

What I am sure I will keep doing in the way I will work on future is to be more sustainable and more inclusive. I am part of the privileged side of the world and I am aware of this. I will try with all my powers to represent and give a voice to who does not have it through my stylist job.
I have already set myself a few important rules that I will follow on my future work. 

Firstly, I will make possible to not collaborate with Fast Fashion companies and to approach myself to give more visibility to smaller and sustainable companies. Secondly, I would like to collaborate with companies which will have the same point of view I have about diversity and inclusivity. Thirdly, I would like to give a proper message for each work I will make who can in somehow inspire people.

Attending lectures has been really interesting and inspiring.
They helped me to approach myself to a new way of thinking about the Fashion System.
I find really difficult to focus on only one lecture. Each of them left me something important.
The one who probably caught my attention was the first lecture we did in the unit, “Power” by Julia Crew. I loved the way she connected power to different topics related to fashion. 

Especially the power we have to change the world in a better place for different reasons.
We have the power to create a more sustainable fashion system. We have the power to improve underpaid employees’ life. We have the power to fight against social exploitation. We have the power to create a fashion system who sustain diversity and inclusivity. We have the power to revolutionise our world through knowledge. As Mrs Crew said, power is individual but it is also collective.
Another class who inspired me particularly was “Inclusion” by Laura Salisbury. It was interesting to see how a design can include elderly people and people with different kind of disabilities without special adaption. This is something I had never thought about it before. It surprised me to see how many steps forward we did so far. I hope the fashion community will be able to expand these designs for every person who needs it and also to represent it in the correct way.
Through this journey, we talked a lot about sustainability. We are lucky enough to be part of a new generation who is trying to fight for our world. It was surprising to see how the movement started to develop, as Nina Stevenson explained during class.
I never imagined how much this unit could involve me into it. It gave me a new point of view that I never considered before but that I am sure I will carry with me forever.