Week Four: Thinking about Writing (Part 1)

This research aims to raise awareness of sustainable and ethical clothing through a new and exciting fashion display. It is intended to be an interactive design so that  people can truly understand how their clothing is being made and make an informed choice.

What assumptions do I make: 

Do people care?

Costs are high. 

What makes people engage in an exhibition.

How you experience something, gives you a certain assumption about things. 

1. How will I engage people in the space? Make it relatable, use objects and ideas that people identify with.
2. How do I get people to care enough to change? They really need to see how it is directly affecting them.
3. What is my target market? Anyone who buys clothing for themselves or others.
4. How does it make the opposite system less desirable? Direct calling out.

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When paraphrasing, use phrases such as "It defines... it explains... it is an example of... it links with... it highlights..."
The following are 5 sections of text from readings that I found very useful, followed by my own paraphrasing of them:

 One.

Chapman has found that so many landfills worldwide, are being filled with fully functional household appliances, simply because they fail to connect emotionally with the user (23).

Two.

He highlights an example of using IKEA furniture as objects that people use as self-improvement and it explains the reasoning behind why our society buys so much stuff. 

Three.

The definition of society's attitude around comfort and positive change is highlighted here, suggesting that we must choose between them, choosing comfort sacrifices positive change. It gives an example by relating this to going to the dentist. We are well aware that with each day passing, the issue is worsened, and an eventual visit to the dentist will be greeted with a much more painful experience. 

Four.

This text shows the reasoning behind why people hold onto certain objects. The personalised, emotional meanings/experiences attached to them cause some objects to be irreplaceable. 

Five.

This piece explains the details of the manufacturing processes of fashion design. It defines the individual processes and how it affects the industry workers and the environmental impact it has on the planet. 

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Writing notes:

-Make sure the evidence you use, is relevant and you understand everything that is being said.

 -Highlight key points and ideas in a passage.

 -List the key ideas, concepts and phrases.

 -Note down alternative phrases or synonyms for these ideas.

 -Rewrite using your alternative phrases.

 -Simplify

 -Insert the name of the author and reference correctly. 

Week Three: Collecting research to analyse

Key Words:
Customer experience
Fashion Displays
Ethical Design

With these key words/phrases, I found the following readings to analyse:

1. http://www.tedresearch.net/media/files/The_New_Designers_2007.pdf
2. http://www.tandfebooks.com.ezproxy.massey.ac.nz/doi/view/10.4324/9781315738802
3. http://www.ijdesign.org/ojs/index.php/IJDesign/article/view/1613/696

1. This reading involves discussion around eco-fashion and how future designers of fashion and textiles will need to be pro-active in how they design. The key environmental problems facing the industry are the chemical pollution, the demand for faster and cheaper fashion, and transportation. The author tells of many projects they have worked on that is a positive impact on the industry. Within the Designers' Exhibition at London Fashion Week, designer Orsola de Castro curated an event in February 2007 called Esthetica. This was a new space dedicated to sustainable fashion.
2. This reading hold a lot of great information around durable design relating to fashion. Key points include, fully-functional landfill waste, self improvement through purchasing new items, material consumption, society's attitude on positive change, emotional attachments to objects plus many others.
3. This reading is based on research done around reasons why people stop wearing particular clothing items, or throw them away. It looks into how can clothing be made to last and the impact that will have on the environment.

In Monday's class, we visited the Cindy Sherman exhibition at the City Gallery. The following is an image I drew of the exhibition layout, in response to seeing her work. I felt that what I want to do in my project is unrelated to Sherman's work and while drawing the exhibition, I found it looked quite boring and had no structure to it. This made me realise that I want to create an interactive exhibition rather than one that you just walk around and look at.

Thoughts of moving forward:
I had a think about what makes catwalk shows ethical and sustainable. Most shows will give away goodie bags, programmes, vouchers, etc and a lot of it isn't used after the show, and therefore is thrown away. This is unsustainable and unnecessary for the environment and the consumers. Fashion show go-ers want an experience while seeing a show, and there are plenty of ways to do this other than giving them bits of paper and unwanted vouchers.

I also need to think about the following:

• Who is my audience?
• Anyone who is buying clothing.
• What is the best way to get information across? (If there is too much information, people stop engaging).
• Be engaging and interactive. Let the audience touch, smell, taste, see and hear. 
• SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats). In terms of my previous work.
• Look into exhibitions that involve static and movement. 
• Budgets
• Performance writing/arcade
• What do people like in an exhibition. 
• Create a survey. Fill out an ethics form.
• Letting spaces around Wellington?
• London 2005 crafts council. Esthetica Sustainable fashion exhibitions.
• Visit as many exhibitions as possible, for analysis. 

What makes an exhibition interactive?
I went along to the Bug Exhibition at Te Papa, to see how it got people interacting with information and learning about the life of bugs. The following are some images and videos I personally took while participating in the exhibition.

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Research Proposals explain to your reader what you want to investigate, why you want to investigate, and how you will investigate.
What: Map the areas you want to research. Create a narrative about your topic and focus in on that.
Why: Provide a rational for choosing these areas. Review the literature of what has been thought and researched before. Do these other researchers care?
How: Explain the process that will allow you to find what you want to find. Detail how you will conduct the research.

Structure:
- Title Page
- Intro/Background (What)
- Research aims/questions (What)
- Literature Review (Why)
- Method (How)
- Ethics (How)
- Timeline

The narrative of your proposal can be:
- Personal: Appealing to others
- Ethical: Appealing to ethos or sense of right and wrong
- Academic: Appealing to logos or scientific development

Week Two: Additional Research

Week Two, I found some really great videos that brought around some inspiration, as follows...

Director: Jim Demuth

Producer: Posy Dixon

Alexa Chung Uncovers Fashion Industry Secrets | Full Series One | Future of Fashion | British Vogue

Willie Walter's student: Chris Cowan

"You have autumn, winter, spring summer collection. You also have resort and prefall. And that means these smaller labels, you don’t have enough money for presentations and shows together. You have 4 labels every single year. There's kind of a move to doing presentations, like Molly Goddard. Less people, less pressure, less money involved. People can come and go."

So why even bother having catwalk shows?

That's the question, how important nowadays are catwalk shows?

"Really really important for the ego." Alexa Chung says. 

Paul Smith:

When I walk around the building with students, I tell them "you all might want to be designers, but in a way, get that out of your head because, as we walk around the building, I'm going to show you lots of lovely jobs you can get with that skill" There's buying, there's press, there's social media. There's shop design, styling, management. There's so many great jobs you can get, if you go through that fashion system. And they're still very creative. 

Olivier Rousteing:

Social media is one of the most important parts to the revolution of fashion. People are asking, what's going to happen to magazines? What's going to happen to the business. Instagram is a new way to advertise your brand and communicate, so literally two years ago people were scared, asking "omg is it luxury to go on social media?"

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Director and Producer: Posy Dixon

The Future of Fashion with Alexa Chung in New York | Full Series Two | British Vogue

Lyndsey Butler - Veda CEO

"A lot of our comments were about how to parley your degree into a job in the fashion industry. People are concerned, if they study law or science that it wont be relevant to the industry.

It definitely is, I think a lot of arts degrees in general are just about teaching yourself how to diligent doing work and how to think, work with other people and how to relate to the world and I feel that that's a lot of what I learnt at school as well, just how to be in the world on your own. Work real hard and pick things up along the way.

How important is having a retail space? You have an iPad in your shop so you can corporate the ecommerce thing into it. So do you think it's still relevant to have a retail space?

"I do. I went back and forth maybe like 3 years after I started the brand. I opened a store on Ludlow and I had that for about a year and a half coz I wanted to have that touchstone with the customer and I think that reason alone its really important. I hear such awesome feedback from the store like "Oh, that buckle on that jacket makes a lot of noise and people keep not buying it because the buckle it too jingly." Like is the music not loud enough in the store? Why does it keep happening. It's not something I've heard happening in a wholesale account, but that's great, we've got a new buckle so it wont happen again. It would've taken a lot longer to get that information.

Customer engagement is important!

Leandra Medine - Founder of Man Repeller

You think I'm confident?

Well you're taking a risk, which I think some people are intimidated by the idea of putting themselves out there. I definitely trust my instinct.  I trust my gut, and I think I have good ideas, even though sometimes they're not good ideas. 

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After watching the above videos, I began to wonder. What is it that makes my project important?

I believe that it's important to continuously build new ways that can fashion be displayed, that entertains an audience and gives them an experience of a lifetime. This also needs to be ethical and sustainable. People nowadays are questioning brands about where the clothes are made. This is important to people and we must be more transparent with how we market clothing to consumers. E.g. Emma Watson is now promoting ethical clothing by only wearing clothes that are ethical and sustainable when promoting her new film. http://www.treehugger.com/sustainable-fashion/emma-watson-promotes-ethical-sustainable-fashion-new-instagram-account.html 

Key Words:

Customer Experience

Fashion display

Ethical design

Week One - Initial Research

212.453 Fashion Research and Development 

In week one, we were introduced to the brief for this class, Whakatinana.

This brief gives the opportunity to challenge an aspect of the fashion industry that frustrates me and offers the chance to take responsibility for a project and consider the future impact of it. You can design in many areas including, pre-consumption (garment manufacturing, packaging and delivering) Shop (selling and point of purchase) and Post-consumption (use and waste).

To start with, I looked at a range of possible careers in the industry and highlighted the ones that I would like to associate myself with. From here I realized I relate more to the managerial side of the industry, rather than the production side of it.

I then began to look at what motivates me as a person and what frustrates me.
What frustrates me:

• Why do we have to follow trends?
• Why do we need to keep to a set timeline/deadline?
• Why should we always stick to the rules?
• Why are people not paid enough for the work they do?

What motivates me:

• Instigating sustainability
• Hosting parties/hospitality for guests
• Running events
• The satisfaction of making people happy

Think about: 
What is the purpose of your fashion project? What do you want it to do?
I want it to make people aware that their spending habits are directly affecting the environment and other people's lives. I want to show people that fashion (whether it's buying or wearing) can be an experience. I want it to be a part of social change. 

Who says fashion even needs to be displayed on a runway/in a store/online/etc?
Fashion design is always changing and getting better, why can't the display of fashion do the same?
I want to work with experience design and possibly performance design. 

I went to the Weta Christmas party 2016, and it blew my mind! The amount of work that went into it to show off what they do, was incredible. 

Thoughts from in class 03/03/17

• What is fashion?
• How do people engage with fashion? Does it need to be on a body?
• What is my own experience with fashion.
• Unpack what this means.
• Analyse conventional ways of displaying fashion. E.g. Shops, exhibitions, online, etc
• Is fashion dead while in an exhibition?
• Garments locked away - historical.
• What is an exhibition?
• What else can fashion be?
• Is cuba st a fashion show?
• Photograph, ways of fashion
• What is different?
• What is important to get across in fashion, to feel and understand in fashion?
• Look at other shows, channel, gucci, etc. Money, exclusive, what do they want to express, luxery? Models? Place, train station.
• Own garments, or others?
• Abstract - netflix. Show productions, musicians.
• How an audience reads a show. Engagement?
• Physical stores are more for the experience of shopping.

I want to think about how to display fashion in a way that makes you think about the bigger issues in the industry. The Environment. Don't need to advertise through posters or anything that requires paper to be wasted! Dig deep into critical thinking and make informed decisions. Research and question everything!