To begin with, I think my identity mainly based on where I came from and my MBTI personality. My MBTI is an INTJ which is known as 

A Logician personality. I think it affects the way I dress a lot. I like people's first impression of me as clean, comfortable, and smart. I prefer glasses to contact lenses because it is an accessory to make me look smarter. Another thing is as a Vietnamese, I like Vietnamese literature, songs and food. I like basic clothes with light neutral colours. I prefer wearing plain clothes to pattern one. And I want something to be able to be worn daily, over years. Most of my clothes were from a Vietnamese Libe Brand which is the best Vietnamese sustainable fashion brand to me . They have bright, neutral, and soft-colored clothes. Good material that can be worn for years, and they always have low stock products. Around 20 pieces for each size which personalize the design.

One more thing is I love wearing Nike Cortez. It goes well with all my outfits. 

1/ The parasite movie set recreation. I was so fascinated with the set that I forgot to take photos. They look so real that you can imagine how struggling impoverished people are.

2/ The K-pop choreography activity. I engaged in K-pop choreography. It was a fun memory despite my bad dancing skill. To me, it is a great way to get people approaching the K-pop wave. 

I think my identity is mainly based on where I came from. 

As a Vietnamese, I like Vietnamese literature, songs and food. 

My city - Ho Chi Minh CIty is well known for being the most developed and dynamic city in the country. Local people have unique and diverse styles, ranging from trendy to classic ones. Therefore, I really enjoy shopping for clothes in local brands in my city.

After the workshop, I started to look back to my family. My family background is majorly inclined to academic and scientific. My family members are high achievers in academics, including me. All of them have a minimalist sense of fashion. We love both light and dark academic styles. Furthermore, my family adores the beauty of being natural, simple and traditional. They used to guide me to be a traditional girl with black long hair and no makeup allowed. However, they still respect my point of view and my true characteristics. Now I still love my long black hair, and I am into natural makeup look.

Personally, these things considerably affect me and my aesthetic. I have basic clothes with light neutral colours. I prefer wearing plain clothes to pattern one. And I want something to be able to be worn daily, over years. Most of my clothes were from a Vietnamese Libe Brand which is the best Vietnamese sustainable fashion brand to me. They have bright, neutral, and soft-colored clothes. Good material that can be worn for years, and they always have low stock products. Around 20 pieces for each size which personalise the design.

When I move to England, I find vintage Ralph Laurent clothes matching with my usual style as I am always into classic things. I usually look for vintage clothes of this brand at Notting Hill vintage shops.

Additionally, I am also influenced by Japanese streetwear. When I choose any brand to wear, I will choose my local Vietnamese brands or vintage clothes from England. However, when I style them, I think I refer to Japanese streetwear aesthetic with basic, loose fitting and neutral clothes mixing together. I have my own Pinterest board for that. I get reference from both gender streetstyle.

Another factor is my MBTI personality. My MBTI is an INTJ which is known as 

A Logician personality. It quite links with part of my family background. I think it affects the way I dress a lot. I like people's first impression of me as clean, comfortable, and smart. I prefer glasses to contact lenses because it is an accessory to make me look smarter. One more thing is I love wearing Nike Cortez. These are my to-go shoes. It goes well with all my outfits. As I like a clean look, most of my shoes are white and black.

Moving on to the fashion district,  the most attractive one to me is Notting Hill. Colourful buildings, flowers, many independent shops, galleries, and lively, dynamic atmosphere. As I mentioned in the identity part, I love shopping at Notting Hill, especially vintage shops. I observed that many fashion students were thrifting, including me, here as I saw many student lanyards from different districts.

But if I had to think about which fashion district I fit in the most, I would choose Covent Garden. Both Notting Hill and Covent Garden are the most frequent districts I visit. While most fashion districts, especially Notting Hill, have a vibrant atmosphere, Covent Garden seems to be more historic and artistic. The first time I went there was in the morning. It was so relaxing to see people spending time together, having meals and shopping together. Personally, the calming feeling and artistic aesthetic suit me the most.

The exhibition illustrates a mini version of Korean culture including fashion, makeup, and entertainment industry. It goes from the very beginning of the nation's history, the background ‘From Rubble to Smartphones” to a vibrant and joyful world of K-pop. It shows the dynamic of Korean culture with their beauty products, K-pop idols, and movies. As a fashion student, I love the part that links fashion and history. I can clearly see that fashion is fundamental in Korean development with hanbok - both traditional and reinvented ones, the costume idols wearing and other trendsetters like G-Dragon.

‘Gangnam Style’ song tells a story of the wealthy society in Korea. ‘Parasite’ shows the dark side of impoverished people there. Films like Reply 1988 illustrate people's life in that year with music, food and meantime trends.

Two things I find most interesting and enjoyable here are:

1/ The parasite movie set recreation. I was so fascinated with the set that I forgot to take photos. They look so real that you can imagine how struggling impoverished people are.

2/ The K-pop choreography activity. I engaged in K-pop choreography. It was a fun memory despite my bad dancing skill. To me, it is a great way to get people approaching the K-pop wave. 

Overall, it is successful to bring Korea to the audience in a dynamic and slightly dramatic way. Personally, this exhibition is very appealing for me and helps to know what happens around the world, and Korea is a great example for Asia. Consequently, it contributes to my sense of trend prediction and other knowledge. However, my document for this exhibition lacks details. I will focus on documenting and annotating for next exhibition tasks in the future.

 

Lastly, I chose a topic: Equality and Inclusion with Fashion. There are articles showing the potential of diversity in Fashion. Models of all races, ages, genders, and sizes are gradually becoming more and more popular in this industry. Cavusoglu & Atik (2019) claimed that there is an increase in the percentage of plus-size model, over-50 age model, and transgender and non-binary model appearance. Roksanda, Simone Rocha, and other designers have started to cast women  of all ages, ethnicities and sizes since their SS21 collection (Newbold, 2020). The British Vogue’s booking director - Rosie Vogel-Eades commented that these actions are expected to continue to exist for long terms instead of being a trend. Moreover, there is a requirement of prolonged time to normalise inclusion and equality in fashion. Newbold (2020) stated that we - fashion participations all take responsibility for this. Solutions are also mentioned, vitally self-education about avoiding discrimination, elitism, etc. Actions need to be taken everyday to make businesses understand that it is human rights. Similarly, Cavusoglu & Atik (2019) showed their concern that the representation of narrow segment female groups is still limited in the fashion industry.

In my perspective, it is a positive transformation in the industry where more efforts into equality and inclusion have been recognised. While I am concerned that it will take a long time to get rid of exclusion, I hope that we can reach the point where we can normalise fashion, including high fashion as a thing for everyone. This fashion task allows me to widen my view of how the fashion industry is working. We had a talk after the formative presentation and I agree with my group that fashion is for everyone. Although signs of being more inclusive can be seen in fashion nowadays with models of different sizes and races, other segment social groups seem to be ignored, for instance, vulnerable people. 

I had a chance to visit Battersea Station. The appearance of it is quite impressive when it was refurbished into a shopping centre. Same as any shopping mall, it provides any shopping retailing brands, cosmetics, restaurants, drinks,etc. However, to me, it is just a normal shopping mall. I expected something more unique and surprising inside to match with the outside look, maybe more independent, local brands or decorations, interiors. The only interesting thing about it is it has a makeover from an old station. I feel the inside is too dark and confusing, and I like bright environments only. It needs more guiding signals. It does not encourage me to shop for anything. The surrounding buildings look brighter. 

I read some reviews from Tripsadvisor, and I massively agree with this review. It is just a shopping mall. However, I do like the Christmas atmosphere outside.

The task is about writing about how I approach fashion. I mainly find information by social media, for example, Instagram and Tiktok. 

In terms of Instagram, I have some favourite fashion accounts. My two most favourite ones are @dietprada and @upnextdesigner. For @dietprada, they draw attention to diversity concerning fashion topics like lack of diversity, cultural appropriation, and copied designs. They discuss openly about even scandalous topics happening in the fashion industry. For me, I love reading comments to have different viewpoints of one subject. I learn a lot by getting information, and fashion knowledge from both views. For @upnextdesigner, they support new worldwide designers. I know new designers mainly through this account. They are also helpful when I look for secondary research for my fashion projects.

On another hand, Tiktok helps me to know what my generation - Gen Z are currently into by Tiktok trends. There are many Tik Tok accounts guiding Gen Z with different styles and aesthetics. We easily find them by ‘For You Page’. In my opinion, Tiktok contains a lot of information which means both accurate and misleading definitions of different styles in fashion. However, that does help sometimes to divide fashion consumer groups. Another thing is we can predict trends, sometimes by Tiktok. When something gets viral, for example, a series, people start to mimic it for entertaining video. As a result, it might lead to trends. However, these trends seem not to last long. Back to the fashion consumer topic, teenagers take the majority of participation in Tiktok. They have a tendency to keep up with trends but still can afford them. Some are easily led by videos about aesthetics. I have recently seen the advertisement about Shein Haul on my Tiktok. I noticed a lot of young people buying these hauls. To me, Shein is not an ethical brand to shop. However, it is people’s decision to buy, and it takes time to be aware of the bad side of these shopping tendencies.

I feel quite free with the fashion writing task as usually, I love reflective writing of everything I see in life. It is sometimes hard for me to express my point of view in English as it is not my mother tongue language. However, I can see my improvement everyday. The task helps me to explore more parts of fashion writing. In the future, I will practise more types of fashion writing: creative/journalistic and academic writing.

The presentation I listened to in PLP class helps me to broaden my knowledge about subculture. As an international student, I had heard about these subcultures but did not have chances to study deeper about them. My concern is I grew up not in England, it is hard for me to find a subculture that is related to me. However, I find Teddy Boys the most interesting and suitable for me.

In the 1950s, a subculture where fashion adapted Edwardian romanticism took over Britain’s teen boys - Teddy Boy. According to Bell (2014), Teddy Boys and Girls symbolised innovative ways of moving and acting in the city and echo of an archetypal figure of modern urban life. They wore tailored velvet blazers outside, shirts with button-down inside, drainpipe trousers or jeans, skinny ties, and chunky leather shoes (Kelly, 2021).

The part I find relevant to me is the feminine aspect of Teddy subculture. Bell (2014) describes that Teddy Girls fashion was androgynous and improvised. It was quite related to the later Punk movement. Apart from the same elements being dressed by Teddy Boys, Teddy Girls also wore full skirts, rolled-up jeans, and flat shoes.  They have both masculine and feminine aspects in the way they look. This is what I am always aiming for. 

It now influences me to combine blazers, skirts and flat shoes together. I found the subculture presentation in PLP very enganging. My further study allows me to understand more about these subcultures. 

I get influenced by trends quite directly through social media. It is usually trickle down with designers show. I also get influenced by movie characters.

I apot new ideas quite soon but then I will reinvent them to make something more suitable for me and can last for a long time. I used to keep up with trends very quickly but when the trends ended, I started to feel like those clothes were out of trend and I did not need them anymore. Consequently, Now I will classify which trends I feel like it can last. I will buy some iconic items of those trends to emphasise the look.

PLP has helped me to discover more about my identity, brand making and other fashion knowledge and theory. They are all useful for me as a preparation before entering the industry. Fashion writing makes me remember things longer and enhance my critical skill.

Reference:

Bell, A. H. (2014) ‘Teddy Boys and Girls as Neo-flâneurs in Postwar London’ ], The Literary London Journal Available at: http://www.literarylondon.org/london-journal/autumn2014/bell.pdf Accessed: 14 December 2022)

Cavusoglu, L. & Atik, D. (2019) ‘A call for diversity and inclusion: Examining fashion experiences of minority women’, 2019 Global Fashion Management Conference at Paris Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Lena-Cavusoglu/publication/334399342_A_CALL_FOR_DIVERSITY_AND_INCLUSION_EXAMINING_FASHION_EXPERIENCES_OF_MINORITY_WOMEN/links/5dae90c692851c577eb97c1e/A-CALL-FOR-DIVERSITY-AND-INCLUSION-EXAMINING-FASHION-EXPERIENCES-OF-MINORITY-WOMEN.pdf ) Accesed: 13 December 2022)

Kelly, E. (2021)  ‘25 Rocking Images Of 1950s Britain’s ‘Feral Youth’, The Teddy Boys’, All That’s Interesting Available at: https://allthatsinteresting.com/teddy-boy Accessed: 14 December 2022)

Newbold, A. (2020) ‘Will SS21 be a turning point for diversity?’, British Vogue Magazine Available at: https://www.vogue.co.uk/fashion/article/diversity-fashion-ss21 (Accessed: 13 December 2022)