Design, consumption etc...

After our seminar it clicked that parts a, b, c and d of our assignments are probably meant to link together, who would have thought.

Chapter four of 'The Culture of Design' is all about how people create their identity through consumption. Analysing the photographs was about judging someones personality or identity through what they own (ie. what they consume). Lightbulb!

We were discussing where we shop, what kinds of things we buy, and how much we value different items. We pretty much all agreed that we value more expensive items with memories attatched (prom dresses for example).

We were asked if we think buying cheap, disposable clothes is a good or bad thing. In my view its a bad thing, I like individual pieces and they are bad for the environment, plus how is anyone supposed to be individual when everyone has the same stuff...

Linsay meets her stalker....

When I spoke to Linsay about her photographs she agreed with a few of my points. She is quite a sentimental peson with hundreds of photographs, she holds on to items from her childhood and jewellery means a lot to her.

Linsay agrees that her family is a main influence in her life, especially her mother and one of her aunties. She doesn’t see her siblings often, they are all very busy.

I said that Linsays home looked quite homey and natural, but she says she has only been there a year. She agrees that it looks homey because it is her parent’s house and not university halls.

Linsay corrected me on a few points. I said the photographs on her pin boards were of friends and that the drawings were made by friends, however most of her photographs are of family and pets and the drawings were made by her neice and nephews. I also commented that there were no band posters or cds, but I did not notice the iPod doc next to her TV, she usually has her iPod on her and all of her music is on that. I suggested that she had quite a few DVDs, I didn’t notice but the face of Linsays DVD collection is only the front row! She loves watching films and television series.

Linsay confirmed that she has a problem with throwing things away. She has lots of gifts from her family around her room and this is why she has so many things.

She then pointed out a couple of things that I had missed. Firstly she has lots of pens and masking tape on her desk, clearly an art student! I also did not see the bottle of vodka on her bookcase, she pointed it out and said ‘I like to party!’. I maybe overlooked these since everyone I know has these items around their rooms!

It has been interesting discussing my observations with Linsay, most of them were right but it was good to hear her background stories. Linsay seemed okay with having me snoop around her bedroom, she did not mind that I was analysing her things and seemed completely comfortable even though we are not close friends.

When I was looking at the photographs I did not really think about how I felt about snooping at someone elses property, because it is University work. I think on the subject of how ethical it is to do this, that it is ethical as long as the person is comfortable and gives permission. I do not think I would be comfortable posting the pictures on my blog however.

Being a snoop...

I've found it more difficult than I imagined to deduce a persons personality from photos of their bedroom. I have gone with the main points we were given and looked at taste, influences, possesions and environment.

Taste

Linsays room is full of books and DVDS. She has a large selection of DVDS including lots of ‘girly’ movies; Dirty Dancing, Ghost as well as some comedys; Hot Fuzz, Zoolander and a few Christmas movies.

Her room does not appear to have any posters so it is hard to determine what kind of music she likes.

The Harry Potter books are piled up on top of the rest in her book case. I think I can also see Lord of the Rings, there are quite a lot of books!

There is a lot of jewellery around as well, though this makes sense since she is a jewellery student.

She clearly likes soft toys as there are numerous teddies all over her room.

Influences

I would say Linsay is mostly influenced by family and friends, there are photos in most of her pictures and picture frames are placed all around her room. I wouldn’t say she was that influenced by music, as I cannot see any CDs or band posters anywhere, but maybe she owns MP3s instead! In the photos Lindsay and her friends seem to have the same kind of style.


Possessions

Linsays room looks very homey and natural, a fair bit of clutter with ornaments and day to day things like hair products and clothes. There are lots of childrens toys on top of her wardrobe, a dolls house and stuffed toys. This suggests that she is nostalgic. There are also quite a few jewellery boxes and small chests of drawers. She has what looks like a bottle of sun tan lotion on her bookcase, maybe she has been on holiday recently? I think there is also a pair of walking boots on the floor, but they are half cut out of the picture. Maybe she likes hill climbing.

Her pinboard is quite neat and not over crowded, she has photos of animals, probably pets, as well as of her friends and family, also suggesting nostalgia. She also has some light hearted drawings which look like they are from her friends.

Environment

Linsays room is obviously from her home, not a university flat. She has customised it with ornaments, photographs and a pinboard with photos and drawings on it.

I am meeting Linsay tomorrow morning to discuss the information that each of us gathered from each others photos and will post our findings after!

Consumption of Design

It took me a fair amount of time to properly read this chapter from 'The Culture of Design' by Guy Julier after skimming it over the Christmas holidays.. Overall I have found it quite interesting.

I like the idea that we now create our identity with what we choose to wear and what we buy instead of having it given to us. This obviously effects me as a designer as I will have to make choices as to how individual my pieces are.

I also like the idea of the consumer being involved in the making or changing of the product, modular furniture for example. It seems more personal and individual, and I hate the thought of everyone being the same or owning the same items..

Bourdieu & taste!

I have spent this week working on my new project at uni and settling back in as well as considering the main points made at our last lecture;

Consider how you ended up studying design.

I actually think I started studying design by accident. At school I loved drawing and painting and had my heart set on Art College by the end of fourth year. I didn't really like the design aspects of the higher course and assumed I would end up doing fine art. However in first year I took one block of textiles and had much more fun than I had in the fine art ones, so took another and then chose to do design last minute.

Who inspired you?

I've always been inspired by classic paintings and have countless books on art in general.. but now I am more inspired by contemporary artists doing new and different things. In terms of who inspired me to do design, I'd probably say the people in my class over the textile blocks in first year!

Why do you like what you like?

When I think of the art I like its usually because of the way it makes me feel, same with music and films. I suppose for some people it depends on what their friends are listening to, but most of my friends tell me I have a really weird/bad taste in music!

Are taste and artistic ability genetic?

I think what I like now has been effected by my surroundings growing up. The music we would listen to on long car journeys is on my ipod now. The pieces of art around my familys houses, especially the cityscape-ish paintings that my uncle collects, effect what I like now and inspire me.

I think artistic ability, like any skill, is genetic to an extent. My Dad's good at drawing but is also very good with numbers. I got the drawing ability and skipped the natural ability to do Maths.. However I do think anyone can draw if they really work at it, just like I know that if I really wanted to I could have worked harder and got better grades in Maths.

We were also asked to read part of the book 'Understanding Bourdieu' after our first lecture.

I'm not sure I agreed with every point, I don't completely agree that social class effects taste. Though I think I appreciate art mostly because I have studied it in school, I don't agree that someone who hasn't studied it doesn't appreciate it. Maybe I am completely missing the point but I think that was a bit of a depressing generalisation. In my opionion each persons taste and appreciation for art comes from interests in other parts of their lives. We are influenced by everything around us, and that effects our taste.

Anyway, I'm home for the weekend and forgot to pick up my sketchbook (NO IDEA HOW!) so I'm going to look through some family photos for Linsey to rip into for assignment one.. I'm looking forward to this one!

Sustainable textiles essay.

‘An investigation of young fashion consumers’ disposal habits’ by Louise R Morgan and Grete Birtwistle serves to inform the reader about the nature of shoppers, the problem of textile waste and the lack of information available about the effect on the environment from this problem.

The main sources used by Morgan and Birtwhistle were Birtwistle, G & Moore, C.M; Domina, T & Koch, K; Mintel (2007); Keynote Global Waste Management (2007) and Waste Aware Scotland. Everything in the article is based on evidence, research and surveys.

The article questions the ‘fast fashion’ trend (which now accounts for one fifth of the total UK clothing market) that has occurred over the past five or six years and talks about how this is contributing to the 23% increase in textile waste.

The main points are based on research into where people shop, how much they like to spend, how long garments are kept and where these garments are usually disposed. It also encourages us to find ways to make fashion more sustainable and suggests that the media could play a big role in spreading the word about textile waste.

Research has shown that young consumers are the most concerned with fashion trends and that most of these people would rather have several cheaper items than one expensive one. The stigma has been removed from buying from ‘value retailers’ and companies now have different styles coming to shops every two weeks for people who want something different to wear as often as possible.

However, this trend has a bad effect on the environment and needs to be changed. Morgan and Birtwistle talk about sustainable consumption, which is defined as;

‘Consumption that supports the ability of the current and future generations to meet their material and other needs, without causing irreversible damage to the environment or loss of function in natural systems’

They use Government research in their article to show the attitudes of consumers towards fashion, the environment and recycling. This research came up with several main points: A minority of people decide what is going to be fashionable; 18% of people are very influenced by celebrities and the media; many people shop two or three times a week; many people feel alienated by the fast pace of fashion; over half of the people surveyed buy fortnightly; only one in four regularly recycle; people put expensive clothes to the charity shop when they are throwing them away and cheap items in the bin.

Environmental problems have increased in recent years and so has general interest in recycling. Even though in fashion, people are concerned about ethical working conditions in their factories, but there is not much awareness of the problem of textile waste.

To increase awareness about recycling, Waste Aware Scotland came up with the ‘Three r’s’ strategy: ‘Reduce, Reuse, Recycle’ to educate consumers. The majority of textiles thrown away are recyclable and it has been shown that convenience is key when it comes to actually doing the recycling.

The conclusions drawn from this article are that young people are unaware of the problem of textile waste and that there is a lack of media coverage about textile sustainability. Though this study did not cover what would make consumers increase recycling, participants in the government research stated that they would change their recycling habits if they knew more about the problem.

‘Sustainable fashion and textiles’ by Kate Fletcher is a book full of technical information about fibres and textile sustainability. It is also a book of inspiring ideas and ways in which we can improve the way we make our clothes and textiles.

At the moment cotton and polyester dominate the textile market and the most popular, polyester, has doubled in demand over the past fifteen years. There is a lot of general confusion about sustainability: natural fibres are seen as good and synthetic as bad. Fletcher tells us that for 1kg of cotton eight thousand litres of water is needed, where as with polyester, little or no water is required. The issue of sustainability is clearly more complicated than we think it is.

To record the sustainability of materials it is important to look at the resources they consume (energy, water, chemicals, land) as well as what they emit (to air, water and land).

Fletcher goes through different types of materials and discusses their good and bad points, then offers alternatives. For example, cotton. She tells us that it is associated with negative changes in water balance and that machine picked cotton has far more impurities than hand picked cotton. The alternatives she offers are: organically grown cotton, low chemical cotton (GM), hand picked cotton, rain fed cotton or substitute fibres such as hemp or flax.

We are also given the example of ‘peace’ or ‘vegetarian’ silk, which is both ethical and environmentally friendly. Silk worms are allowed to grow in open forests with no hazardous chemicals and the chrysalises are collected after the moth has emerged naturally.

Fletcher also goes on to talk about recycling. Recycled fibre uses less energy when in production as well as less resources and chemicals. Small scale businesses are working in this area to try to make better quality recycled textiles. For example, Annie Sherburne’s recycled London textile yarns:

She covers the point, however, that reusing and recycling (sometimes known as eco-efficiency) is not the best solution:

‘Eco-efficiency is an outwardly admirable, even noble concept, but it is not a strategy for success over the long term, because it does not reach deep enough. It works within the same system that caused the problem in the first place, merely slowing it down with moral proscriptions and punitive measures. It presents little more than an illusion of change.’

- William McDonough, "Cradle to Cradle" (2002)

Fletcher highlights that there is massive potential in other areas, such as service design, to counter the negative effects of consumption. Products could be rented for periods of time until the novelty had worn off, and then swapped for a new item.

There is also massive potential in modular textiles and wearable electronics. Garments are in development that could be bought with an electronic interface that allowed the wearer to download pictures and colours to their outfit, many outfits in one.

This is a very useful book for finding out what is good and what is bad for our environment, what we need to change, and for inspiration for future pieces of work.

I think these two pieces of writing work well together to give an understanding of the problem of textile waste and how we could go about becoming more eco-friendly with what we wear and how we dispose of it.

The article by Louise Morgan and Grete Birtwistle is about consumer behaviour, showing how we buy, when we buy and how long we keep items for. This article was full of evidence and surveys to back up every point and was finding out about textile waste on a social level. One of the main points was that there is a lack of media coverage on the topic of sustainable textiles, and that the media could be used easily to spread the word since nearly 20% of people surveyed were very influenced by celebrities and the media. I think to continue this research it would be a good idea to look into why the media haven’t covered this like they have covered other environmental problems.

Kate Fletchers book looks into sustainable fashion in a more technical way, following on from the process of buying to show what has to happen for the fabric for our clothes to be made and the effect these processes are having on our planet. She offers scientific evidence about the garments we buy at such a fast pace and tries to offer alternatives to popular damaging fabrics. The part of the book about wearable electronics really interests me, during our first year trip to London we went to see Hussein Chalayan’s collection and his use of electronics and light in his pieces was really exciting.

Although recycling came up in both of these pieces of work (from passing on clothes through charity shops to actually destroying and rebuilding the fabric) it has become apparent that sustainability is far more complicated than recycling and watching how much we buy. The quote Fletcher used from ‘Cradle to Cradle’ points out that this problem needs to be tackled on a deeper level, with how clothes are made in the first place.

In Fletchers book, sustainability is about finding new materials and innovative ways of creating outfits instead of recycling and reusing what we already have. In Morgan and Birtwistles article sustainability is about making these items work in society. Together they cover the social and technical aspects of sustainable fashion.

I think to find more out about this topic it would be a good idea to speak to people who are working in this field, as well as speaking to and surveying consumers about their knowledge about textile waste.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Fletcher, Kate, 2008, Sustainable fashion & textiles, London, Earthscan

Morgan, Louise R; Birtwistle, Grete, 2009, ‘An investigation of young consumers’ disposal habits’, International Journal of Consumer Studies, vol. 33, no. 2 pp. 190-198

Sustainable textiles

I feel as if I have been reading about sustainable textiles for ever! I am half way through a book by Kate Fletcher and I am pretty sure I could tell you anything about different fibres and the pro's and con's of using them in textiles.

I have also just looked back at my initial idea for this and it supports my point that there is very little awareness about eco-textiles since I was completely clueless. Or maybe that's just me!