Starting off this week with my second photoshoot of the project where I was capturing “capsule wardrobes” in the studio – using minimalism as a sustainable practice inspired by Project 333 and Six Items Challenge, which encouraged people to only wear a finite choice of their favourite clothing to make the point that we actually don’t need that many clothes to wear. This was also inspired by my boyfriend who is definitely a minimalist fashion icon, so he had to be part of the shoot. The photoshoot went well, and I am excited to be getting these pictures up on the website. I think he definitely has a model quality – biased, I know – however, I find it very difficult to get him posing as he isn’t comfortable in front of a camera. I used my previous coaching skills to get him posing. My favourite thing about photoshoots is having fun while doing it, and it will always translate into the final result, so even if my model was shy at first, I think the images came out great in the end as we were having a fun time while shooting – I would love to bring this attitude into real-world practice after graduating.
This week we were supposed to meet up with our Design assistants; unfortunately, my pair had not come in. We spoke over email; however, I don’t think she’s keen to meet up. I was eager to have her do some Instagram posts for me as I feel like that’s a manageable thing that would be suitable for her to do alongside her studies. Nonetheless, I used that lesson time to get on with my work and have a conversation with Mark about moving forward with my app idea as that is his area of expertise. I was very stuck on which programme is best to use as there are so many out there which aren’t necessarily easy to use. Up until then, I was using a very basic program to get a very simple outline of how I wanted the app to look, but it was very difficult to use, and you couldn’t achieve much with it. Mark suggested Figma to me, which was a huge help, and I instantly got it and started watching YouTube videos to learn how to use it, and it was very easy to pick up and make good designs with it. It comes with many pre-made templates for a variety of digital uses – websites, portfolios, presentations, apps etc. He also recommended me his own book on UX design which has been really helpful for my work and has provided good structure for how to go about making my app. The process that naturally came to me is the ‘Agile Mindset’ where I went back to the same design and improved it through development and testing. I spent my time on the train back and forth to London on Figma playing around with how I’d want the app to look.
The rest of the time I did some further reading recommended by Rachel on the UAL Centre for Sustainable Fashion on “Fashion as Sustainability in Action,” which gave outlines for small emerging fashion businesses on how to incorporate sustainability into the core of your business which helped me gain a more well-rounded perspective on what it means for a business to be sustainable marking the difference between greenwashing and embedding sustainability into the core practices of which your business run on. This was extremely valuable information for me if I am looking to take this app idea further past university and to try to develop it as an impactful business.
Later on in the week, we had some talks about entering the professional world post-uni… and to be honest, it’s not looking good. I am not feeling super positive that there will be many open doors leaving university into a global recession, as I have seen many friends of mine be made redundant and struggle to find jobs for months on end. It was nice hearing about other people’s experiences on how they made their way into the industry; however, all of their experiences were from 20+ years ago, and unfortunately, things aren’t the same anymore, so I feel that some of the advice is outdated. I wish I could have the privilege to be picky with what job I get coming out of university. Another thing for me is that neither I nor my family have “connections” or “strings to pull” in order to give me a leg up entering the professional world, so I know that I will have more limitations when it comes to that. The job market seems so ridiculous at the moment, seeing listings for internships requiring 3+ years of experience and lots of demanding requirements for minimal pay jobs where you’d have to jump through hoops to even land an interview, and I am feeling very discouraged.