Danielle Rosanne Pereira

After spending a few hours carefully reading and understanding multiple blog posts, I finally decided to review the first blog post of Noah Paulus where he reflects on the lecture he attended conducted by Jekaterina Rogaten where the lecturer speaks about the topic “Fashion and Well-being: the Psychology of Creativity”

Noah’s blog post was very easy to understand, analyze, and interesting to read. The reason I chose to review his blog post was that like Noah, I didn’t think fashion and well being played a big role collectively or were this extensively intertwined together. His blog post educated as well as enlightened me about how consumerism and the constant need for fashion to evolve, adapt, and change is the major reason for the toll on the environment. I liked that Noah was honest about his hesitation from the start and how he was slowly convinced as the lecture continued about the effects of fashion on well being and vice versa because similarily I was skeptical at the start of most of the lectures but towards the end, I found myself surprised at how much I had learned and previously ignored or taken for granted.

In a world dominated by fast fashion, it is important to stop and think of the root of this problem which is the consumer and the rate of consumption. Noah further went on to highlight how in order to improve sustainability an understanding of the fashion industry is key, which is one of the key points I have taken note of and completely agree from this blog post. As Noah said in his blog post the evolution of fashion is essential for producers to boost customer satisfaction. This got me thinking that we, as consumers are extremely quick to ridicule manufactures for their carbon footprint, waste consumption as well as exploiting our planet’s resources, however, we need to question our own constant thirst for fast fashion trends and as a result break this toxic cycle of consumption. Therefore in the future, I will be extremely conscious about shopping from fast fashion brands and will try to look into more sustainable brands for example – Triad, a brand that transforms clothes given to them as cast off’s into high-quality stock as well encourage my friends and family to do so too by creating awareness of the better lives themes amongst them as well.

As we come towards the end of The Better Lives unit, I am appalled by the number of things I have learned.Personally, at the start of this unit I was of the opinion that, Diversity was a more important theme as compared to the others, however, the better lives unit has transformed my thinking and made me realize that the themes of Sustainability and Social Responsibility are of equal importance and are in some way connected to each other. 

The following is the link to Noah’s blog post 1.

 Researching a brand’s values, ethics, beliefs, what they stand for and support is extremely vital for me before purchasing a garment therefore, I choose the Fashion Activism theme for my project.

 For our project, we were split into groups of 5 where we got a chance to meet and collaborate with students from other courses across LCF which was an amazing opportunity as we each bought different talents from our respective courses to the table.As a group we had to create a moving image that was suitable to be posted on the social media of a brand that was assigned to us in order to inform, excite, inspire and motivate audiences keeping in mind the brand aesthetic and its values. We were assigned a brand called TRAID, which is a charity shop that transforms clothes that are given to them as cast-offs into high-quality stock. At Traid the themes of Sustainability and Social Responsibility are given the utmost importance, where they work towards reducing carbon emissions, consumption, and waste along with improving working conditions for textile workers.

Initially, our group planned to visit Triad’s charity shops and film our moving image in a park however, that was not possible due to the pandemic. Being from different parts of the world and having to battle with varied time zones,technology was our best friend during this time which helped us stay connected and enabled us to create our moving image with great ease.

For our moving image, we choose TikTok as our platform, where we styled and filmed ourselves in a garment that was cast away or borrowed from our family member’s closet and made it trendy just as Triad does by collecting clothes to sell for other generations to rewear and restyles them. Through our video, we aimed to challenge other consumers to rewear, restyle, and borrow clothes instead of throwing them away and share with us how they restyled a garment by using the hashtag #RewearChallenge.

Contributing to reducing my carbon footprint was never really of the utmost importance to me,however, after having completed this project it is evident to me how essential and easy it is to do so by simply reducing my consumption of fast fashion along with supporting and promoting local charity shops like Triad who are trying to make this world a BETTER place and are doing so much in this fight to save our planet. I am confident that through our video and throughout the course of the project the better lives themes have influenced the thinking of our group and will be stuck with us as we step into the world.

The following is the link to view the final outcome of our project,hope you enjoy it as much as we did filming it.

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

The Better Lives Unit revolves around the themes of Diversity, Sustainability, and Social Responsibility. After attending a few of the lectures the unit offered, it became clear to me about what a long way the fashion industry as come as well as how it has constantly had to change over time. Initially, I found myself confused about how I would implement all the information I have retained from the lectures into my daily life, however, after starting my project in regard to Fashion Activism and discussing the themes over with my peers everything began to come together and I was able to understand the themes in a better light as well as consider the opinions of my classmates.

Previously, I was of the opinion that, saving the environment is too big of a task and would be impossible to accomplish by a sole individual doing right by the environment. I believed that in order to invoke change big manufacturers and companies had to become conscious about their waste consumption along with their carbon footprint. However, after having attended the Better Lives lectures and projects I was convinced that true change comes from within, I cannot possibly wait for big companies to simply change their ways if I was not changing mine, it was hypocritical for me to do so. I started to look at sustainability more individually rather than collectively. Since having completed my project I have worked towards limiting my consumption of plastic and thirst for fast fashion. I am currently using this time given to me due to the lockdown to reflect on other ways on how fashion can create better lives and am working towards playing my part individually.“ Little drops of water make a mighty ocean”

I am currently studying Fashion Public Relations and Communication, the Better Lives Themes have changed my approach on multiple factors I did not previously consider. As a Fashion PR student collaboration and networking will be a big part of my future as I step out into the world, therefore after understanding the importance of Diversity, Sustainability and Social Responsibility I will aim to collaborate with brands that implement these important themes in their work and are playing their part in making a change towards a more sustainable, kinder future.

  At first, I was unsure and curious about what The Better Lives Unit would teach me about Sustainability, Social Responsibility and Diversity, however, through the course of these lectures, I felt that it had broadened my perspective and invoked curiosity in me that made me research and come to the realization that brands are no more about solely the merchandise they manufacture but more importantly the values and message they put out to the world.

The lecture that really spoke to me and that I will be reflecting on is Shahida Bari’s lecture on diversity. During the lecture Shahida made a statement that really stuck with me “Diversity is not only about race”. As a young brown girl I have always felt underrepresented in the fashion/beauty industry, however, in recent years there has been an increase in the representation of people of color in the industry which had previously made me believe that the fashion industry is progressing and changing its ways, however, after attending Shahida’s lecture and hearing her speak about how there is limited inclusion of people in the industry who have different body types, people of different ages, people from the LGBTQ community and in the representation of the disabled community, made me realize the fashion industry has a long way to go for every person to feel represented and for it to be labeled as“diverse”.

Fashion brands need to up their game and ensure that every community is represented and celebrated as Shahida rightly said: “fashion is a visible and creative medium which means it’s presenting a vision of the world” therefore, including different minority groups, will not only boost sales but make every community seen, represented, respected and make the world a BETTER,kinder place. In addition to this Shahida spoke about how diversity is not a trend and should not be an exception to the rule but should be a part of our practice, which I found extremely interesting as we so often witness fashion brands labeling themselves as diverse as a mere marketing strategy or to seem “niche” and trendy, but their actions paint another picture, for example – The Gucci black balaclava jumper that resembles blackface.”Diversity is a buzzword with very little action”

There is no doubt that the fashion industry is trying to change its ways, but it needs to be inclusive when the press and its audience are watching but also behind the scenes, where they are not.

REFERENCES

Shahida Bari (2020),’Diversity Intro’,[Lecture].Better Lives,London College Of Fashion.Acessed on 10/04/2020