Add what you've done so far on here, so we can take a look on Monday.

Although the resemblance is striking, the brand has historically made prints using these graphics and the papercut technique, which gives a result similar to woodcuts. However, the strokes don't seem to have the expressive force of the usual work of J. Borges or other Cordel artists. "It's the same technique, but it's not ours," says Mr Borges' family about Alexander McQueen's collection.

Another important point is that the casting is very diverse in terms of race. In addition, the styling of the campaign plays with gender rules in the clothes, make-up, and poses.

About the campaign: "The campaign explores a holistic overview of her life and focuses heavily on her upbringing and childhood nostalgia. The team began shooting in Hollingworth, where Vivienne was born, to further accentuate this retrospective feel."(Richardson, 2023)

It's a beautiful tribute to Vivianne's past and history and really explores the fashion campaign as something fun, meaningful, and artistic, not just commercial. It's a legacy that she left to her brand and that inspires me greatly among other artists who are fighting for a less banal fashion.

Even though part of the cast are important people in Vivianne's history, I really missed the diverse bodies in the campaign, so I would focus on that if I were to make any changes.

Richardson, S. (2023). Vivienne Westwood’s AW23 . [online] The Glass Magazine. Available at: https://www.theglassmagazine.com/vivienne-westwoods-aw23-campaign-explores-nostalgia-love-and-loss/ [Accessed 8 Nov. 2023].

To represent the 70s, the brand's campaign invited designers from Salvador's Meninos Rei brand, who took ancestry as their inspiration. Internet users complained about the choice of model, after all, they chose a white model to portray African culture after all Meninos Rei has always brought their ancestry in their clothes because they come from Salvador, a state with art very focused on African ancestry since during colonization it was there that the largest number of slaves were concentrated, making the culture of this state very rich and plural.

To represent the other decades, Arezzo selected other designers from Brazil and other personalities, including black women. In the collections from the other decades, however, there is no mention of African aesthetics in the pieces.

I think the lesson is that the characters who wear the clothes are necessary components to send the message, feeling, or idea effectively. Arezzo, despite having a lot of diversity in its campaign, chose two white models to represent the only part of the collection inspired by African art. So the character should have been a black woman.

I don't believe this was a case of racism, but more a case of a brand wanting to make consumers believe that they care about a cause or group that is indifferent to them just to make money, like greenwashing or pink money, but in other contexts, after all, someone who appreciates and knows the work of the Meninos Rei and their importance to the black community in breaking down racist patterns and stigmas in fashion would never do this.

https://revistapegn.globo.com/amp/Banco-de-ideias/Moda/noticia/2022/09/arezzo-e-acusada-de-racismo-apos-lancar-campanha-inspirada-na-cultura-africana-com-jade-picon.html

https://harpersbazaar.uol.com.br/moda/arezzo-50-anos-a-marca-esta-em-festa/

The ad’s chosen setting, Udaipur, is captured through close-ups of elephant statues and sculpted archways. However, it is done in an intricate and subtle manner that carefully integrates fashion with culture — instead of overshadowing the details of the designs, it is merged seamlessly with the overall aesthetic of the collection. The cast for this ad also features a diverse range of models, and does not feel like they are tokenised. However, I think it would have been better to cast more Indian or South Asian models to represent their heritage as it is the inspiration behind this collection’s designs.

But with that being said, Fashion Brand Company’s pieces can be over 400 USD for for seemingly simple pieces (example: the polka-dot dress) — While the brand prides in its inclusivity to plus-sized people, they are made inaccessible due to the price tag. This pricing suggests that the brand is tailored towards party-wear, but makes me wonder why cheaper casual-wear can’t be fun too.

Additionally, this could potentially erase the voices of real voices from the industry, as more attention is focused on simulation rather than addressing issues and genuine stories. The exceptional quality and realism of these images, may discourage companies to disclose that these models are generated, which is problematic as customers will have no way of differentiate AI models from real ones. This is also an ethical concern as it may perpetuate an ideal of attractiveness, normalising unrealistic beauty standards.

This concept is presented in a straightforward manner, and does not feel like forced inclusivity. Throughout the changing angles, colours, lighting and composition of the portrait, the emphasis directed at the sunglasses unifies the series together while also keeps these individuals are distinct.

These campaign photographs both challenges traditional beauty standards whilst also satiates a crave for artistic expression with colourful and glowing photographs.

This collection integrated accessories, texts, maps, and imagery from Native American, African, and Buddhist cultures, marketed as "Global Village chic", and has received criticism for the commodification of minority cultures, with particular consideration of the historical colonial origins of profiting from cultural exports. Because of this I think dubbing the collection as “Global Village” is distasteful as it is connection to globalisation, which often relied on profiting from the labours of exploited minority groups.

This controversy opens up conversations on how high-fashion brands, already well-established in the industry, are able to avoid negative repercussions that affect their business.

However, I was saddened that I could not find these garments being modelled by Chinese or Asian models, especially since this collection was inspired by their heritage and the designer herself is Chinese. I believe it is very important to showcase this cultural aspect, as these dresses are a beautiful representation of history and contemporary Chinese culture.

However, due to this being such an impactful image, questions are being raised. It could be possible that this ad was guerrilla marketing campaign that set out to use shock factor for the press to boost product sales, which means that the message behind this ad was not genuine. Additionally, because of its nature, the campaign could only be held online, which could limit its reach or reach the wrong audience.

Although the designs are beautifully eerie, it could have been presented this way for shock-factor and attention. This has framed Asia as an exotic place and whether this was done with intent or not has left harmful stereotypes on East-asian culture. Furthermore, the designer’s cultural mix-up between China and Japan suggests that not enough research has been done when designing the collection and is insensitive to the cultural nuances of the two countries.

This is a genuine and authentic brand that gives women a platform to explore and express their own individual styles, represented by a plus-sized woman herself, Gia Sinatra. She has created a talking space for people like her and made fashion more body inclusive and empowering.

Even if they're not selling any product or promoting any brand here, they could, if the brand gives the photographer and stylist creative freedom.

In this latest AW/23 campaign, the focus was on nature and the colours, scenery and models of different ethnicities conveyed a sense of comfort and explored many of the viewer's senses. To make it more inclusive, I would have used models with more diverse bodies, since there is already a diversity of ethnicity in the models of the campaign.

The brand invites you to a reversal of values in the fashion world where less is more and elegance lies in transparency. The brand also has very fair prices and models that adapt to all bodies and ages. On the brand's Instagram, we see how various people use the timeless pieces in different ways to express themselves.

In addition to plagiarism, many people were irritated by the cultural appropriation since, as well as using the culture and art of other artists in her dresses, she did so with the aim of commercialization, so even though the brand claims that it was only inspired by Mexican culture, when there is the commercialisation of a product, in this case, clothing, the case becomes even more complex.

They missed the opportunity to do the right thing and credit the original creators of the print, which would have given them greater visibility due to the power and influence of Carolina Herreira. What's more, they should be paid as artists as part of the process of creating a piece that is beeing sold on the luxury brand website.

Even if they're not selling any product or promoting any brand here, they could, if the brand gives the photographer and stylist creative freedom.

It is an inclusive and diverse brand because it understands the momentum of the fashion market at the moment and the social and environmental impact of this market, and it is actively working to change this. However, when we talk about inclusivity and the role of fashion, there's the economic sphere: Heloisa's pieces are not accessible to a large part of the Brazilian public due to their high prices.

One very interesting fact is that on her website and in her shop, she collaborates with many artists, exhibiting various accessories and fashion illustrations and even photographic books and marvelous skateboard shapes. Looking at art as something entirely interconnected and coming from different places, which I find very exciting.

https://www.heloisafaria.com.br/

A big problem with this trend is that it romanticises substance abuse- as we can see at the start of the video with the girls waking up after a blackout- and eating disorders- ​​for opting for models with pale skin and an overall sickly-looking aura, drawing its name from common side effects of the drug.

It seems that the brand hasn't tried to escape the obvious and has come up with a lighter version that still doesn't include inclusivity of race, colour, or body in the casting of models, which seems deliberate.

This famous punk godmother has never received formal professional education in fashion design. She frankly said that she has "no interest in tailoring" and is a representative figure of self-taught talent. Vivienne's designs express strong rebellious opinions. The more things that society cannot talk about and taboos, the more they have to express them, such as sex, drugs, and anti-government.

Vivienne's life is legendary and rebellious, and she is the representative of the punk spirit. He ran away three times when he was young, used his own designs to declare resistance, protested in tanks during the climate revolution, and carried punk number 100 on the Queen's birthday.

To promote anarchism, and write songs with the Sex Pistols to "challenge" the Queen. In 1985-86, it happened that Vivienne Westwood was preparing a

The new series with the theme of "royalty" also hopes to add some futurism to it and shine the tradition into tomorrow. The astronomy magazines that her son Ben once showed inspired Vivienne Westwood, so she decided to add a satellite ring to the cross crown ball, which eventually formed the brand's trademark

These are the stories Vivienne left behind.

This teahouse show aroused great repercussions in Japan, which was conservative at the time, and allowed people to see up close what the new trend was. After becoming an instant hit, many movies and dramas came to ask Mori to design costumes. Taking this as an opportunity, Mori Hidee

She officially embarked on her design journey.

In 1965, she launched her New York-based music group "East Meets West"

The first foreign fashion show with the theme of "Meet the West". In this series, she combines her signature butterflies, cranes, cherry blossoms and other traditional patterns with Western clothing to create wool suits, neatly tailored satin dresses and other works.

The iconic butterfly totem flew across the ocean, embellished with gorgeous gowns with rich oriental colors, stunning New York City.

Since then, the New York fashion circle has added a "Madame Butterfly" from the East. Hidee Mori's design is not considered avant-garde. She did not try to subvert Western design like Rei Kawakubo, Issey Miyake and other descendants, but instead combined Japanese style with Japanese style. The aesthetic blends with Western cuts and styles. Most of his works place butterflies and floral elements between the skirts, and make good use of tulle to make each dress gorgeous yet elegant.

In addition to butterflies, Mori Hidee also included mountains, rivers, sun and moon, flowers, birds, fish, and even ghosts and gods.

Said that various strong oriental elements are integrated into the design, making oriental beauty truly popular in the Western fashion circle.

The success of the show also made her the only Asian designer in the Paris High Fashion Union at that time.

From then on, she became the number one person in haute couture in Asia, along with Christian Dior and others.

All the masters competed with each other, and many royal celebrities wore her high fashion designs.

Pack.

"Subtracting in design and adding in quality" is Merci

Madame’s brand philosophy. At the same time, Merci Madame also attaches great importance to the combination of yarn and technology, and the blending of knitting and woven technology. Among them, the use of fancy yarns such as alpaca loop yarn, non-sensitive green onion yarn, and colorful dot yarn is a major feature of the brand.

Merci Madame boldly combines knitted and woven materials, with macaron colors and girly details to create a dreamy, bright, sweet and romantic appeal.

The eye-catching shape is highly recognizable. Wearing it makes you feel like you are in a children's amusement park, full of fun.

A personal design brand founded by Ms. Wang, the brand designs fashion through sculptural silhouettes, colorful prints and innovative methods, presenting a colorful and vibrant interpretation of classic women's clothing. Highly saturated colors and bold silhouettes are its signature designs, and the overall style Weird, fun, quirky, and very girly.

Founder Celine graduated from Central Saint Martins in London. Her diverse international growth experience in China and the UK gave her more inspiration. Celine’s

The goal is to create machines within her design approach, often exploring transformation and functionality in unexpected ways.

In the "Welcome Home" series, Celine created a utopian living room. She combined furniture with fashion, blended highly saturated colors and floral patterns, and created exaggerated silhouettes by filling them with foam and sponge, which is grotesque and unique.

Fun.

Kate is co-hosted by two designers. The brand takes fearlessness, rebellion and independence as its core and has a very rebellious temperament.

The concise 10go letters, exaggerated prints, and unique cuts, burnt and deconstructed T-shirts, oversized hoodies, and prints full of black humor and dark colors have quickly made MSBHV a popular choice among niche brands. , and broke out of Poland, capturing the hearts of a large number of new young people around the world.

When you see MISBHV, you will always be reminded of the era marks of street culture: street graffiti, manifesto text and other elements. Its fashion design integrates street culture.

Different elements of header culture and subculture create a unique post-Soviet aesthetic.

is a menswear brand that later evolved into producing unique accessories, contrasting colors

A genderless ready-to-wear collection in patterns and strong colours.

The brand interprets each season's items in a romantic, cynical and original way. Bright colors and fantasy patterns are the core of the brand. Childlike, exaggerated, romantic, quirky, retro, maximalism, asexuality... are all its labels.

Moto Guo has made many bold attempts in fashion and enjoys swimming in the world of whimsy. Nature and everything in the universe are his muse of inspiration. Like a storyteller, Moto Guo likes to weave his works into stories and describe them with exaggerated and romantic designs.

Processed and finally formed into a unique work.

Style, which has appeared on the official schedule of Milan Fashion Week 12 times, is a pioneering design dedicated to future technology and fashion art.

ANNAKIKI takes "one side, two bodies, dare to be different" as the brand's core concept, emphasizing the expression of counter-thinking and anti-traditional design language through cool designs, bright colors, 3-port deconstructed silhouettes, asymmetric tailoring and complex re-engineering techniques. , constantly breaking through themselves, not sticking to the inherent form, and creating a group image with a clear attitude and two sides.

The founder of the brand, Yang Zixiang, is rebellious and does not play by common sense. She is responsible for the

ANNAKIKl, in cooperation with Huawei Artificial Intelligence, integrates smart technology into fashion design, which shocked the fashion circle; it exploded with the concept of "metaverse"

Dongfeng of Fire, inspired by cyborg, was the first to launch NFT virtual fashion in China, dreamily interpreting surreal romance.

The existence of ANNAKIKI proves that Chinese fashion is far more than traditional Chinese style. Avant-garde fashion styles such as cyber science fiction and retro futurism can also be Chinese fashion.

He pays attention to tailoring and likes to use silhouettes, complex pleats and high-gloss fabrics. The fashions he designs are always gorgeous, luxurious, elegant and moving, always showing off the beauty of women to the greatest extent.

Red is Valentino’s favorite color. He once said: “Red is a seductive color combination, representing life, blood, love and passion. It is the best medicine for treating sadness and melancholy. It is also designed by me. The best-selling color in the clothing line.”

Thus, Valentino Red was born.

Valentino red represents a kind of palace-style luxury, with a high profile but a deep calmness hidden in it, walking through the world like a ball of flame.

If you want to trace the origin of Valentino's red, it is said that it originated from the opera "Carmen" he watched when he was a student. The actresses on the stage wore red dance skirts that looked like burning flames. The bright red color was pure, luxurious, and full of arrogance, which deeply touched his heart.

Many celebrities such as Princess Diana and Emma Stone are loyal fans of the Valentino Red series.

In addition to Valentino Red, his "White Series" is also a classic among classics.

In 1696, the white series designed by Valentino directly made his brand join the ranks of first-line brands, and Valentino has since become a royal aristocrat.

Royal wedding dress designer.

The white in Valentino's works is romantic and dreamy, holy and mysterious, pure and inclusive, and belongs to the sublime category of aesthetics. The white gauze skirts he designed include:

With palace-style nobility and religious mystery, it is gorgeous and profound, with its own fairy tales.

But his life was like fireworks in the night sky, gorgeous, hot, but short-lived. In 1992, St. Martin's graduation show made McQueen famous overnight, and he founded the brand of the same name Alexander McQueen in the same year.

A few years after graduation, he served as the chief designer of Givenchy. While in charge of Givenchy, he also took care of his own brand. He began a busy and creative golden decade: 1997's "The Outside Is Full of Thorns", 1998 Autumn and Winter's The Burning of Joan of Arc, The Inkjet Show in 1999, The Madman in 2001

Academy, 3D holographic projection in 2006... In 2018, he completed 42 projects

Show, like a bird that keeps flapping its wings, never stops to rest for a moment.

Under the heavy pressure, he gradually lost himself, became paranoid, irritable, and even hallucinated, seeming to be trapped in an inescapable prison. However, the last straw for McQueen was the death of his mother.

Since then, McQueen has completely fallen into the abyss of despair. He was bedridden for a week and lost all his fighting spirit.

He directly created the deconstructive design style in clothing design, and collaborated with Yamamoto

Yohji and Rei Kawakubo are regarded as the "Three Masters of Japanese Fashion Design". They are famous fashion design masters and one of the first Japanese designers to be valued by the European high-end fashion industry.

The biggest feature of Miyake is the use of pleated elements. His life

The "pleat" design breaks people's past single perception of flat and smooth fabrics. This "pleat" can weaken curves and neutralize imperfections in the figure with a sense of design. As soon as it came out at the time, it quickly became popular among women in the workplace and became a his iconic design.

In addition, he also innovated the "piece of cloth" concept. In 1998, Miyake and Mian

In cooperation with material engineer Fujiwara, the A-POC series of clothing was developed using

Computer technology precisely weaves a complete garment from just one thin thread.

In addition to clothing, the "Eau de vivre" perfume and "BAO BAO" handbags he designed are also very popular. Especially through rows of geometric triangles of the same shape

Listing the "BAO BAO" handbag series in different shapes, it can be said that it is more famous than myself. It is still favored by the fashion industry since its release in 2000.

As a Japanese fashion design master, Issey Miyake has his own unique design philosophy. “Design clothes that make people feel comfortable and surprising at the same time”

This is the philosophy Miyake pursues in clothing design.

Miyake has been committed to studying the relationship between fabrics and the body. He started from oriental clothing

Explore new clothing functions and form beauty in culture and philosophy, and design

It has an unprecedented new concept of clothing - designing in an unstructured mode, getting rid of the traditional Western modeling mode, and exploring new ideas with in-depth reverse thinking. In his opinion, fabric is the "second skin" of human beings, and the comfort and convenience of clothing are very important (emphasis on the nature, freedom and ease of clothing). He also believed that it was the space between the fabric and the body that created the clothing, which was created by hand.

Folding creates a new irregular undulating space, giving the clothing a novel and free feeling.

Miyake's design style innovation has far exceeded the limitations of the times and fashion design, showing his unique understanding of the times.

Although Issey Miyake passed away last year, his pioneering design philosophy will forever influence future generations.

On the other hand, Peter Hawkings, the creative director of Tom Ford, also decided to go nostalgic in the spring-summer collection. In this case, the two brands are looking back to their 90s style, which made their collections look like each other.

At the first glance, I did feel the similarity between the two collections. However, they are still having their own elements in their design for example, the red, green, and white colour scheme for Gucci.

And it is reasonable that the collections shared common elements. In the spring-summer 2024, a lot of brands were calling back to the past, which may be interesting to find out the reason later.

Hawkings worked as deputy of Tom Ford for twenty years, which made referencing on Tom Ford during the 90s well founded. And of course, because the brand is Tom Ford.

There may not be copying between the two brands, they are just looking back to their own histories, but unfortunately, they are from the same designer.

This jacket came with the African collection, which contains a lot of African elements including materials.

“The most noticeable dress paid tribute to the Bambara sculptures produced by the community of the same name in Mali. Their statues depicting women are characterized by long bodies and pointy breasts.”

Laurent chose models with ebony skin for the show, to fully display the clothing, for me, this action shows respect to the African culture. However, I am an outsider, and the other thing I am doubting about the collection and the jacket may be the inspiration of Laurent. Remaking men’s wear into women’s wear is interesting and meaningful, but when it came to a jacket that men wore during the world war, it turned into a question mark.

The collection was inspired by the traditional clothing of the minority Miao in Guizhou, China. The silver accessories and embroideries are the key factors. However, the collection focused on the two eye catching elements too much and working so hard for making their design look similar to the original clothing.

They have completely ignored one of the most important things, the different complex cuttings of the Miao clothing, and this is what makes it feel performative. The designs are looking beautiful, but it is super obvious that they did not learn the precious parts.

Also, the series of photographs were published in the China edition of Wallpaper, which makes me feel complicated when seeing this.

It was a serious incident, Dior was culturally appropriating Chinese traditional dress, and not responding after accused.

After seeing this piece of news, I was thinking about what is making appropriating and appreciating different, and I have got the idea that giving credit to the original culture would be the most important thing. As people are happy with their own culture being appreciated and presented with respect.

This campaign made me laugh as the editing went exactly the opposite that it should be. But I did not feel angry or disappointed, because after seeing so many of the overseas brand messing up with Chinese cultural elements, I did not have any expectation at all.

At least Prada gave credit to Chinese culture, and they did not insult anyone in this campaign.

Having what this idea in mind, when I saw the Balenciaga 2020 Qixi campaign in China, I feel uncomfortable.

The campaign was edited with stickers and frames that are really old-fashioned and vulgar, and writing “you love me”, “I love you”, “he loves me”, or “I love me” on the bag with black marker, then sold it for 13900 RMB (about 1580 GBP).

It is playful and having the sense of humour when people make fun of themselves or even satire things that related to them. But when these are done by others who are not a part of the group, it is not funny anymore.

And it is not just about the misstep on the too cool style, the “he loves me” bag also brought a lot of disputes about gender.

François Boucher was a painter during the 17 century, and one of his famous series of paintings was his chinoiserie series of Rococo paintings, which has included a lot of Chinese elements. Besides, they also contained a lot of fashion elements as Boucher was mainly painting about people.

His paintings were amazing and beautifully painted. However, a lot of details of the fashion in his paintings went wrong very badly.

L’Audience de l’empereur de Chine, is one of his Chinoiserie paintings, which described the scene of Chinese Emperor having a meeting with the officers. The contents of this painting was terribly messed up, even only focusing on the dressing of characters. Features of different dynasties were mixed together super randomly, and a load of made up design by himself. For example, the hat of the Emperor was in Song dynasty’s style, but those people in front of him are having Qing dynasty’s hair style, and there was nearly 900 years passed between the two dynasties. The whole painting just does not make any sense in terms of contents.

However, it was a painting from long time ago, there is not enough information for saying it is diversity or tokenism for Boucher’s paintings. But it has inspired me about how to identify if a piece was diversity or not. Which is looking at details of the cultural parts, and see if it was made with interest and respect to that culture to get it accurate or they are just made into the certain looking just for visual appearance.

This dress has successfully represented Princess Diana’s attitude and was described as a fresh stab at freedom.

However, it was Coco Chanel who gave the first little black dress. During the time, a lot of designers and brands are making work that callback to Chanel’s LBD.

Princess Diana and Christina Stambolian did diverse with the LBD amazingly, this was new as Diana was a member of the royal family, and black dress was off-limits to her.

One of the important characteristics of his work is he only focus on the dressing itself; it does not matter how people look, and he never rate them or judge them.

Because he is not judging or having preferences, his photos collections are objective and real. Which inspired me that not judging is what can help for diversity at the very beginning when doing the research, so the range for selection would be much more wilder.

Her opinions about style are also meaningful. She encourages people to accept and be proud of their flaws and make them the trademark of themselves.

While being diverse, she loves her own background and was super confident about it. In the documentary “Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel”, when she was asked for the question “How does one become Diana Vreeland?”, her answer was “The first thing to do, my love, is arranged to be born in Paris. After that, everything follows quite naturally.”

This gave me the idea that, before being diverse, the first thing is to love the culture I owned already and be confidence about it, then start to appreciate others.

Because fashion is a medium for self-expression, it is a powerful cultural instrument that, when played correctly, can represent and make different communities feel seen and included. This is why, whether we are designers, journalists, and artists, it is crucial that we are educated on the significance of cultural icons or pieces, so as not to offend, negatively impact or wrongly portray community being represented.

However in recent years, due to the higher demand in diverse media representation, many companies have used it as a way to garner a larger audience for the sole reason of profit-making. This can be seen in instances pf queer-baiting or including a minimal number of POC as models / casts.

In response to this, I am hoping to illustrate the narrative of a young non-binary person who comes to discover the freedom they experience in wearing hyper-feminine fashion after being influenced by the fashion of the London club/rave scene after moving to the city for the first time.

Character and styling- I'm lucky enough to have friends who fit the description of the character I described, (gender non-conforming and heavily involved in the London club scene). For styling reference I'm going to document via photos and observational sketches of their night-time looks, in order to have a diverse range of references of the looks my character could start in and then finish in.

Location - I need to visit a range of club venues and social night spaces in order to gather an idea of the colour and lighting I want for my characters to be evolving in and be inspired by

Artists- For this project, I feel that I could be heavily inspired by the London drag scene to incorporate that hyper-feminine energy in nightlife spaces. Looking at drag performers such as Dakota Schiffer, Black Peppa, Violet Chachki, and Gottmik as artist inspirations for my character's styling could be useful.

There have been times I tried to put some fashion into my daily outfit, like matching a hoodie with a short, I always get a lot of critical comments from my family, they think everyone should follow the "dress code" in their mind otherwise you must have some problems. The older generations in Chinese society are not very inclusive of fashion. They are unlikely to accept things that are too "fashion" not to mention dressing in something that is up against your gender role. High school students are not allowed to put effort into their appearance, such as nails, make-up and hair styling are all forbidden. My sister's hair is naturally curly and her school told her to straighten it up because curly hair causes "bad influences" on other students. I find it ridiculous that they can't accept her natural way and force her to fit into their standard.

I would also like to include my opinions on certain campaigns and how would I present the same idea by remaking or redesigning work from that campaign, along with some other features I learnt from my research.

I would need to identify something I like and dislike from my selected campaign, and probably do some visual response to it. The I should research for other campaigns that are doing something similar or the same but in different way (probably the ones I found it does better)

Evaluations from others about the selected campaign may also be helpful, especially when considering if the campaign is diversity or not.

On the other hand, I will need to research more about Chinese fashion as the base of further development in my work. Maybe narrow it down to a specific time period, location, or Chinese minority.

Some primary research I could do may be show the selected campaign to others and directly ask for their thoughts. Also going to museums or exhibitions that included some related clothing and review on them.

Artist: not yet

Materials: digital, canvas, Chinese Xuan paper, cloth

   The brand I'm going to associate with my characters is Farm Rio, a brand that inspires me in terms of style, social and environmental responsibility, and international recognition. Despite the difficulties of competing with fast fashion brands that have lower prices or credibility in the foreign market for having extravagant prints highlighting the imagination, nature, and beauty of Brazil, Farm stands out precisely for what sets it apart from other brands.

   My idea is to bring to life women who have songs written about them and, from this, to show the diversity of the beauty of Brazilian women and the culture that surrounds them.

   The fact that Brazil is a miscegenated country brings such a cultural and symbolic load that I couldn't choose another type of diversity to study, mainly because of the lack of representation of real Brazilian women without fetishising or stereotyping.

   My fashion story shows each of the women coming from a different part of Brazil meeting at Rio de Janeiro airport where all flights are delayed. After waiting for hours and hours Gabriela, the oldest of the characters, talks to Yemanjá. Yemanjá is a female orixá (African deity) of the Candomblé and Umbanda religions. Her name comes from the Yoruba language term "Yèyé omo ejá", which means "mother whose children are like fish".

    One of the legends says that she was the mother of all the Orixás and I wanted exactly this maternal, confident, and independent energy to guide these other women. After talking for a while, they decide to leave everything behind and head for the beach and when they get under the sea there is that peace and calm, the silence is as if the outside world that oppresses them so much didn't exist.

I've been an atheist all my life and when I went through difficult times my parents took me to the Terreiro. Over time, my faith in the orishas became something pure that governs my life. So my fashion story also has this personal symbolism, of my journey in search of peace, harmony, and calm, the feeling we get when we're underwater and can't even think about the outside world is what I feel when I'm in contact with them.

In or out of Yoruba mythology I'd like to celebrate sorority and girlhood. To do this, as well as being inspired by Farm's campaigns, I was inspired by the film Barbie (2023), which incredibly shows diversity without it seeming forced, diversity for diversity's sake, just because of the fear of cancellation. It also has incredible scenes that emphasise the importance of unity between women and their strength when together.

I chose the theme of femininity because I as a female individual don’t express it the way that it is conventionally expected. There are other girls like me who have also faced others joking about our gender identity because of the way we dress and present ourselves. I think it is important to show that a woman who dresses different to the “norms” is still a woman, because we are not solely defined on how we look.

Looking into more asian artists, I have found that Lea Woo’s art style and techniques would suit my subject of interests. She uses textures that are found in traditional east asian silk screen paintings and this really adds a cultural flair to what she makes. The subjects of these illustrations are also very obviously east asian girls, which she uses to accentuate their beauty through elegant poses, backgrounds, fashion and flowers. I think that this is a very beautiful way of representing east asian girls which makes them confident, beautiful and appreciated as art. I would like to explore east asian art styles for my images.

Although I have researched Basic Pleasure Mode to be my chosen brand, I wanted to explore more specifically Chinese brands for my character model. Because I want to represent Chinese individuals, I feel it is essential for the clothing to have Chinese elements that makes its origins clear.

Ao Yes is an independent fashion brand that incorporates the silhouettes, cuts and patterns of traditional Chinese garment into their clothing designs. Mixed with contemporary styling, they create unique looks that also pay tribute to their roots and inspiration. I think this is a very suitable brand for my idea as it represents Chinese fashion well but is also versatile enough for me to style onto my characters.

For the composition of my illustration series I am envisioning snippets from within a coffee shop where people of different backgrounds and ages gather. I think this is an organic approach to include such a wide range of people, and there’s a lot of potential with the overall aesthetic and themes of the pieces. 

To further cultivate a sense of community, I am drawing inspiration from Kopitiams when designing the setting of my campaign images. Kopitiams are coffee houses that serve Malay of Chinese food seen across South-east Asia and are often places where locals gather to chat and eat for leisure.

Alternatively, I could show locations that are exclusive to asia/china, and not just coffee stops by themselves. This gives a more overall view but in turn shows more range in the beauty of these countries.

Although I think this campaign was a good approach for the brand, I definitely feel as though they could have enhanced their video, showing us more of the dark realities to mental health, because this was quite a lighthearted campaign.

For my fashion campaign, I conscientiously selected Simone Rocha as the focal brand. The rationale extends beyond the brand's emblematic girlish style; it is anchored in the fact that Simone Rocha herself once called Hong Kong, China, her home, sharing a parallel temporal backdrop with my formative years. In her designs, the dresses adorning young girls transcend the mere symbolism of sweetness; they collide with a plethora of rebellious elements such as suspenders, straw, and nylon. Through her creative expressions, I detect the subversion of traditional images of young girls, almost as if catching a glimpse of my erstwhile self, tinged with a touch of rebellion and tenacity. In the narrow alleys of my youth, I meandered wearing mud-stained sneakers, sporting a mushroom haircut, and carrying wildflowers cradled in a plastic bag—a testament to my penchant for the unconventional.

The mole, which had scabbed over, ultimately did not vanish, but over time, I have come to embrace it as my unique identifier. Through my immersion in the realm of fashion, I have gradually come to comprehend that beauty is an expansive, multifaceted concept that transcends conventional norms and embraces imperfections. With this project, I aspire to communicate to the myriad girls, akin to my former self, who have succumbed to the brainwashing of antiquated beauty propaganda: a girl's beauty is unparalleled—her innate features, rebellious disposition, and audacity to experiment amalgamate to form the most exquisite representation. In essence, it is an assertion that the true essence of beauty lies not in conformity but in the celebration of one's distinctive qualities.