Personal Reflection

Personal Reflection

At the start of this module, I must admit I was naïve to how much work and dedication it takes to truly understand the fashion industry. I have gained a lot of insight through different methods e.g. SWOT and PESTLE, strategies, and theories. With all these skills learned, I created a visual report, designed brand analysis boards, and learnt more from a library than I ever thought I would. Another benefit was learning how to use InDesign which is an important programme for most visual projects.

In the beginning, I was under the impression that luxury brands were automatically unsustainable because more money generates better ways to mask the true form of the fashion industry. I chose Prada to truly challenge and educate myself on how high-end brands operate. I found the experience of researching very time consuming to the point where I felt like giving up.

In hindsight, I’m amazed at how much I learnt and without those nights of reading/working, I wouldn’t have come this far. Sites such as Statistica, Business Of Fashion and Vogue helped me gain quick insight into competitors and offered a range of reports on related topics that aided me in completing my work. In addition, fashion articles and lectures gave me knowledge into beauty, stereotypes and what we see now as the ‘norm’. It was particularly interesting how the history of fashion evolved through the topics of gender, culture, and sustainability. The fashion industry is responsible for 8-10% of global carbon emissions (Ro, C. 2020), I never knew how much detail, and brainstorming it would take to find solutions for what we think are easy answers. 

This experience has given me greater independence and confidence in my own research, even though I struggled through some trivial things such as using new software and keeping up with the pace of given work. I have a great appreciation now for brand strategists since I had to go into much detail to analyse my brand from products, place, price points, and promotions. I now have a deeper understanding of how brands can improve their sustainability methods by comparing to their competitors, but how it could also cause their downfall due to finance issues and lack of awareness to the needs of modern society. 

In the future, I will apply all new skills and research methods into upcoming projects. I’m very satisfied with my progress using InDesign and hopefully I can learn new programmes. I don’t believe this module gave me any negative impacts but only a shock of the dedication needed to find out the truth of a given topic, in my case - sustainability. As for improvements, I really need to work on my presentational skills as I understand that this field of work requires professionalism when speaking towards an audience. Confidence takes time but I will make it my focus moving forward. Overall, I am excited to see how I progress through the year and embrace the challenges ahead with the help of tutors and peers. [502 words]

Bibliography

Ro, C. (2020). Can fashion ever be sustainable?. Bbc.com. Retrieved 11 December 2021, from https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200310-sustainable-fashion-how-to-buy-clothes-good-for-the-climate.

Illustrations

https://unsplash.com/photos/M19QtooXPKs?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditShareLink