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I come from a fine art background. In my whole life, I have never done something like fashion communication before. I knew that fashion was one of my biggest hobbies, and that I wished to go into the creative direction field in the future. When immersed in the world of fashion communication in Part 2, all the elements and roles that you could explore was overwhelmingly exciting. I like to be involved in all sorts of aspects when it comes to approaching campaigns or projects, such as styling and modelling, photographing and editing, having the vision and ideas to direct, and being able to write it all out. The biggest thing I learned and am still getting better at is being able to work with a more interdisciplinary workload. I learned a lot about how to be a leader when it comes to your work, but also the importance of being a great collaborator and communicator as well and understanding the detrimental impact of the lack of these qualities that can show in your work if not applied well. For example, the GOOMHEO campaign project was a group task, and we encountered several hurdles that if dealt with by myself, would’ve been very hard to overcome in terms of logistics. We organised a shoot, ourselves being the models, and then realised only after that we had to find a model for the next day that was available to shoot again, without a booked slot in the studios. The importance of little setbacks like this is that you learn how to improvise and think on your feet when under pressure, and when you have a team, you can divide work up together and problem-solve as a collective. We managed to resolve all of these issues in the end and created an end product that actually satisfied us more than the initial idea.

I got the chance to definitely reflect specifically on what my strengths and weaknesses are as a communicator. For example, I love to write because I am very passionate and words are a way that I can quickly express my ideas. I also enjoy graphics, typesetting, layout, all these technical elements and software interests me. I also like styling and modelling, it is something I continue to do even outside of my academic practice. However, I also do realise that I am not necessarily the best at taking films and videography, which is a skill I would like to improve upon of course further in my practice. I like taking photographs, but I am not the most advanced with a professional camera or adobe lightroom. Improving my digital enhancement skills and getting better with software and technology is one of my goals, as someone who had limited exposure and access to these things before, I see now as my chance to learn. I think it does exemplify in my work chronologically, the improvement of the use of software, like Indesign to create my Publication, or photoshop to cut out and edit pictures which are all skills I did not know how to do 4 months ago. Weaknesses are anything but criticism of my work, rather just showing me the areas that I would love to be better at, after all it isn’t anything I am used to, coming from a background where my practice involved a lot of painting, drawing, essay writing and research. I think coming from a fine art background helps me, as you can apply the conceptual thinking to your projects, you can create 3D sculptures for sets, or paint a mural for a campaign. You learn to be freer with your approach when it comes to briefs and understand the importance of not thinking so literally.

I think one of my favourite most influential pieces of work that I have created so far is the Body Politics Project where I explored my identity as a South Asian living in the UK, and the battle between modesty standards and cultural taboos. It was definitely a project that came and grew from the heart out onto a series of campaign posters and magazine spreads. When creating an initial brainstorm for this project, II knew it would be hard to create and speak on something that there isn’t much research on, and is so specific to a type of demographic, but that inspired me to create something first, and something where I felt like I had to do it justice, I couldn’t let it down. Creatives like Sunil Gupta or Yumnah Al Ali, and Sherin Neshat all heavily inspired me in their ability to touch on topics like these through striking photographs that create personal narratives of the people in it. I knew I wanted to do that in my work, share a story.

I brought in one of my mum’s sari’s (ethnic dress), for the photo shoot, I got my South Asian friends, who experience the same issue as me to pose, as well as myself. I kept the set very clean, it was more about the emotion and freedom of expression in wearing the garment in the ‘wrong’ way, and posing in an atypical manner. I wanted to defeat the taboos through photography and textual layout. I paired it with a series of quotes from my South Asian friends on how they felt about the topic. “People want to idolise my thick long black hair, but then they see my arms and suddenly I’m disgusting. ‘I feel judged by the South Asian community more than western society as well as some quotes from one of my personally most influential books as a kid, Brick Lane by Monica Ali which is about a Bengali female emigrating to Brick Lane, tackling culture, religion, feminity, identity all in one book. I wanted to create an impactful poster so I looked into ID magazine layouts, one of my personal favourites due to their use of black and white with bold impactful prints, as well as them not being afraid of space. It creates an unapologetic feeling when you flick through the pages, and I wanted that in my work too, which I think I managed to successfully do in the end.

Project Muze is an experiment from 2016 that Google and Zalando collaborated on, creating AI that could design high fashion garments. It’s important to engage with and keep up with this sort of technology as it will be the way forward, NFT’s, online fashion shows, CGI 3D Modelling. Tribute Brand is an online brand that is pioneering as one of the only high fashion cyber garment brands that sell online clothes. I think in an ever-changing digitalized world, it’s important to learn to keep up with it. I like innovation and new ideas. I’d like to play around and develop my digital skills, even more, working with 3D UX/UI, digital garments, filters etc to keep my work experimental. I can explore current themes and topics that I find interesting or speak to me as an individual within the fashion realm, but intertwine it with the future technology and digitalization of it all as well.

References

Tribute Brand. (n.d.). Tribute Brand. [online] Available at: https://tribute-brand.com

Google. (2016). Project Muze: Fashion inspired by you, designed by code. [online] Available at: https://blog.google/around-the-globe/google-europe/project-muze-fashion-inspired-by-you/

Think with Google. (n.d.). Zalando’s Project Muze: Fashion Inspired by You, Designed by Code. [online] Available at: https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/intl/en-cee/consumer-insights/consumer-trends/zalandos-project-muze-fashion-inspired-you-designed-code/

Clark, M. (2021). People are spending millions on NFTs. What? Why? [online] The Verge. Available at: https://www.theverge.com/22310188/nft-explainer-what-is-blockchain-crypto-art-faq

Simpson, J. (n.d.). Council Post: Finding Brand Success In The Digital World. [online] Forbes. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2017/08/25/finding-brand-success-in-the-digital-world/?sh=5fcf39ba626e [Accessed 8 Feb. 2022]

www.youtube.com. (n.d.). Project Muze: Fashion inspired by you, designed by code. [online] Available at: https://youtu.be/NBy76vM1ZQA [Accessed 8 Feb. 2022]

Ali, M. (2014). Brick Lane. London: Black Swan.

SUNIL GUPTA. (n.d.). SUNIL GUPTA. [online] Available at: https://www.sunilgupta.net [Accessed 19 Feb. 2022].

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