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How is it that we’ve lost control despite being in control?  

Throughout the series of Better Lives lectures, I have learnt so much that is concealed within the fashion industry in the 21^st century and become more aware of things I knew existed but not to the intensity of which they do. Julia Crew’s lecture on ‘Power’ was one of the most influential and awakening to me, as it directed the fashion industry back to the consumer, reinforcing the fact that if we don’t make a change, the planet will continue to die while simultaneously exploiting those working within the industry. Being a part of the youthful generation today, I feel our need for belonging as a generation is highly influencing the way we see fashion due to the rise of the influencer culture and social media demands. Whether you adhere to it or not, there is a pressure to form our own identities which we express everyday through a conscious choice we make every morning when dressing ourselves. As a result of this culture and the accessibility to fast fashion, it becomes easy to discard the consequences we are causing.

The powerful ideology of consumerism: How to ‘do your bit’: 

I have learnt that as consumers, we have the power. For every item we purchase, we cast a vote to support the designer/ brand or trend. Without us, the fashion industry would be reshaped; but perhaps this wouldn’t be so bad? With 100 billion garments being produced annually, and 75% of this figure ending up incinerated or thrown into landfill, it is time to fix this broken fashion system.

Through our current consumer culture, we often withhold the desire and ability to live beyond basic needs; it is easy to seek happiness through consumption, proven with the number of garments purchased from the average consumer increasing by 60%. As a result, we have lost sight of the cultural influences behind what we are wearing. Fast fashion does not value the ideas behind a piece of clothing; where it is from and its past story, our identities and ideas or relationships and emotions. Cultures are exploited and uncredited, while the culture we are a part of supports this.   

With the up rise of social media over the past ten years, figures show the average American is exposed to 4,000 – 10,000 Ads per day; the volume and speed of advertising is greater than ever before, exposing consumer consumption to be the main driving force of the unsustainable faulty system, resulting in the industry being driven by economics rather than creativity. Our power as a consumer is essentially the last resort, our involvement within the fashion industry is bigger than we know meaning change is down to us as we are the ones driving these unsustainable trends. Small changes can be made to improve the lives of those who are being exploited and the life of our planet earth. We have less than 10 years to change the damage we have caused. Lowering our consumption of fashion products and recycling/ purchasing from charity shops is one of the easiest changes that can be made. Casting your vote through purchase to an organization that exploits no one and is focused on bettering lives will speak volumes within the industry.  

Our current culture is the future. We must credit cultures around us and creativity from the past in order to end the focus being economically driven. Fashion can be inclusive to sustainability and empathetic towards the planet, whilst allowing us to assert our power through what and who we choose to support through purchase. The Better Lives lectures have strongly influenced my thinking through the current statistics and will remain in my conscious mind moving forward in the industry. 

By Grace Robertson

Bibliography:

Sustainability.uq.edu.au. (2020). Fast fashion quick to cause environmental havoc. [online] Available at: https://sustainability.uq.edu.au/projects/recycling-and-waste-minimisation/fast-fashion-quick-cause-environmental-havoc [Accessed 27 Feb. 2020].

Having been lucky enough to receive a privileged upbringing and generally being personally unaffected by the most pressing societal issues, social responsibility was the theme that initially jumped out at me as the one I could engage with most effectively. I was particularly taken with the ‘Making for Change’ initiative that Claire Swift touched upon in her lecture. This is certainly something I would like to engage with in future, predominantly because this is an obvious way that I can put my privilege to use to help others; others ways were not as simple as it is educational rather than monetary. I think the fact that it is with female prisoners makes it all the more worthy as they are such an overlooked sect of society, as is much of the population within correctional facilities naturally because they are by definition out of sight for the mainstream. This relates to a crucial point that Lorraine Gamman touches on in her lecture on empathy while referencing the writing Roman Krznarick. He wrote ‘empathy withers and dies when we fail to acknowledge the humanity of other people’ (Krznarick 2014), and this is a prominent issue for the prison population who, being that step removed from society, are often reduced to a statistic. This interest is certainly not true altruism on my part though, I am sceptical that exists at all. I believe that ‘the creative journey enables reflection and provides a safe space to evaluate life’ (Albertson, in Wilkinson 2015). Therefore while operating in the creative realm of empathy, you are not only helping the less fortunate party but opening the door to significant personal and artistic growth for yourself, a suspicion affirmed in this project by the student response. Something that I feel I have only truly appreciated since I started my higher education is that beauty is authenticity, whether that be the pureness of simplicity or the intricacy of complexity. This makes it apt that the inmates are weaving as I imagine that many of their stories revolve around hardship, and it takes a certain level of detail to truly forget the prejudice and engage with their real, human stories instead. As it is ‘the art of stepping imaginatively into the shoes of another person, understanding their feelings and perspectives and using that understanding to guide your actions’, empathy can also then be evoked through artwork and thus a third party, the viewer, enters into this beneficial cycle. My conclusion is then that the project is a win-win-win situation. I also found that this seemed to overlap organically with the other themes, for example the up cycling of waste bound high vis vests, not to mention the boundary breaking inclusivity of the concept.

Krznarick, R. (2014). The Empathy Instinct [p. 38]. London: Rider Books.

Krznarick, R. (2014). The Empathy Instinct [p. 42]. London: Rider Books.

Throughout the Better Lives unit series, we discussed important socio-political issues that concern the fashion industry. The lectures were engaging and helped us, the first year students, understand the impact of fashion in a more authentic manner. Having an open discussion during the lectures exposed me to the ideologies that are not only ingrained in fashion but also how as a society we perceive and consume fashion and media. The lecture that stood out to me was on representation. As a person of colour who grew up in a society which preferred white skin to brown, I believe it is important that we change the traditional standard of beauty. This type of change happens when we have open discussions and exchange of ideas like the lecture on ‘Representation’ delivered by Teleica Kirkland. 

This lecture helped me understand how the fashion industry still drives a Eurocentric image in advertising and media. Despite a need and want for more diversity somehow major fashion brands use people of colour simply for tokenism diversity. Kirkland goes on to explain how whitewashing is prominent in industry and people with lighter skin are preferred. This is due to two reasons one being the history of advertisement. Products and services were marketed to “white families and people” as they were assumed to be wealthier and the targeted audience for the products. The other reason is the deep-rooted racism in society. To date, Eurocentric features are seen to be more “beautiful” or “attractive” by us. Features such as plump lips or wide hips which naturally occur in black and brown women are perceived to be more appealing on a white woman.

This leads to the topic of cultural appropriation and appreciation. Kirkland discusses how various brands and celebrities are ignorant of other societies and races cultures. This she says stems from a place of power and privilege, many of the people producing these advertisements and products are unaware of the history behind the culture they are ripping off. This sense of ignorance and entitlement makes them appropriate culture without any regard to how it will be noticed by the people of those societies. While on one hand culture appropriation is still is popular, due to globalisation various artists can draw inspiration from other cultures and integrate that into their work in a respectful manner. For example, a project by the company Wafrica which merged the Japanese culture of kimonos with the African textiles. He did this with sensitivity to the Japanese heritage and his personal experience while living in Japan (Jewell, 2018). With us approaching in a new wave of fashion it is important to remodel what we perceive to be attractive and fashionable. The fashion industry has a social responsibility to its consumers and must hold themselves at a higher standard than they do right now and be the change in society that leads us all to a more diverse and inclusive society.

Jewell, C. (2018). Wafrica: exploring identity through design. [online] www.wipo.int. Available at: https://www.wipo.int/wipo_magazine/en/2018/06/article_0004.html [Accessed 1 Mar. 2020].

‌ Kirkland, T. (2020) ‘ Representation’ [Lecture]. Better Lives, London College of Fashion, 26 February.

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  The better lives lectures has explored into several aspects in both macro and micro ways and conveyed the idea of fashion should be existing with a better world. The lecture discussed about how world is strongly affected by fashion activities and this made me think more about my own future practice as well. Although the awareness in sustainability of fashion has increased, there were little changes in reality. The social and environmental problems are still worsening. This leads us to think about the causes of all these issues and who should be taking responsibilities for. It could be the brands, the consumers, the producers, the stakeholder, or the governments. The issue goes across many topics such as global wealth, inequality, overconsumption, the power of media, politics and protest. According to Orsola de Castro, Fashion Revolution, “fashion is very individual but it is a manifestation of the culture that we live in and often of who we want to be, how we want to be seen by the rest of the world. And that is its power.” This suggested that fashion could linked with power vey directly and has been a medium to visually communicate power for centuries. For example, this could be presented in royalty, politics, business, media, music or even military power. Often power equals to finance, simply saying, the power is showed with the money. This could connect back to s previous concept – wealth and poverty. In this fashion industry, on the opposite of wealth, people who are in the lower “position” eventually are enslaved in some ways. According to the statistics, nearly six of the world’s twenty richest people run companies that sell huge volumes of clothing. What’s more, tens of millions of people are employed by the process of making clothes and do not earn enough for paying life’s basic necessities. In this extreme situation, it takes four days for a CEO from one of the four top brands to earn what a Bangladeshi garment worker will earn in her lifetime. After all, the chairman of Nike, Phil Knight has a net worth of $30.4 billion and Tadashi Yanai who is the founder of fast retailing has a net worth of $26.9 billion. These all explained the situation well and these are just a part of the examples of the chairman and CEO who are at the perky top of the industry. There are so many rich who are involved in this business. 

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  Other part of the lecture talked about the classic problem in sustainability in fashion – sustainability. This topic is clearly associated with our theme “Better lives” very tightly if we look into the environmental aspect. Fashion we make and consume is harmful to both people and the planet. Kawamura argued that fashion and clothing are distinct concepts – fashion is immaterial and clothing is material in 2005. Fashion is an expression of both the material culture and non-material culture because it’s not just about what we wear, consume or take with, it is about identities, ideas, emotions, creativity and relationships. Consumer culture suggests that people’s presence are displayed through self identities, relationships with others and selves, material objects and with nature. Practices and habits have become problematic in fashion because of the uncertainty related with cultural symbols. For instance, shall we maintain the cultural heritage, the craftsmanship and skills? Meanwhile, fashion is also made from nature. It’s dependent on land, water, air animal, in other words, our human natural resources. Overconsumption causes large amounts of waste in the fashion industry. 

  In my own future practice, I would definitely be cautious on the material I use and rethink about the waste that would be thrown away. This cause burden to the earth although it seemed that my individual effects could be minor but it takes every creative practitioners to make effort and put thinking to it. For example, how to achieve your result with more recycled materials and less waste of energies like electricity, water, or cloth? It is unavoidable to expend materials but perhaps rethink about whether the materials can be reused or transformed into other products or objects. Technologies and internet has great revolutionary changes in ways people interact, communicate and collaborate in a massive scale. Certainly to say, we can also utilize new technologies to alter how we work. Not just to increase efficiency but also with the saving of energy and natural resources.

Reference: 

• Fashion Revolution. (2020). Buy Fanzine #001: MONEY FASHION POWER – Fashion Revolution. [online]Available at: https://www.fashionrevolution.org/resources/fanzine/ [Accessed 29 Feb. 2020].
• Oxfam International. (2020). Richest 1 percent bagged 82 percent of wealth created last year – poorest half of humanity got nothing | Oxfam International. [online] Available at: https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2018-01-22/richest-1-percent-bagged-82-percent-wealth-created-last-year [Accessed 29 Feb. 2020].

I attended the fashion and well-being lecture on 17^th February, which focused on the general concept of well-being and contextualised its importance in fashion. With the promotion of well-being as the focus of the 2018 Copenhagen Youth Fashion Summit and the estimated worth of the current global wellness market being $4.2 trillion dollars, and growing fast, the concept couldn’t be any more apt. Positive Psychology is the root of well-being and by using psychological theory, research and intervention techniques we can then begin to understand the positive, creative and emotional elements of human behaviour- or in other words one’s well-being. According to Seligman (1992) individuals are no longer passive vessels responding to stimuli, instead they are decision makers with choices and preferences, who control their own well-being- making them subjective. This feeds into the idea that there are two theories of well-being- Hedonic well-being (subjective) and Eudaimonic well-being (psychological). 

Hedonic well-being consists of changing one’s being for the ‘better’. This is done by maximising positive affect, reducing negative affect and generally increasing life satisfaction. The Pleasant Life (PA) model includes this idea of having as many pleasures as possible and in the context of fashion, Hedonic Treadmill theory can be applied- this is the notion that the person needs to keep consuming more and more in order to maintain this same level of happiness. But this provokes the question is more always better? The paradox of choice states maximising choice, maximises freedom but by maximising choice that increases the decision making required to reach a final decision. Therefore, choice then can have a negative effect as it produces paralyses- you may become less happy with the choice made and, in the future, you then have higher and potentially more unrealistic expectations. 

Eudaimonic well-being is the idea that in order to change one’s well-being for the better one needs to seek self-actualisation and cooperate in meaningful experiences that enable personal growth. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs can be applied here as according to Maslow, we have five categories of needs: physiological, safety, love, esteem and self-actualisation and in order to progress to the higher needs within the hierarchy one needs to feel they have sufficiently satisfied the previous need. This reiterates the concept that one needs to experience things in order to progress. 

In the context of fashion- fashion has the ability to enhance an individual’s well-being. For example, clothing choices play a pivotal role in identity formation and consumers with stronger materialistic bias use clothing for impression management, to convey success and to receive happiness from it. Additionally, organisations within the fashion industry have the ability to enhance employee’s well-being. This is by allowing creativity and flow which increases motivation and thus positive emotions. Conclusively, from this lecture I learned that well-being plays an important role within day to day life and that an individual can be detrimentally effected if their well-being isn’t fulfilled.  

My favourite lecture was the one which explored power in fashion by Julia Crew. The key reason is because I appreciated how the lecture was structured and how the aspect of power is extremely relevant in every aspect of the industry, yet it is key what you choose to do with the power. I especially enjoyed the fragment on power and media as I was extremely shocked by how much power advertisement has over our spending. In the lecture Julia said that power of media is important as it helps sell to others, however I question what if it is helping us sell the wrong things? In a text called ‘The whites of their eyes: Racist ideologies and the media’ Stuart Hall raised a few alarming points such as the fact media is never free because it is coming from an individual with an opinion there for it is skewed.  I think because of the fact media is always going to be skewed as people are responsible for posting/ sharing the media online we need to make sure we are being  socially conscious and ethical when we do so, and as people simply coming across the media we need to acknowledge that not everything we see/ read is a fact and that we must stay true to our beliefs and be open minded when we do so. Another key aspect of the lecture that I enjoyed was the idea of power and protest as I think as a consumer we have the power to make a stand for what we believe in and the a lot of the time we tend to do this through our clothing and how we dress. A key example of this is the mothers of plaza de mayo who in protest for their children going missing during the dirty war wore a white shawl over their heads. I think this related back to Julia’s lecture where she mentioned utilising the power of media.

Another key lecture that I was fond of was by Katelyn Toth- Fejel where she looked at sustainability and the society. I felt as though I really understood the metaphor she made about fashion not being a car or machine and that you can’t just change a singular part and hope the whole system works better. I think the aspect that a lot of people don’t realise is that you need to change the entire system. Carolyn Mair wrote a text on the psychology of fashion which in my opinion really related to the idea of consumerism as it discussed the social compensation theory which states that our success is based on where we see others as we aspire to surpass them. This makes us believe that sustainability is near to impossible when individuals have this mentality. Relating back to the idea of machine parts, if everyone’s mindset is a machine part the system is bound to fail as it is impossible to change all these people’s mind sets.

In conclusion, I found the better lives unit insightful so far as it’s given me perspective on ways I can strive to be a more ethical practitioners within my own field. I think its also expanded my knowledge of issues relevant issues in the fashion industry allowing me to form and strong opinion on said issues.

Over the past two weeks, London College of Fashion first year students have had to attend three lectures per week on various subjects relating to sustainability in fashion. These lectures were very interesting and I thoroughly enjoyed each of them. I also appreciated the opportunity to listen to these lectures and that a school so focused and integrated into the fashion industry is teaching its students the importance of building a sustainable future within fashion and its notoriously unsustainable industry. Two lectures that really stood out to me and impacted my way of thinking were the ones on power and empathy. 

The power lecture touched on the difference between the influence of the producer versus the consumer in a very interesting way. More than a quarter of the worlds richest people in the world run companies that sell clothing, and in 4 days those people earn what a Bangladeshi garment worker makes in their lifetime. Yet there is also an upper hand of power within the consumers, with the power of the dollar we can choose who we want and don’t want to support. And historically we have put brands out of business from a simple boycott from their goods. Ivanka Trump, for example, had workers living in poverty and violating women’s rights, customers chose not to buy her products and because of this retailers stopped selling her label at their stores and her company eventually went under. The power of the media also has a massive influence on this. We see thousands of advertisements everyday, and with social media, our perspectives and opinions are constantly shifting and being moulding by those we choose to follow.

The second lecture that really spoke to me was the lecture on empathy. The speaker talked about the importance of integrating empathy into the design aspect of making just about anything. Designers should put themselves into the shoes of the consumer and understand their standpoint. There was an interesting example given about creating bags that are “pickpocketing” proof, so the designers spoke to thieves about their methods, and designed the bags accordingly. The speaker also made some other interesting points about empathy, that it is only used when there is an opportunity for profit to be made. When I heard this I automatically thought about Fenty makeup, and how it was really the first brand to include a copious amount of darker shades of foundation. Then when the brand became really popular, it was like every other brand hopped on the band wagon and started to do the same – even though for years people were criticizing these brands for their lack of inclusivity in makeup.

These lectures were very informative, and I think that the college did a great job on including various other subject matters. I believe that it is extremely important as young creatives to take these matters into consideration not only through our learning but also into our future careers to make a difference in fashion.

Better Lives unit lectures that I have seen so far in some way made me think a lot about little and big things that are happening and has happened in the world. I decided to watch them all, they all unique and interesting in its own way. I think there were more than few lectures that affected my thinking and my feelings.

Here are two that made me think and made me feel.

Fashion Sustainability and Culture lecture by Anna Fitzpatrick made it clear how deep we felt into over consumption and pollution. She made a point about that these days generation can make changes in today’s fashion. Sustainability is not something that is necessary good for the world we live in only because the number of natural sources that are need for more sustainable fabric and products are sometimes twice as much as to make a synthetic fabric. Nowadays fast fashion industry makes us buy more things then before. In my opinion it is due to people being on social media too much and living in that world till it becomes your reality. Because there is nothing out there that makes you happy these days, it is mostly work-home-work lifestyle. People also feel that they are underpaid and underappreciated so that they reward themselves with new things as compensation. I am one of them individuals that does a non-individual thing by buying things that I might not ever use. Recently I started a new way of shopping, I remind myself that I had this specific cup in a past or I used to have something like this cup and where it ended up in the end. Do I need a new one but different colour to make me feel complete? The answer to that is – No! So I put that cup back and carry on with my life knowing that my cupboard has enough of those cups.

 I like the fact that Better Lives unit encourages us to make a diverse, sustainable and socially responsible fashion. I do try to donate most of my unwanted clothes to charities or giving it away to my friends. Talking about clothing, I was fascinated about Inclusion lecture by Laura Salisbury. She works with real people who are stroke survivors. Her Smart Fabric facilitates the recovery of the upper limb function, which is an absolute brilliant and amazing thing to do for people with that condition. In her lecture there was a video of deaf people not being able to experience an orchestra music. The piece of garment that is in the video is The Sound Shirt that helps deaf person to experience music through touch sensations of all the musical instruments that are used in that specific orchestra piece. While I was watching the video it made me cry, it is amazing that there are people who care about others with disabilities, that make fashion inclusive and inspire others to create garments like this. It is truly fascinating. Overall Better Lives unit tells you that fashion is not just a catwalk and weird designs made by crazy people it is a way of sending the message/making a statement through the work of art by creating and trying to show the world what is happening  behind the curtains what lies beneath it. Things that you wouldn’t usually pay attention to or dare to ask. Unless you are a curious one

Through the lecture, it really made me have a think of the power within the industry and how it has affected the people from varied fields in different positions. First of all, the lecture started with the power of fashion. Fashion is what I approach daily and maybe I am so used to it that I almost oversee the meaning that it brings and the language behind it. Clothing itself is a silent but very powerful visual mark of identity. It can visually represent our status, position, ethnicity and specialty. Thus, what we wear stand for who we are.

Moving on to the power of money. There are 75 billion human beings on Earth. Within the 75 billion people, the property of 64 people is equal to 3.5 billion people’s estate. A CEO simply needs 4 days to earn the same amount of money that a worker earns for his whole life. In the industry, the rich gets richer but those from the bottom of the production line are still in a poor condition. Apparently, the earning money is not being shared equally. I would say the companies should reconsider the pay of the workers. However, the politicians and manufacturers say to raise the wage of the workers will have great impact on the economic system of a country. Even though I still think there must be a way to solve the problem if those who have the power can try to put humility in the first place instead of profit.

The power of media is extremely influential to the society nowadays. Advertisements can be seen everywhere. On social media, there are not only advertisements but also influencers who make their audience want to purchase products they show in their posts. This situation results in the massive consumption of clothing. I suggest the influencers should use their influential power to disseminate better options of consuming.

Power does not only come from the head leaders of the industry. Customers can also make their voice through the product they purchase. Each product a customer buys will decide the trend. The companies listen to their customers so we should be more thoughtful when we buy things since that is the chance for us to use our power. Consumer boycott is another way for consumers to use their power. When there are any inappropriate conditions of a brand, the consumers can say no to it through a boycott in order to let the brand face the problem improve itself. Protests is a more extreme way to amply thoughts. Through protests, people push pressure on the government and the industry to oversee their moves. Throughout all, it all starts with personal act. One might seem small but never neglect the power of an individual. As a student of fashion photography, I should be aware of the meaning expressed through the images. Changing consumer’s buying behavior and their attitudes toward fashion consumerism will be key factors to consider about.