Lucie De Roeck

Reflections on how the better lives themes have influenced your project outcome and your personal development

After the better lives lectures I was put into sportswear fashion language and subcultures styling. As my work mostly already consist of self-styling and self-portraiture, I was curious about what more I could learn about this subject. We had one masterclass where we were asked to bring clothes that we didn’t really used anymore or that we could cut into. And then they asked us to style each other in groups and make interesting combinations of silhouettes, colors and styles. It made me think more about sustainability in a way of re-usage of items. How you can turn old items that might be nothing trendy in real life into something different and new. I like the idea of re-using the same clothes over and over in different ways and camouflaging them with styling and my photography. The styling  of a piece of clothing sets a whole new identity of situation and origin. Re-using the same items in various ways, gives you the opportunity to become more creative and innovative. It makes you think beyond the representation of brands and more about concept and the real art in photography and styling. Sometimes I think the fashion industry believes that the art only lies in the clothing and not the photography. They use it for the publicity of beautiful models and their newest season and the photography is only there to enhance that beauty. I want to make fashion photography more like art again. Therefore I am more interested in brands that create ideas of fashion that are sustainable and timeless. I want to photograph what I’ll be wearing tomorrow and in 10 years. And I want to show that re-usage is not something done out of being poor or boring, it is creative and fun and it is a good start for a more sustainable future in fashion. 

Reflections on how the Better Lives themes might change how you work in the future

The Better Lives themes have definitely opened my eyes more to how the fashion industry is doing. It has made me realize that as a fashion photographer, I have a responsibility to talk about diversity, sustainability and social responsibility in an open way and try and use it in my work to make others aware of what that means. Before this my motivations in the industry were to show the beauty and the fun in fashion. But if we are not careful there will be nothing beautiful or fun left of it. There will be nothing good to show only lies. In the future I want change those motivations of mine. 

First, diversity and inclusion are two very important things. And I don’t want to photograph people just for the sake of trying to portray everyone. That will never be possible and we are not defined by our skin color or our body size. I want to portray people for the beauty that they have within, the culture that they carry has to be celebrated but it is not all that they are. I want to peel the mask that society gives us, the boxes we are put in and make diversity something beyond gender, color or size, but person and soul. 

Secondly, sustainability. As I am not a designer, I won’t be able to actually make sustainable clothing like they talked about in many of the lectures. But I can do things personally and in my practice. Personally shopping second hand is something I have done for a long time, it makes the experience more interesting and you know that you are able to find something unique. As for my practice I am already being pretty sustainable. I take a lot of self-portraits in mine and my mother’s clothing, constantly styling the same clothing in different ways and re-using it. How that will work in the future, I’m not sure. But I think I would be interested in shooting archives and celebrating timeless frocks. 

And finally, social responsibility. Living in world that is becoming more selfish every day, people think more about how to have their own career and do the things that are on their bucket list. And don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that there is anything wrong with having your own ambitions, I think it’s great. But sometimes, it is the only thing on their mind. And we have to think more in a community sometimes. Does what I do have a good impact on the ones around me? And what is my contribution?

And I believe that if I keep asking myself these questions from time to time, I believe that will help me be more conscious of the ones around me. 

I was very happy to be handed so many different lectures about themes like diversity, sustainability and social responsibility. And they really made me think about my own influence and responsibility as a fashion photographer in the industry. And some of the things they said have really woken me up. The first lecture on 10-2-2020 especially, Julia Crew was there to talk about power in relation to fashion, money, media, protest, and others that are all very intertwined with each other. 

Over the centuries fashion has been used as a visual tool to communicate power and wealth amongst other things. Some examples are royalty were they display their wealth, the military with their uniforms and batches and stars to show unity, hierarchy and leaderships, and with media people have the power to influence big audiences or ‘markets’ with what they wear. And what I really want to go further in is media and the amount of power and influence it has gained over the past two decades. Apparently millennials are 84 % more likely to buy something from an influencer, someone that they don’t even know on Instagram. The internet is very trend focused and I believe that because of it going so fast, it is one of the reasons why fast fashion has grown so much in these past few years. People can get bored so much faster and keep wanting more, they want to keep themselves new for every Instagram post, event, etcetera. Because we constantly see these apparent perfect beautiful models wearing these sponsored clothes or shoes and we feel as if those things make a happier life, whilst it just causes us to feel inferior or insecure. This all sounds very negative and I get sick of only talking about the negative things of media. It is not going to go anytime soon so we have to find a way to make it have a positive impact on our lives, otherwise why do we even bother looking at things that make us sad and bitter… I say we use it to communicate the things that actually matter. You can use it to show how many beautiful things you found while thrifting in a charity shop and show how you styled it. You can use it to protest, and to let others know what your opinions are. My power as a photographer is to show simple opinions in visual language, the kind that is universal.