Blog Post 3 – Project Outcome Reflection

I and my five teammates worked on a collaboration between Lazy Oaf x Time to Change ( a mental health awareness organisation)

Sustainability

In regards to social sustainability, our aim was to eliminate the stigma of mental health, remind people that those with mental health conditions are socially equal to those without and ‘its OK not to be OK’.

Before the lockdown, our group had brainstormed some amazing ideas to communicate our message. During the lockdown, I questioned how we were going to manage to complete the task without being able to meet with each other. I realised we were going to have to forget our original plan to shoot in the underground and oxford street with the massive crowds of people! Not really something we could achieve with the UK on lockdown.

Being in isolation as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak we had to find a way to create a film using only what we had at hand. Individually we all vlogged ourselves and our homes instead, which in a way was a little more realistic and relatable.  This process of quick changes and struggles has taught me to think outside the box and to problem-solve creatively.

Diversity

It was very important to get the message across that mental illness can affect anyone of any age, gender or race. I felt we were going to experience some difficulties in regards to casting; however, during a Zoom video call looking at each other, we realised we as a group are very diverse! We would model for our own film. We agreed to grab family members to be part of the video for more age diversity. But understandably not everyone feels comfortable being on camera so we weren’t able to delve much into age diversity, I did, however, include my 1-year-old brother, I think it may have given the film more of a cute factor rather than a clear message of age diversity.

What we did do successfully, however, was demonstrating everyone’s different coping mechanism, from spending time with friends/family to being alone and unwinding. We all react uniquely to everyday events, what affects one person may not affect another.  ‘Time to change’  aims is to de-stigmatise different mental health conditions. I do believe we could have made the different mental health conditions clearer,  it was challenging to get everyone’s ‘struggle’ clips in time to give our team member enough time to edit the final video thoroughly. Not everyone was managing to attend our zoom meetings, keeping up with the group chat or the deadlines set. The time difference between our team members made discussing our opinions on the final outcome and changing it difficult too. Furthermore, I have now learnt that the person who finalises a project must be a person who has been committed to the project from the beginning in order to ensure that the final outcome is what was discussed. Although we did all think it was a beautifully touching film and the process was enjoyable.

I enjoyed taking part in my Better Lives project Messaging Fashion. As a group, we had to present a presentation on our proposed brand and charity collaboration, ending with a press release of our collaboration.

The designer brand we were given was Wales Bonner, we paired our brand with the charity Mosaic (a London based LGBTQ+ youth centre) to raise awareness for gender pronoun visibility. The collaboration we developed sees Ibrahim Kamara style members of the Mosaic community dress to express themselves in Wales Bonner, for a shoot alongside an article and discussion panel between Mosaic and Grace Wales Bonner for i-D magazine. The release of this collaboration will be 21st of October 2020 (International Pronouns Day), with the hashtag ‘#SayItRight’. 20% of the profits of the collection will go to Mosaic’s mentor program. Our aim for this collaboration is to educate and normalise gender fluidity and pronouns to a wider audience. In turn allowing for more young people dealing with gender pronoun issues to have a safe space to explore both their gender and sexual identity with the correct help and encourage creativity and self expression through fashion and image. 

The ideas for our collaboration stems from the Better Lives themes of sustainability, diversity, and social responsibility. In terms of sustainability, the clothing IB Kamara will style Mosaic members in will be items from Wales Bonner’s latest collection ‘Lovers Rock’, and so no new clothes will be created for this collaboration. Our collaboration looks at themes of diversity as we are casting LGBTQ+ Mosaic volunteers as models and part of the panel discussion; working on promoting positive awareness of gender pronoun issues. Social responsibility is a theme at the centre of our public relations project. With this collaboration we wanted to raise awareness and educate society on the need for gender pronoun visibility and the negatives of misgendering someone.This project has allowed for personal development within my work. I have seen myself take more time in researching for my project to make sure I am selecting the correct creators that are working towards themes of sustainability, diversity, and social responsibility in their work. These themes are current issues in which members of the creative fashion sector need to be influenced by so that progress can be made in a positive light. I have gained more education on these themes through the Messaging Fashion brief, allowing me to take ideas from all the core aspects of the unit into my next pieces of work. Since we have all been working at home due to Covid-19, learning to work effectively as a group online has been tough and wasn’t effective at the start. However, once we got our heads around it, we were able to create a presentation that was strong. This experience has made me have to be more patient and navigate remotely communicating with people in a professional manner.

At the very beginning of this portrait photography class, I felt eager to diversify my practice. I was keen on learning technical skills, theory, conventions, and how this class might influence how I navigate this messy knot of an industry. I can certainly say at the end of this project, I have shifted the way I see how powerful a portrait can be and the ways in which I can manipulate the camera in order to evoke a meaningful message. Portrait photography has the ability to highlight subtle nuances we may not see at first glance. 

My journey began with reflecting on my own feelings and emotions during the pandemic. Using this time for introspection was something I felt was important in an age like this, and I would frequently have ongoing conversations and debates with my friends regarding mental health and their own experiences during this time. Many are spread out throughout the world, others are just ten minutes away. But with just a quick click of a button, regardless of how far they are, I am able to see their face in the palm of my hand. I can hear their voice, see their facial expressions, and see if I’ve said something that they disagree with from their body language. To be connected in this digital age is something we take for granted, no longer the need for sending lengthy letters or complicated telegrams. For a majority of my conversations with my friends, we all agreed on this – we feel completely overwhelmed by the number of media news outlets we have access too, to a point where it feels drowning. It is a complete data overload, considering how fast case numbers are updated and written about in the press. We all feel lost, and pulled in thousands of different directions. What do we believe, and where do we begin to navigate this daunting path of forming our own opinion? Having these conversations and this continuous reflection assisted me in developing my project. I wanted to express these emotions I was feeling, and really evoke this in a highly considered portrait. When bringing awareness to the medium of my photograph, I wanted to juxtapose the digital age we live in – by presenting my outcome in an analogue style. This doesn’t mean shooting in analogue, it was about making it feel dated and non digital.

In my own personal development, I really valued the lecture which explored portrait photography as a performance, and using the space to bring upon sensory feelings or transport the viewer into a different place and time. As explained in Daniel Treacy’s lecture, “…practitioners transform and blur our understanding of what is reality and fantasy, by incorporating styling, props and set design in quite simplistic ways.

The camera’s position is very important with regards to perspective – the camera becomes a participant in the performative act” (Treacy, 2020). Treacy’s lecture inspired me to challenge myself to capture a moment that considered these factors. I came to understand the real power I have as a photographer behind the lens, and my ability to develop these visualizations.

References: Treacy, D 2020, Performance in Photography, lecture notes, Better Lives Unit FU001708, London College of Fashion, delivered 20 April 2020.

Figure 1. Bloom, J. (2020) Portrait Photography Outcome Better Lives [Photograph]

Navigate Through Clothing is to explore how one can creatively communicate meanings through the visual art medium of clothing.

As a collective group we were given a mind-invigorating introduction to the context of costume design for the performing arts. We started to strategize on how to research, analyse, experiment, test and create a focused concept design development process.

We worked through a segment of text from the story of Hansel and Gretel, and from which, re-interpreted a character of our choice and gave them an imaginative twist inspired by the contemporary political and social matters of diverse world cultures – of these cultures I had picked both Circus Life and the Antarctic to in-cooperate into my character design. From the text I had chosen to work with the Step-Mother as I felt that I could apply my two chosen world cultures well to her mannerisms.

As an individual I created one final character design for the Step-Mother. Within my design I bared in mind the growing area of sustainable costume culture and so introduced many sustainable materials that truly gave my design an eco-correct approach. The project outcome had become something I was extremely proud of personally as I felt that I has fully made use of my research into the Artic and the Circus and made use of this to generate a concept that responded well to the text and brief.

The project outcome has influenced my way of thinking.

The characters and concept sharing during Navigating Through Clothing lectures, as a collective encouraged a circle of trust within each other to listen, explore and obtain new knowledge communally to make pieces of work that can relate to us individually. 

The unit truly gave me a better insight and my lecture environment brought about some Personal Development in collaboratively working on and improving my concepts.

Fashion activism is a depiction on what social change means, and what actions we can implement to make a point. 

As a collective, from Fashion Activism, my group was assigned to create a moving image for a brand, Nubian Skin, and adapt the approach with inclusivity. We started to strategize on what we wanted our message to uphold. Prior to this, we made steps to start our research on the ethos, brand positioning, aesthetics and target consumer on the brand. 

Finding out that, Nubian skin is a lingerie brand, by Ade Hassan, challenged the assumptions on the word “nude”. Which connotates that beige is a tone that blends with all shades, by Expanding the “one dimensional view” on blackness, creating undergarments for minorities. Therefore, made her more determined to cater to people of colour. 

Within my research of the brand, I notice that not all shades of melanin were being promoted, which concerned my views and the beliefs of Nubian skin. I believe that if you’re going to make a brand that is all inclusive, analyse and research each shade of colour to include your target consumer, so they can engage, interact and promote items that ranges for any person, regardless of gender/ colour/ disability or sexuality. 

Continuing to analyse the brand, we decided to gain as much knowledge as possible, independently, to put our own views on the brand, and how we could still keep the same values, but also make it more inclusive to all shades. Collectively, we wanted to Incorporate all of our skill sets (fashion styling, photography, illustration) to create a fresh, new approach to our interpretation of what the brand could be.  From brainstorms, to collages, it was our next step into figuring out what would be included in the moving image.

We created our home video, depicting transparency, diversity, sustainability and no form of discrimination. By changing the narrative of our moving image, we had a male (he/ him/ them) as the main visual. 

Due to my groups research, we evaluated that a males point a view isn’t promoted as much in mainstream media, which forced our ideas to form a new version of life involving a person that has no attachment with media, connoting that any gender, sexuality has a voice, emotions, and is capable of feeling vulnerable and can understand their strengths and weaknesses. 

It promotes a point of view on a person’s transition in life and forcing the viewers eyes to see that we are slaves to society because we uphold the norms/ values that society has set for us to be our norms. However, to the lack of support we get emotionally, for our mental as well as physical health. 

In this project, the outcome influenced by way of thinking. Be transparent with who you are and how you choose to work in groups, evaluate your own opinions and let others have their own, regardless of agreeing to disagree. The framework produced as a group made us gain trust within each other to listen, explore and obtain new knowledge collectively to make a piece of work that can relate to us individually. 

Before the process of my final drawing, I did some illustration exercises after each class. However, I also met with some difficulties. For instance, I followed the instruction of the PowerPoint to use recycle or waste paper like the newspaper to practice drawing, and I found it was too thin to watercolor, especially some parts of my painting should be colored again and again. Then I realized how precious the regular paper we used is, considered the meaning of why we used the recycle stuff to practice or complete the illustration drawing, also more cherish the word ‘sustainability’ meat to be.

I did my final illustration drawing based on the idea of Alexander McQueen’s 2010ss Spring-Summer show. According to the attached picture of the modeling in show, McQueen gave us the answer to how the future of human beings would be. That is: the human will finally about to return to the ocean, which means if the ecosystem or environment on earth is destroyed again, those who were evolved from the sea will be back to their original place eventually. What is more, we can see that McQueen’s consistent theme has been refined into short skirt design – elaborately processed marine reptile print, as well as the outline of the tight waistline and bell-shaped flower skirt. From the initial green and brown, gradually into light green and blue, color in the cushion hip full skirt silhouette staged, decorated, and shaped. Each dress is a combination of computer art and McQueen’s iconic high-end custom-tailoring. Therefore, no matter from the perspective of color or the significance that the designer gave to the show, it is an excellent material for me to complete my final project.

As for further personal development, after complete my final drawing, I think Alexander McQueen’s collection 2010ss is good propaganda to raise the public’s awareness to pay more attention to our earth and the environment. Then I do more research on social media to see what people do to improve sustainable development. In particular, we experienced the latest ‘The World Earth Day’ on the 22nd of April this year, and we can see more and more fashion medium or people who are working in the fashion industry stand and speak for sustainability and social responsibility. For example, Vogue interviewed women who are influential to the fashion industry and listened to them about what challenges and changes will fashion people to be meeting while doing sustainable development.

To conclude, I think all the research and the practice I did allow me to draw a better final illustration work and perceive more that sustainability can be used in any corner of fashion and it’s everyone ’s responsibility to make our society become better.

PROJECT OUTCOMES AND PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

This is the third and final part in my series of blog posts for the Better Lives unit, in this one I will be focusing on the outcome of my project, which was Makeup Breakdown, and what I think I have learned from it. This was my first choice as my project because I wanted to see if I could learn anything new from the practices of the Make-up for Fashion course, as opposed to what I’ve learned so far on Hair, Makeup and Prosthetics for Performance. The result was honestly disappointing, I expected a little more, but I can’t form a full opinion considering we didn’t get to continue the lessons as they were planned, due to the sudden need for remote teaching. The current situation of the world and the order to “shelter in place”, definitely threw a spanner in the works for our project, considering it relied heavily on the university’s supply of products for students who maybe didn’t have access to any at home. For this reason, it was decided that we would create our final designs from non-conventional materials that we had in our homes. Even though I am a makeup student, and therefore own a lot of makeup, I decided to play along with the instructions and I actually got quite excited by one of the looks I created during our first remote lesson, in which we were instructed to create a look using the briefs we’d discussed in class of: imperfection and the fashion mistake.

The problems with this, for me, were that I live in a very, very small place with my boyfriend, so we are forced to only keep what is absolutely necessary and that we were also not given much notice as to what we were supposed to be doing. We were instructed to create two looks in two hours from nothing, which caused me to panic considerably. I ended up printing off some flowers to cut up and stick on my face because I couldn’t think of anything else to do at the time.

Seeing all of my peer’s final designs made me realize how much of a cop-out my work was, and how it wasn’t really in line with the Better Lives themes, as it had had the potential to be. By using the objects in our home, that would have otherwise gone to waste, to create art, we should’ve been representing social responsibility and sustainability. Instead of recycling, I created something new to go to waste because I panicked. My desire to prove myself as an aspiring makeup artist clouded my judgement and I overlooked the point of the exercise. I could have done a lot more if I had been able to keep the project themes in mind.