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At the beginning of this semester, we have a new unit – better lives, which I find quite challenging. In four different lectures I participated in, I learned about the various aspects of the fashion industry and problems in our world. Among these, I am most interested in the theme of society taught by Katelyn Toth-Fejel.

During the lecture, she mentioned many issues which I also pay close attention to throughout my everyday life, in particularly clothing. Nowadays, clothes worn by online influencers and celebrities have great influence on how teenagers dress themselves. They follow trends, hoping to be on the fashion cutting edge. However, the fact that many celebrities wear luxuries, indirectly affects younger generation’s system of values. Instead of showing their characteristics, they think that wearing the same clothes as celebrities and holding the same bags is fashionable. Such an ethos proliferates among young people, who pursue famous brands and buy expensive goods, but many of them are unable to afford such expenditures.

However, some people think that such behaviour is acceptable. They believe that by purchasing luxury goods to enhance their status or to package themselves, they will not be marginalized in society. As Katelyn said, dressing is a social act, where we create a specific identity and communicating things like our personal aesthetic taste beauty or sex appeal. I also agree with her.

Secondly, she also talked about the social problems caused by fast fashion in the fashion industry. Fast fashion is a phrase, which was coined to describe inexpensive clothing produced rapidly by mass-market retailers in response to the latest trends; garments are manufactured cheaply and expected to have a short life.

Fast fashion is a commercial means that must launch new products rapidly and continuously to attract customers to buy. Therefore, large number of factories and workers are required to make clothes. However, these low-level workers’ salary is weak and are the most exploited people in this industry.

Besides, some companies will employ child labour to reduce costs, which is very unethical. Not only do they not have sufficient wages, but they also work overtime. These problems have caused a negative impact on the fashion industry. While some people may find this situation not as serious as they are not the population suffering from this problem, I see it as a human rights violation.

In the lecture, the teacher also mentioned how to combine society and sustainable development. The current environmental pollution is severe; we must start to change our habits and reduce the damage to the environment. Taking the fashion industry as an example, some companies have introduced the use of organic cotton to make clothes, which significantly reduce the pollution caused by growing cotton. At the same time, we can learn to have better understanding of ecological footprint to make smarter choices when consuming goods, therefore, minimize the pollution we create.

In the end, I think these lectures have given me a better understanding of the practical issues, and at the same time, triggered the idea that I want to further research. Fashion is a huge industry, worth exploring and improving.

Out of all of the lectures I attended, my favourite was Katelyn Toth-Fejel’s society talk. I believe that I enjoyed this one the most due to having pure interest in the topic. I thought that the lecture was very informative throughout and interesting. I was able to gain insightful information about the society of fashion. A summary of what I learnt is as follows: The term ‘society’ can be defined by shared interests, shared memberships, and shared cultural values and understandings by a group of people. Everything we do, say and feel can be shaped by our interactions in society. It can be argued that to dress is to perform a social act. By dressing, we are creating and expressing our own individual identity. Additionally, by dressing, we are also communicating our aesthetic taste, beauty, sex appeal, wealth, status and social groups (modesties, religions, ceremonies, rituals). Fashion itself can be defined as a society. The fashion industry as a society has many aspects that are considered unethical. Examples can be fair wages, safe working environments, access to education, equal opportunities, and economic models. However, with all of these taken into consideration, the most talked-about issue with fashion now is ethical clothing.  A topic that is most relevant to this is fast fashion. Fast fashion is essentially inexpensive clothing rapidly produced by mass market retailers at a short expensive. It is incredibly popular with brands turning into franchises due to their successes such as H&M, Primark and Uniqlo. People are more likely to buy from fast fashion brands due to its convenience such as increased access to cheap clothing for consumers. However, fast fashion is deemed unethical today due to its promotion of ‘throwaway clothing culture’ and its exploitation of underpaid workers. Furthermore, there are negative environmental impacts from increased resource use, creating more pollution. Due to these reasons, fast fashion is problematic to today’s society. Katelyn however, mentioned there were strategies that we as a society can use to combat disposable fashion, such as using apps like Depop and Instagram to share, borrow, or swap clothes through second hand selling. She states that brands should focus on creating an ‘experience’ for consumers, for example, by getting audiences excited through the making process. Without these such methods, there will be no ‘hype’ surrounding brands. Hype can be a good way to diffuse disposable fashion, as consumers can be attracted to options other than cheap, affordable fasion. All in all this was a fantastic lecture and extremely informative. 

B

For Better lives I chose Navigating through Clothing, as I have always been curious about the boundaries between fashion styling and costume, and felt this was an opportunity to involve myself in something I wouldn’t usually have the chance to, and to investigate the differences further. Although at first I struggled to directly link the research for this project to the themes, I did find it interesting how factors that play into such themes as diversity, sustainability and power can be translated to something as simple as the story of Hansel and Gretel. In Hansel and Gretel the two children, neglected and starving, are deceived by the all-powerful witch, lured into her candy home and entrapped and manipulated for her own gain (dinner!) It is interesting to interpret such explicit shows of power hierarchies and manipulation within the story, and relate them to the world of power and advertising that I researched prior to the initial lectures.

The more I researched public relations and power structures that we are all implicit in the more I realized the all-encompassing nature of it;  how much we cannot understand, how difficult it is to really see the bigger picture when it surrounds us almost entirely. So much of our lives, from what we eat to what we wear to where we go, what we think of certain public figures, what music we listen to, is impacted on a subconscious level by what we consume daily. The news we see on timelines and the telly is filtered and curated to fit particular needs, our social media timelines shaped to show us what we want to see, to boost success of the corporation.  It’s so easy to see these patterns and tropes in stories, but so difficult in real life.

The more I learnt about translating ideas to stories or applying concepts to characters, the more I began to appreciate storytelling as a means of making information digestible. I decided on the witch as the character for my project, and wanted to play on the idea of deceit and of hiding your true intentions that I found to be prevalent in both the story of Hansel and Gretel and in the lectures that affected my research the most. Here the witch becomes a carrier for the ideas of mass media control and the subliminal messaging that surrounds the modern human.  

During the outbreak of COVID-19, where ‘sympathetic’ corporate messages are plastered everywhere every minute encouraging trust and compassion from consumers as companies are “here to support us during these difficult times”, the idea of something falsely inviting and warm, as the witch so blatantly is, seemed particularly relevant. With her towering, uncanny valley-esque camouflage of badly rendered flesh and realms of soft candyfloss hair, overtly sweet in sprinkles cream and gummy toothed smile, the witch forces herself into an inviting form to tempt, lure and exploit the children. Like her candy house she is built to evoke an empty sense of security. She isn’t a human of course, and she only wants to eat Hansel and Gretel really, but she is half convincing and that is enough for the hungry children.

Despite doing Fashion Journalism as my main course I was always intrigued by Creative Direction so when I was able to study this for just a sliver of time I was elated. Upon first entering the class we were put in task groups; little did I then know that this great group would work to produce a final video we were so very proud of. Better Lives provided a chance to meet new people from other courses, which is always appreciated. Our task was to provide a short video for a brand we were given. Our brand was Emily Bode; I had never heard of this brand before, so it was exciting to discover the intricate details of its background and aesthetic. Emily Bode is a menswear clothing brand, the garments are focused on tradition and her own background.  

We knew we wanted to create a video that was very authentic to the brand, our initial ideas were focused on nature and rural settings. We did not have any Emily Bode clothing to present in our video, so the brand aesthetic had to be reflected everywhere else. Teamwork was a key factor from the beginning, but these foundations were made a thousand times stronger when the Coronavirus changed our work environment. Our communication was tested as we were limited to only talking through online means. However, whilst challenging, it struck a real sense of comradery within the group. I believe the effects of the Coronavirus on my work ethic will be long lasting, intertwined with this project I have learned what it truly is to work as a team. Instead of being affected negatively by this disease, we worked even harder to produce a project of the highest quality. 

Our final video consisted of various footage filmed in nature by each group member. I chose to film swans on the lake and lamb running freely in the field, believing this represents Emily Bode’s theme of natural settings.  

Overall Better Lives has shown me the work that goes into making a project such as an advert, especially in this complicated time. Working with other creatives will provide me with contacts for life, it has allowed me to think in other ways and develop new skills. 

Out of all the blog posts I have read and looked at, I decided to write a peer review on Imogen Haggath’s third blog post.

In this blog post Imogen wrote about how they are a hair and makeup student just like myself, but the difference is Imogen is a hair and makeup student for fashion whereas I am a hair, makeup and prosthetics student for theatre and performance. I really liked how they differentiated the two, which showed a great amount of understanding that Imogen had for both courses, I also found it quite interesting how Imogen, as a fashion makeup student decided to further their knowledge, by picking a course so similar to their own when they could have chosen something completely different, which would have given them a different perspective of another courses like, mask making, fashion styling and more.

Within Imogen’s blog post about makeup for performance, they wrote about the character idea that they had, and wanted to create, explaining how, this character would look and how they would have adapted to their surroundings e.g. adapted to a world or environment where the sun has damaged their skin, which makes me think of how some lizards and animals have adapted to dessert like environments. Imogen also talked about a peers piece of work, a mermaid that has evolved into having hair, which wouldn’t be necessary some thought as hair is not needed under the sea, with their evidence being that fish do not have hair.

These Ideas and character designs that Imogen and their peers came up with are incredibly detailed and out of the box, it shows how much research and thought has gone into their work, which thoroughly explores sustainability.

However, as Imogen was not able to actually make their ideas come to life on an actual model, I believe if they got the chance to, that’s where they could explore diversity and culture a bit more, This can be explored when it comes to picking a model to present their work. Imogen could either pick models that come from areas where the sun is quite harsh around them (Or an area where global warming has effected the most), which would further show how people from hot countries have adapted with their sun damaged appearance becoming an addition to their culture and a new way of life, or Imogen could choose a model that’s from a colder area, to show how they would have adapted to being exposed to a hotter environment without having the cultural knowledge to prevent themselves from burning in the sun.

Overall, I really liked Imogen’s, character design and I would really love to see it come to life. Their views and ideas on adaptability and sustainability has really opened my eyes to more, then just scratching the surface of what I can do.

Imogen’s blog post

As a Fashion Styling and Production student, we have to do research, concept, development, and styling for the project, or and collaboration with other people, that is the responsibility of fashion stylist and I found a strong connection from Better Lives lecture. I like the words from Walter Lippman said in collaboration slide, “When all think alike, then no one is thinking” Because this is the hardest thing to solve during collaboration, but independence and transparency can solve this quote. Independence is important because I think people have to think individual first to make ideas and speak out when we start doing collaboration so people cannot think alike and work like a robot, and another word transparency, this means feedback and discussion and debate should be open, so everyone has the responsibility of joining in the group. And now, let’s talk about how collaboration can change the styling. First of all, why collaboration is important because collaboration can support each other, such as collaboration with photographer, famous model, singer, brands, designer, hair makeup, makeup and more and more and also sharing ideas. But it is hard to collaborate with people because all people have different thinking and all people do not agree one thing or people doubt other people’s work, so how can we solve that situation? It is transparency, trust. So, the main question, why collaboration is important for fashion styling? I think it is because collaboration can use other skills from other professional and it can make personal connections to the future, and this Better Lives lecture taught me to trust people who will go to work with and discussion if I want to debate. To be open mind, do not be scared to speak out and trying my best to work together, think together, always remembering Why and do some meaningful and life-changing experiences in the collaboration project in the future.

I write this as the Better Lives course draws to a close, whilst doing so I recall all that I have learnt throughout its duration; how this new information will shape the way I think about the fashion industry forever. Better Lives has given me a new insight into the inner workings of the fashion industry.

When one initially thinks about fashion, stylish luxurious garments and glamorous models spring to mind yet there are so many more aspects. Better Lives has provoked a wave of new questions, like where are these luxurious garments being made? Why are the majority of these models white size zero women? Am I unknowingly being emotionally manipulated by brands to buy their clothes? Now that last one may seem a little farfetched, but after listening to Lorraine Gamman’s lecture on Empathy you too will be wondering the same.

The theme that I had chosen to study was fashion activism. I learned most importantly that teamwork is the most important factor, for creative direction requires many people in order to produce something great. Creative direction provides a closer look into brands and their ethos, in order to produce content for a brand you must consider their brand aesthetic. How many brand advertisements does the average person unconsciously come across every day? Do they stop to think about the process that went into making that billboard or that YouTube video; I for one did not, until learning about creative direction. Better Lives has made me think a lot more, past the surface level of words, people, corporations and the industry.

Throughout all the lectures I noticed certain themes were always present, diversity and sustainability. These issues were present in every lecture, even when not directly addressed, this has shown how important they have become to the industry and its growth. I am sure that all I have learnt in Better Lives will linger with me, especially in the way I work, for a lot later to come.

Empathy should be a key factor in determining the personality of a fashion brand, their designs and the way they communicate their vision and ideas. Lorraine Gamman’s lecture, Empathy, truly broadened my horizons and made me have a better understanding on how psychology and fashion fuse together, as well as the importance of taking empathic design decisions.

Art in all forms is created by people to people. However, in order for a fashion statement to have a visible impact, it needs to be clearly addressed to a certain community of individuals.  Ranging from celebrating an underground subculture, to combating gender inequality or to sending political messages, the art who is wanted to emerge to the top needs to deliver a strong message.

But what is the meaning of empathy in the process of creation? I believe that in order to understand a community’s needs, one needs to fully engage with its members. Only then, a designer, communicator or photographer can feel what the bigger purpose of a underground societies is. By embracing a group’s real wishes and desires and transposing them onto a piece of fabric, reconstructing and rethinking how personal messages can be sculpted, fashion can become an authentic method of representation.

Unfortunately, because of  materialistic motivations that fuels a variety of designers, the pure intention of promoting a glimpse of culture, or tackling serious political issues can degenerate into an idea that simply sells itself out. Diversity turns into tokenism, underground becomes mainstream and suddenly ego driven individuals are rapidly hopping on the “niche” and emerging trends that loose more and more bits of their identity.

One example concerning this situation is what followed UK’s “Second Summer of Love”. Investors of all types saw great potential of gaining profits, but the Smiley Face that appeared on pre-made tie dye T-shirts was one of the signs that unfortunately announced the beginning of the end. Cash started flowing, followed by a massive increase of uneducated people (for that specific context) attending events, who did not fully understand how to respect the culture.

Moreover, the same exact concept emerged at companies such as Zara and H&M regarding pieces of clothing with the name and aesthetic of alternative bands, building a superficial category of people who wear a Guns’n Roses graphic hoodie without knowing who Axl Rose is.

Fortunately, it is not to say that there is no respect for culture anymore. Companies such as Nike are making great steps regarding empathy by including a Hijab for muslim women who practice sports, as well as Alexander McQueen’s SS show from 1999 portraying society’s perception of women in the past.

To conclude, this lecture really made me think about how important it is to make empathic decisions in order to celebrate and preserve culture effectively.

Being a student at LCF, it is clear that the environment I’m part of is extremely considerate towards all types of differences. It’s widely agreed that, because of the fact that we live more and more diverse lives in multicultural cities, we have to adapt our individuality so as to be able to accept new, uncommon perspectives.

The question is, how can we integrate people that differ so much from eachother organically? The answer to this question isn’t that simple. Although the Better Lives lessons offered me a new perspective regarding these concepts, I believe that sometimes pioneers from the fashion industry have an artificial, almost tokenistic take on how to integrate minorities. Moreover, some minorities are taken into consideration more than other, especially individuals considered as “different” by the masses, but still live a privileged life.

In my opinion, one of the hardest things to achieve about integrating change refers to opting for the right nuances. Time has shown us that making people feel special is inherently wrong and reduces a person’s personality to a word that says nothing. Even hearing the words “you are special, you are loved” projects a utopian, unrealistic state of mind. How are we supposed to be special and loved if everybody is – unless, obviously, humanity were built on love.

A considerable mistake made by actors of any scale is the following – giving power to the word <<different>>. It is only fair to acknowledge the fact that people are stand out because of differences, but, following the same rhetoric as above, if everybody has differences, do they truly exist? And even if they did exist, how fair is it to build an entire culture around one aspect of one’s life, later on to build personality traits and impose them on large numbers of individuals? Even if the intentions are pure – integrating different people and their culture, just considering that all different people can be labelled into this huge crate of “difference” only aids to creating stereotypes.

For example, I am gay, but rarely feel comfortable to talk about this because I feel that it says absolutely nothing about me. Because people would associate a man having a relationship with another man to listening to Lady Gaga and Britney Spears, watching Rue Paul’s Drag Race and attending the Pride every year. There’s really absolutely nothing wrong with doing all of those activities, the two singers represent icons, the show is glamorous and the Pride is very important, but people can start feeling that they do not really belong to a certain community when they do not tick those boxes. LGBT+ people come in any colour, shape or size and it is important to be mindful of these factors.

I believe that the only way to integrate difference is to listen to each and every <<different>> voice about what integration means to them. Some people need help and assistance, whereas others might want to go unnoticed in the crowd. At the end of the day, we are all humans and the breaking of these social barriers should come naturally.

In Better lives unit, sustainability, diversity and social responsibility as three main themes has been concretely discussed in different sessions. I soon realized that more and more fashion workers nowadays have devoted all their energies and time to stimulating the development of fashion system. All of those examples are acting as a proper guidance for all fashion students and engaging us more in exploring sustainable fashion.

Fashion designers have gradually conceived some new ideas to appeal for sustainability in fashion industry. Vivienne Westwood as one of the successful brand founders has introduced the conception of “recycle”, “green”, and “animal care” into her design in last twenty years. For instance, Westwood has produced a bag collection entitled “Handmade with Love.” The products were created by local artisans in African under fair and ethical conditions, using recycled materials such as canvas, re-purposed roadside banners and brass (Veridiano, 2018), which is consistent with brands’ approach that “We aim to make the most of the resources that go into our products, reusing, recycling and reimagining as we go.” (Vivienne Westwood, 2020) Except well-known designers, numerous brands are making arduous efforts on selling sustainable goods. The footwear manufacturer Allbirds takes advantage of natural resources like wool, bean oils, and cardboard to improve ecosystem.(Allbirds, 2020) Everybody.World builds the brand with the slogan “From our Trash Tee, Made from 100% Recycled Cotton to the Contributor Collection.” (Everybody.World, 2020)

As more brands raises awareness towards sustainability, fashion industry comes the revolution.

The first reform is the ideological transformation. For me, above samples highlight the importance on choosing materials. As a fashion media student, I should select all mediums with carefulness in the future. Before starting any projects, I have the duty to check whether it is a recyclable material. If not, is it possible for me to choose similar resources instead?Also, observing surroundings and looking for waste that closes to hand is another approaches to set the work. Nowadays, more and more artists are turning junks into glorious creature. One of the typical example is the “Wild Mood Swing” that created by Tim Noble and Sue Webster. Although the sculpture is made of garbages, the outcome powerfully enhanced their values by transferring the abstract form into essence.(Artsper Magazine, 2020) Therefore, reinterpreting and reusing available materials may offer surprise for fashion workers.

Another remarkable reform is the branding. Similar with most of fashion students, I would like to set up my own brand and studio. In this way, brand identity and mission appears to be particularly important. As what Allbirds and Everybody. World suggest, selecting natural resource without exploiting people nor planet should be consider as my primary brand ethos. Furthermore, many brands like Levis, Madewell are continuously recycling the vintage fashion in decades and reconditioning into latest trend. At the same time of realizing sustainability, the enterprise that operating selling and recycling as a integration have a competitive advantage, which goes against market of Fast Fashion.

All in all, there are already some fashion brands act as predecessor to corresponding with better fashion system. Their actions affect both my learning process and further planning in a positive direction. In a long term, better lives theme can reshape my views and values in an eye of fashion.

Bibliography:

Artsper Magazine. 2020. 10 Artists Working In Recycled Art | Artsper Magazine. [online] Available at: https://blog.artsper.com/en/get-inspired/top-10-of-recycled-art/ [Accessed 3 May 2020].

Allbirds. 2020. Carbon Footprint For Shoes | Our Sustainability Approach | Allbirds. [online] Available at: https://www.allbirds.com/pages/sustainability [Accessed 3 May 2020].

EVERYBODY.WORLD. 2020. About Us. [online] Available at: https://everybody.world/pages/about [Accessed 3 May 2020].

Veridiano, R., 2020. Vivienne Westwood: Activist Or Queen Of Greenwash? — Remake. [online] Remake. Available at: https://remake.world/stories/news/vivienne-westwood-denounces-her-new-documentary-for-not-telling-her-activist-story-but-do-her-actions-speak-as-loud-as-her-words/ [Accessed 3 May 2020].

WWW.VIVIENNEWESTWOOD.COM. 2020. Our Approach | Vivienne Westwood. [online] Available at: https://www.viviennewestwood.com/zh/our-approach/ [Accessed 3 May 2020].