Week Twelve: Finishing up and Presentations

Videos of my SketchUp model I've been working on over the weekend:

• SketchUp model film trial 1
• Final SketchUp model video

Below is the final story to be read over the top of the video playing:

80% off all designer brands! Opens at 9am!

8:15 am: There’s a mad rush to the small pop-up store downtown. Queues are backed up to the corner of the street. The line of people is buzzing, with excitement in the air. A tall, well-put-together woman, stands at the front of the line, eye-balling anyone who dares step in front of her. Behind her, is her spoilt son aged 8. The mother is a hard-working lady, with a full-time job, she often doesn't have much time for her child, but makes up for this with gifts of expensive designer clothing and spending money for the weekends. However, this will affect him in the future more than she realises.

9:01am: She's impatiently waiting for the store to open, when a woman on the inside steps forward to unlock the doors. As soon as they open, the mother strides forward with her son in tow. She reaches the nearest rack of clothes and starts filing through them. 

"No. No. No... Ah yes this would be great for me."

She keeps going, pulling t-shirts, shorts, skirts, dresses off the rack and throwing them at the hands of her child. 

"Right, go try on those while I try on these then we will meet back at the next rack."

She walks promptly to the changing rooms and shuts the door. As she turns, she notices something scrawled across the changing room mirror, 

"Clothes for $4 are too expensive for me” (RT Documentary, 2016)

"Clothes for $4 are too expensive for me.”

She thinks that this seems a bit odd, but continues to try on clothes, ignoring the price tags completely. As she walks out to take the chosen garments to the counter to hold, she notices a young boy behind the counter sewing fast at a machine. As she reaches into her bag to find her purse she hears the salesman whisper harshly to the boy,

"Hurry up with those, will you? We need another 30 shirts done by the end of the day. So no breaks for you!" 

"Hey! He's only a child! He shouldn't even be working let only not getting breaks, how dare you speak to him like that?" the mother shouted. 

The salesman smiles then passes the woman a booklet, that explains that this isn't a real pop-up store, but really it is an educational exhibition that is showing people the importance of buying sustainable and ethical clothing. She is shocked that she didn’t realise. She looks down at the tags on the clothes. They all have quotes from factory workers on them describing their day to day lives and how they wish they could be treated fairly. He then points in the direction of a curtain to the left. This room provides chairs to sit on so people can watch a short film that explains the importance of buying ethically and sustainably. It then invites watchers to fill out a survey on how they found the experience so it can be used to further improve any future exhibitions around the city.  

Week Eleven: Thinking fast and writing quick

This week I've been focusing on getting my ideas together and writing more of my research proposal.

I have decided I want my exhibition to be more of a performance experience where people don't realise they are participating in the performance until they are in the middle of it. To explain this more, I began to write a creative piece from the perspective of a fictional character that may walk through my final exhibition.

80% off all designer brands! Opens at 9am!

8:15 am: There’s a mad rush to the small pop-up store downtown. Queues are backed up to a popular burger restaurant on the corner of the street. The line of people is buzzing, excitement in the air similar to Black Friday in America. A tall, well-put-together woman, stands at the front of the line, eye-balling anyone who dares step in front of her. Behind her, are her three spoilt-rotten children, ages 14, 10 and 6. The mother is a hard working lady, with a full time job, she often doesn't have much time for her children, but makes up for this with gifts of designer clothes and spending money for the weekends. 

9:01am: She's impatiently waiting for the store to open, when a woman on the inside steps forward to unlock the doors. As soon as they open, the mother strides forward with her children in tow. She reaches the nearest rack of clothes and starts filing through them. 
"No. No. No... Ah yes this would be great for you 10."
She keeps going, pulling t-shirts, shorts, skirts, dresses off the rack and throwing them at the hands of her children. 
"Right, go try on those while I try on these then we'll meet back at the next rack."
She walks promptly to the changing rooms and shuts the door. As she turns, she notices something scrawled across the changing room mirror, 

"Clothes for $4 are too expensive for me”

"Clothes for $4 are too expensive for me”

She thinks that this seems a bit odd, but continues to try on clothes, ignoring the price tags completely. As she walks out to take the chosen garments to the counter to hold, she notices a young boy behind the counter sewing fast at a machine. As she reaches into her bag to find her purse she hears the salesman whisper harshly to the boy,

"Hurry up with those will you? We need another 30 shirts done by the end of the day. No lunch break for you!" 
"Hey! He's only a child! He shouldn't even be working let only not getting breaks, how dare you speak to him like that?" the mother shouted. 
The salesman passes the woman a booklet, explaining that this isn't a real pop-up store, but an educational exhibition to show people the importance of buying sustainable and ethical clothing. He then points in the direction of a curtain to the left. This room provides chairs to sit on and watch a short film that explains the importance of buying ethically and sustainably. It then invites watchers to fill out a survey on how they found the experience so it can be used to further improve exhibitions such as this one.  

I also continued to work on a mini mock up for presentations:

Week Eight, Nine and Ten: Struggling

These three weeks were a bit slow for me as I was focusing more on my other two courses to try and get them finished early and find some inspiration for this one.

I read more articles and books based on sustainability in design as well as interactive exhibitions to try and find some inspiration. I used these readings to write a bit more on my research proposal.

Week Seven: Making Something for Sharing

On Monday, we were asked to create something that we could take to the sharing session on Friday that was for all 4th year design students. This is a great way to meet other students who are researching similar ideas to me and opens up opportunities for collaboration.
I started by thinking about the different interactive settings I could have in my exhibition and started to create a box that would require people to put their whole head inside to discover what was in it. This is an interactive way of displaying as it requires people to use not just seeing, to process information.

The box idea didn't work out and I got stuck coming up with an idea. Regardless, I went along to the sharing session and chatted to Genevieve, Maggie and Yulan about their ideas on sustainability in design. Genevieve also gave me an idea to show both sides of the garment manufacturing process at the same time. For example, at the construction stage, show how often there is a lot of fabric waste, but also show there are alternatives, such as zero waste techniques which are better for the environment.

This can be something to consider with the layout of the exhibition. Do I want to show the negative impacts of the manufacturing process throughout then show positive impacts at the end? Or show the both of them throughout the whole experience.

Week Six: Shut up and Write session (Part 1)

Mikayla, Johanna and myself have put together a survey and will distribute it on social media this week to gather some data to help with our projects.
This survey received 861 responses, some of which were double up so we have removed them. You can see the responses here:
Survey
(It will open in a new window)



I started to think about the reasons why people want to make a change in their life and decided to ask a friend about her change to becoming vegan. 

What was it that made you want to be vegan?

• My sister became vegetarian 1 year before I did.
• I didn't have a love of animals so for me it was more of an environmental direction. 

• If I knew that an animal had suffered for me to eat this food then I would not agree with that.  

• I went vegan after watching videos about how calves were treated so it's also an ethical reason too
• People ask me "If you don't eat this and that, what do you eat?" This could probably translate easily into fashion. 
• I watched a movie called Cowspiracy and it made me ask, "How have I not known about this?"

What do you know about fast fashion?

• Fast fashion is made badly, in terms of the people who make it. 
• I feel bad if I buy something and I know the person who made it was treated unfairly.
• Financially easier - but I know it is better to have smaller number of garments that are sustainable than it is to have a wardrobe full of badly made clothing that falls apart.

What would make you look at more ethical and sustainable fashion rather than fast fashion?

• I think you need to tell people why they should change, and show them how to make the change.
• It's such a large area to cover and looks daunting to people so show them how to do so they are more likely to change their ways. 

• You need to show people the different angles of why they need to change. Show them the environmental impacts, the human rights impacts and the social impacts. Most people care about people so have a focus on the human rights impacts.
• People ask vegans what they do eat? This helps them to understand. This can work the same way for people wearing ethical and sustainable clothing. People ask, "If you don't wear clothing made from this or that, what clothing can you wear?" They are curious, it's our job to teach them so they can understand.

These answers are similar to what I think would be of those interested in sustainable fashion. They want to protect the environment, but need to be shown how. They already know the why.

Easter Break: Working on developing ideas and writing

I decided I wanted to show the layout of the exhibition once I had all my ideas sorted, so I started to design an exhibition space in Sketchup so I could learn the basics. I think this will be a really valuable tool for when I am ready to present my fashion display layout.

I have also done a decent amount of writing and visited the Centre for Teaching and Learning on campus to go over what I had written.

Week Six: Presentation (Part 2)

Feedback from Presentation

• Students could write down the cost of each process for each garment and have a place in the exhibition.
• Use students as a case study within the exhibition for them to sell their garments to the public walking through. 
• Could be a lot of crossover with other students in the class who are looking into sustainability for their projects. 
• As well as showing the costs through each process, maybe also think about the cost on the environment. E.g. travel costs, dyeing of textiles, throwing away waste, etc. 
• Looking at the Fashion Revolution 2013 vending machine idea, it shows a vending machine in a very public place that offers $2 tshirts. What the public don't know is that once you pay, it displays a short video on how those tshirts were made by people that don't get treated fairly. It then asks the payer whether they still want that tshirt or if they'd rather donate the $2. Most people chose to donate. It was so successful because it was in a public place that captured everyone's attention, but gave them the shock factor that they weren't expecting. 
• Should look at converting the unconverted by using a public place for the display. May need to get permission from the council, or use a space like 19 Tory St. Not many people would come to Massey just to pass through, needs to be more public, that people would just stumble upon. 
• There are enough students researching sustainability to be able to all work together on this. 
• In Fashion design you make things as real as possible, contrast to Spacial design. Could potentially look into how spacial design students speculate what might happen. You could mock up an experience for this semester rather than creating the whole thing. Propose what may happen for next semester. A tiny mock up. 
• Just showing people the impacts of fast fashion may shock them and change their attitudes, but you really need to show them how they can make a difference. When they care, how do you capture them to change. 
• Perhaps other students can offer their garments as the better alternative?
• Student can sell their garments straight from the show into the display and into people's wardrobes. They will need to think about the different sizes needed as well as any matching accessories that could be ideal. 

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Over the Easter break I will be reflecting on this feedback and making a start on my proposal writing.