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Consumerism and the Loss of Beauty in Everyday Objects

Written by: Maria Pavin

This essay makes generalisations and assumptions that may not be true to all people and is modelled off what is seen in the wider world, particularly in western cultures.

The book ‘The beauty of everyday things’ by philosopher and Japanese folk craft pioneer Soetsu Yangai is a collection of essays discussing the relationships people have with objects. His main focus is on folk craft, ‘mingei’ in Japanese, and how the appreciation for these objects has diminished through time.

Folk craft objects are the objects of the everyday, not created by renowned artists and are neither expensive nor rare. Through his book, Yangai shares the importance of them and their natural beauty.

Although I disagree with his idea that objects have moved away from serving a truly utilitarian purpose and instead have become focussed on the aesthetics, with his idea that we no longer appreciate the objects used day to day is that one that resonates most powerfully. The epidemic of single use objects highlights this, whilst the recent ban on some of the most polluting single use plastics has made a step to reduce our reliance on them, the underlying problem of overconsumption still prevails.

So how does beauty relate to our consumption of products and our appreciation of them? One of the ideas that has settled in our minds mostly unconsciously is that beauty is something remarkable, unattainable or something that can only be attributed to the most significant things. Is it perhaps that if we label too many things ‘beautiful’ then suddenly the value of the word diminishes and society, which has been built to hold up those beautiful unattainable things, will crumble? Of course, in actuality societal collapse will not occur after coming to the realisation that beauty can indeed be found in almost anything, but it may help us to value the things we have more. Yangai explores this by saying ‘Beauty and life are treated as separate realms of being. Beauty is no longer viewed as an indispensable part of our everyday lives’ but in Yangai’s opinion, we will find the most beauty in that of the everyday. As he references that the very first people to recognize this beauty in ‘miscellaneous objects’ was that of the ‘first generation of tea masters’ and the ‘ido tea bowls’. These bowls now reaching the status of ‘omeibutsu’ (object of great renown) and thus high value is a testament to the way they were crafted.

However, beauty cannot and should not be found in every object that exists, even if there is always an element of beauty in most;to label an object as ‘beautiful’ must be conserved for those which wholly embody it. So which objects are beautiful? Yangai tells us that through the lens of folk craft, objects that are beautiful are those that which ‘honestly fulfil the practical purpose for which they were made.’ nYangai suggests the way to achieve a ‘kingdom of beauty’ is to ‘not place emphasis on appearance to the detriment of utility’. This is important to consider especially on the theme of sustainability and consumption, as the removal of the unnecessary can greatly reduce the materials and waste produced by an object.

Yangai writes: ‘what matters is not whether the manufacturing is new or old but whether the work is honest and sincere.’ However, as Yangai wrote this before the age of AI and automation the question of whether machines can be ‘honest and sincere’ arises. Although the company which programmes the machines and manufactures the products may have ‘honest and sincere’ intentions, many of the principles set out by Yangai require a sense of consciousness of the thing producing the object.

This contradicts some of his further statements that ‘no machine, no matter how powerful, can match its (the human hand’s) freedom of movement’ ‘modern-day organization, machinery, and labour conditions are not suited to the honest and sincere production of utilitarian ware’ therefore implying that his earlier statement does not encompass all new manufacturing but instead the resurgence of the production of folk craft and how this can be applied to a modern world.

In ‘Ways of seeing’ by art critic and essayist John Beger chapter one he states ‘we never look at just one thing; we are always looking at the relation between things and ourselves.’ Applying this to the trend cycles that has exponentially sped up as a result of overconsumption and capitalism we can see how in context all objects can be deemed as valuable and thus beautiful. Yangai highlights this in his essays stating that ‘though these objects [folk craft] are the most familiar to us throughout our lives, their existence has been ignored in the flow of tie, because they are considered low and common’

On the contrary objects surrounded by those that we view as ugly or cheap (not in the monetary sense) can therefore become of little value themselves. Social media perpetuates ideas of grandeur and beauty, most to be unattainable whether that be to cost, scarcity or simply that it is falsified. Yet even when knowing this we apply them to our everyday lives. Suddenly what once was beautiful is bland and what was once a rarity is banal.

But could one see too much beauty in things, consumerism has led to people buying endless amounts of things they do not need, weather it is because they have been tricked into thinking they do or if they simply ‘want’ to have the item. Is it that they deem the objects as ‘beautiful’ or is it from other desires such as those to collect and surround themselves with objects of value. Reselling offers an interesting outlook on the value of objects, the main cause of reselling is the idea of exclusivity. If these products were not exclusive, then they would largely not be resold furthermore people’s desires for rare and unobtainable objects drive this market creating platforms where products are sold for tens or hundreds of pounds more than they are worth. By applying Yangai’s principles of folk craft, the mere idea of reselling contradicts that of the beauty of everyday things. Regardless of the fact that resold products are not those of folk craft and the every day, I think it adds an interesting perspective of why people find value in exclusivity especially when it comes about through processes as monotonous as mass production.

Furthermore, by applying John Berger’s description of how people perceive things in that ‘although every image embodies a way of seeing, our perception or appreciation of an image depends also upon our own way of seeing’, every object becomes exclusive for no two people can perceive it in the same way, therefore the correlation of scarcity to value loses some of its influence.

John Berger in chapter five of ‘Ways of seeing’ describes how ‘A patron cannot be surrounded by music or poems in the same way as he is surrounded by his pictures…. The[y] show him sights: sights of what he may possess. This perhaps gives an insight into why we feel the need to buy so many things, with so much diversity in culture, arts and academics surrounding ourselves with things that remind ourselves of them it helps to create our own identity as surround ourselves with things that may otherwise be unobtainable. After all, how do you represent the pursuit for knowledge on a wall, if not for a bookshelf? John Berger goes on to reference the anthropologist Levi-Strauss who wrote ’It is this avid and ambitious desire to take possession of the object for the benefit of the owner or even of the spectator which seems to me to constitute one of the outstandingly original features of the art of Western civilization.’ This reflection on the history and nature of the human condition to feel the need to possess something for ones own gain can perhaps give an explanation for overconsumption. Perhaps we have always felt the need to acquire products and objects but did not have the means, whether that be money, status, or locality. Globalisation resulting in time-space compression as well as the increase in industrialisation, manufacturing techniques and transnational corporations has

allowed for products to become dramatically cheaper. Therefore, the ability for us to buy things is easier than ever, but has it caused depreciation in our perception of their beauty?

Glossary

Utilitarian design- Design that prioritizes function over form and other elements.

Time-space compression- the way the world is perceived to be smaller due to the increase in transport, communications, and capitalist processes.

References

Berger, J., 1972. Ways of Seeing. s.l.:Penguin Classics.

Yanagi, S., 2019. The Beauty of Everyday Things. s.l.:Penguin Classics.

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In a world full of need, how can we ensure we help people in the best possible ways?

Mrs Efua Aremo, a Design & Technology Teacher at WHS, explores whether a ‘human-centred design’ approach can help us deliver solutions which are effective in meeting local and global needs.

A World full of Need

It is impossible to adequately describe the profound losses experienced over the past 12 months. There are the more measurable losses such as employment, finance and health but then there are also the relational losses caused by isolation and tragic bereavements. It has been a brutal year for many, and the impact of the pandemic has been acutely felt by the most vulnerable.

When we are confronted with such needs both locally and internationally, we desire to help in any way we can, as Mr Keith Cawsey observed in his December article. However, it doesn’t take long to discover that people have many different types of needs and there are many different types of help we might provide.

What do we need?

“I need blue skies, I need them old times, I need something good…”

Those words from singer-songwriter, Maverick Sabre, powerfully captures the sense of longing many of us feel for simple things like sunshine and for more intangible things we struggle to name.

One of the most popular ways of categorising human needs was introduced by Abraham Maslow in 1943, it is known as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

 

‘Maslow’s hierarchy of needs’ © Verywell / Joshua Seong. Used with Permission.

Maslow’s hierarchy describes five different levels of need:

  1. Physiological: basic needs such as water, food and sleep.
  2. Safety: security and freedom from danger.
  3. Love/Belonging: the desire for relationships of love, affection and belonging.
  4. Esteem: a stable, positive self-evaluation and respect from others.
  5. Self-actualisation: the desire to realise one’s full potential.

How can we help?

“Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.”

The old proverb quoted above helps us as we think about the types of help we might provide to people in need.

Through observing the charitable work of religious and humanitarian organisations, we can identify at least four levels of assistance:

  • Emergency Relief: giving direct help to meet immediate needs – “give a man a fish.”
  • Longer-Term Development: giving assistance which results in a person or community being able to meet their own needs – “teach a man to fish.”
  • Social Reform: overcoming the adverse social conditions or systems which lead to injustice or oppression.
  • Advocacy/Campaigns: providing information about needs to people who are able to help.

This article focusses on the first two categories.

When Helping isn’t Helpful

© Africacollection / Shutterstock

Sometimes, efforts to provide help do not achieve the intended result. For example, in 2010, a US aid agency installed 600 hand pumps to supply clean water for rural households in northern Mozambique. The aim was to help the women and girls who travelled long distances to collect contaminated water from wells and rivers. The aid agency imagined that the pumps would save time, improve health conditions and empower the women to start small businesses. However, these water pumps were not used by most of the people in the community. What went wrong?

Helping those who are different to ourselves

Though the desire to help others is always to be commended, it can often be accompanied by wrong assumptions which hinder our ability to help effectively. This is especially true when we are seeking to help people from a different economic status, ethnicity or culture to our own.

It is tempting to assume we know what people need, especially if they have basic physiological needs which are not being met. However, even in his original paper, Maslow acknowledged that human beings are more complex than the tidy logic of his hierarchy suggests. He recognised that the lower-order needs do not need to be completely satisfied before the higher-order needs become important. Therefore, when helping the neediest people in society, we need to get to know them beyond their basic needs.

Recognising this fact is key to understanding what went wrong with the water pumps in Mozambique. The aid agency seems to have stereotyped the rural women as passive, needy people and so failed to ask their opinion about where best to locate the new pumps. They focussed their attention on providing access to clean water but did not account for the fact that the original water sites were “important social spaces where women exchanged information, shared work, socialized their children, and had freedom outside the home.” The new sites lacked the privacy, shade and areas for laundry and bathing which the women valued, and so the new water pumps were rejected.

Thankfully, we can learn from experiences like this to devise better ways of helping people in need.

Human-Centred Design: A Better Way?

“In order to get to new solutions, you have to get to know different people, different scenarios, different places.”

Human-centred design (also known as ‘design thinking’) is an approach to problem-solving which involves partnering with those in need of help to deliver the solutions which most benefit them. It involves “building deep empathy with the people you’re designing for… as you immerse yourself in their lives and come to deeply understand their needs.”

 

The Elements of Human-Centred Design

 

But this does not mean that those who are being helped are only consulted at the start of the process. Human-centred design is a non-linear collaborative process which involves back-and-forth communication between those helping and those needing help. Together they produce many design iterations until they find a solution which best suits those who need it. It is obvious how this approach might have led to better results in Mozambique.

Human-centred design involves looking beyond their needs and acknowledging the full humanity of the people who we wish to help: appreciating their culture, discovering what they value, and how they might contribute to meeting their own needs.

Sternin in Vietnam © positivedeviance.org

Taking a more human-centred approach enabled Jerry Sternin from Save the Children to successfully deal with the problem of severe malnutrition amongst children in rural Vietnam in the 1990s. Previous attempts had relied on aid workers providing resources from outside the affected communities – these methods proved unsustainable and ineffective.

Sternin discovered that despite their poverty, some mothers were managing to keep their children healthy. So he sought to learn from them and discovered what they were doing differently from their neighbours: they were feeding their children smaller meals multiple times a day rather than the conventional twice daily. They were also adding to these meals freely available shellfish and sweet potato greens even though other villagers did not deem these appropriate for children.

By empowering the mothers to train other families in these practices, Sternin was able to help the community help itself. Malnutrition in northern Vietnam was greatly reduced through implementing this effective, empowering and sustainable local solution.

The Wonderbag

Wonderbag by Conasi.eu, CC BY-NC 3.0[iii]
 

Another sustainable design solution is the Wonderbag, which is a non-electric slow-cooker. Once a pot of food has been brought to the boil and placed in the foam-insulated Wonderbag, it will continue to cook (without the need for additional heat) for up to 12 hours. This product was developed in South Africa to address the problems caused by cooking indoors on open fires. It has vastly improved the lives of the women who use them because cooking with the Wonderbag uses less fuel and water, improves indoor air-quality, and frees up time which many girls and women have used to invest in their education, employment, or to start their own businesses. Local women use their sewing skills to customise the Wonderbags with their own cultural designs.

Human-Centred Design at WHS

Year 9 WHS Design Students

In Year 9, design students at WHS are tasked with designing assistive devices for clients with disabilities. One of the first things they need to do is get to know their users; seeing beyond their disabilities and discovering who they are, what they love, and what they hate.

One pupil found that her client who suffers from benign tremors loves to paint but hates having to use massive assistive devices because they draw too much attention to her.  This pupil is currently developing a discrete product which will help their client paint again, meeting her needs for esteem and self-actualisation.

Helping Others in this Time of Need

In the midst of a global pandemic and in its aftermath, we will encounter people in need of both emergency relief and longer-term development assistance. Perhaps by adopting a human-centred design approach, we will be able to help others in ways which are effective, sustainable, and which recognise the beautifully complex humanity of those in need.

REFERENCES

  • Rawpixel.com, Shutterstock Image ID: 212764069, n.d.

  • Keith Cawsey, “What Has COVID Taught Us about Our Relationships with Others?,” WimTeach, 10 December 2020, http://whs-blogs.co.uk/teaching/covid-taught-us-relationships-others/.
  • Maverick Sabre, I Need (Official Video), 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZNtticFI60.
  • Abraham H. Maslow, A Theory of Human Motivation, 1943, http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Maslow/motivation.htm.
  • Joshua Seong, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, 2020, https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-maslows-hierarchy-of-needs-4136760.
  • Timothy Keller, Generous Justice (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2010); Oxfam GB, “How We Spend Your Money,” n.d., https://www.oxfam.org.uk/donate/how-we-spend-your-money/.
  • Africacollection, Shutterstock Image ID: 714414436, n.d.
  • Emily Van Houweling, Misunderstanding Women’s Empowerment (Posner Center, 2020), https://posnercenter.org/catalyst_entry/misunderstanding-womens-empowerment/.
  • Emily Van Houweling, Misunderstanding Women’s Empowerment.
  • Emi Kolawole, Stanford University d.school cited in IDEO.org, The Field Guide to Human-Centered Design: Design Kit, 2015, 22.
  • IDEO.org, “What Is Human-Centred Design?,” Design Kit, n.d., https://www.designkit.org/human-centered-design.
  • Monique Sternin, “The Vietnam Story: 25 Years Later,” Positive Deviance Collaborative, n.d., https://positivedeviance.org/case-studies-all/2018/4/16/the-vietnam-story-25-years-later.
  • Jerry Sternin and Robert Choo, “The Power of Positive Deviancy,” Harvard Business Review, 1 January 2000, https://hbr.org/2000/01/the-power-of-positive-deviancy.
  • Conasi.eu, Wonderbag CC BY-NC 3.0, n.d., https://www.conasi.eu/cocina-lenta/3088-wonderbag-mediana-batik-rosa.html.

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Toward the Unknown Region: how do we impart the skills and knowledge required for students to be successful in careers that currently do not exist?

Future of Jobs 2

Toward the Unknown Region[1] – Mr. Nicholas Sharman, Head of Design & Technology looks at whether integrating STEAM into the heart of a curriculum develops skills required for careers that do not currently exist.

The world of work has always been an evolving environment. However, it has never been more pertinent than now; according to the world economic forum, 65% of students entering primary school today will be working in jobs that do not currently exist[2].

As educators, this makes our job either extremely difficult, pointless or (in my view) one of the most exciting opportunities that we have been faced with for nearly 200 years since the introduction of the Victorian education system. The idea of relying solely on a knowledge-based education system is becoming outdated and will not allow students to integrate into an entirely different world of work. Automation and Artificial Intelligence will make manual and repetitive jobs obsolete, changing the way we work entirely. Ask yourself this: could a robot do your job? The integration of these developments is a conversation all in its own and one for a future post.

So, what is STEAM and why has it become so prominent in the UK education system?

The acronym STEM was (apparently) derived from the American initiative ‘STEM’ developed in 2001 by scientific administrators at the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF)[3]. The addition of the ‘A’ representing the Arts, ultimately creating Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths. Since the introduction of STEM-based curriculums in the US, the initiative has grown exponentially throughout the globe, with the UK education system adopting the concept.

So why STEAM and what are the benefits? STEAM education is far more than just sticking subject titles together. It is a philosophy of education that embraces teaching skills and subjects in a way that resembles the real world. More importantly, it develops the skills predicted to be required for careers that currently do not exist. What are these skills and why are they so important?

Knowledge vs Skills

When we look at the education systems from around the world there are three that stand out. Japan, Singapore and Finland have all been quoted as countries that have reduced the size of their knowledge curriculum. This has allowed them to make space to develop skills and personal attributes. Comparing this to the PISA rankings, these schools are within the top 5 in the world and in Singapore’s case, ranked No1[4].

I am sure we cannot wholly attribute this to a skills-focused curriculum; however, it does ask the question – what skills are these schools developing and how much knowledge do we need?[5],[6]

  1. Mental Elasticity – having the mental flexibility to think outside of the box, see the big picture and rearrange things to find a solution.
  2. Critical Thinking – the ability to analyse various situations, considering multiple solutions and making decisions quickly through logic and reasoning.
  3. Creativity – robots may be better than you may at calculating and diagnosing problems, however, they are not very good at creating original content, thinking outside the box or being abstract.
  4. People Skills – the ability to learn how to manage and work with people (and robots), having empathy and listening
  5. SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud) – learning how to use new technology and how to manage them
  6. Interdisciplinary Knowledge – understanding how to pull information from many different fields to come up with creative solutions to future problems.

Future of Jobs graph
The Future of Jobs Report by the World Economic Forum showing the pace of change in just 5 years

All of the above skills are just predictions. However, the list clearly highlights that employers will be seeking skill-based qualities, with this changing as future jobs develop and materialise. So do we need knowledge?

Well, of course we do – knowledge is the fundamental element required to be successful in using the above skills. However, as educators, we need to consider a balance of how we can make sure our students understand how important these skills will be to them in the future when an exam grade based on knowledge could be irrelevant to employers.

What subjects promote these skills?

As a Technologist, I believe there has never been a more important time in promoting and delivering the Design & Technology curriculum. The subject has for too long been misrepresented and had a stigma hanging around it due to previous specifications and people’s experiences, comments such as ‘so you teach woodwork then?’ really do not give justice to the subject.

With the introduction of the new curriculum, allowing students more opportunity to investigate and build these future skills, the subject has never been more relevant. Looking at the list of promoted skills, I cannot think of another subject that not only promotes these skills but also actively encourages the integration into every lesson. Do not get me wrong, all subjects are as equally important. Design & Technology is a subject that is able to bring them all into real-world scenarios. If we think about the knowledge that is developed in Science for example – where students can look at material properties and their effect on the user’s experience, or Religious Studies and how different signs, symbols or even colours can have different meanings in cultures affecting the design of a fully inclusive product – they can all be related to Design and Technology in one way or another.

Comparing the Design & Technology curriculum to the future skills list, we can break down the different skills it develops. It encourages mental elasticity through challenging student’s ideas and concepts, thinking differently to solve current and real-life problems. It allows students to develop critical thinking, through challenging their knowledge and understanding; ensuring students develop the ability to solve problems through investigation, iteration and failure, ultimately building resilience. It goes without saying that the subject not only encourages creativity but allows students to challenge concepts and ideas through investigating and questioning. Furthermore, it teaches the concept of ‘design thinking’ and collaborative working, allowing students to develop people skills, understanding how people work, interact and think; enhancing empathy and understanding. As technology progresses the subject follows suit, permitting students to implement and understand how new and emerging technologies are embedded, not only into the world of design but the Social, Moral and environmental effects they create. Lastly and probably most importantly, is how the subject teaches interdisciplinary knowledge. I like to describe Design & Technology as a subject that brings knowledge from all areas of the curriculum together, the creativity and aesthetics from Art, the application of Maths when looking at anthropometrics, tolerances or even ratios, how Religious Studies can inform and determine designs, how science informs and allows students to apply theory, or even the environmental impact Geography can show. I could go on and explain how every subject influences Design & Technology in one way or another, although, more importantly, it shows how we need to look at a more cohesive and cross-curricular curriculum; when this happens the future skills are inherently delivered in a real-world application.

Looking back at the question at the start of this article, we can start to conclude why having the concept of STEAM at the heart of a school environment is so important. However, it is not good enough to just ‘stick’ subjects together, there has to be a bigger picture where knowledge and skills are stitched together like a finely woven tapestry. Ideally, we would look at the primary education system, where we remove subject-specific lessons, develop co-teaching, learning that takes place through projects bringing elements from all subjects in to cohesive projects; teachers would become facilitators of learning, delivering knowledge not in a classroom but in an environment that allows more autonomous research and investigation. However, until the exam system changes, this is not going to fully happen.

So what could we be doing more? I believe we should be focusing on more cross-curricular planning, developing skills application and using knowledge to enhance learning. By developing a curriculum centred around a STEAM approach, we can start to develop the skills required for our students and the careers of the future.

References: 

[1] See https://whitmanarchive.org/published/LG/1891/poems/245 for the text to Ralph Vaughan Williams’ piece for choir and orchestra entitled ‘Toward the Unknown Region’
[2] https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-future-of-jobs-report-2018
[3] https://www.britannica.com/topic/STEM-education
[4] http://www.oecd.org/pisa/
[5] https://www.weforum.org/focus/skills-for-your-future
[6] https://www.crimsoneducation.org/uk/blog/jobs-of-the-future
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‘Designing our Tomorrow’ a Journey with Year 7

Marcia Phillip, Head of Design and Technology, discusses some of the projects relating to changes to the D&T curriculum.

“We stand on the brink of a technological revolution that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another. In its scale, scope, and complexity, the transformation will be unlike anything humankind has experienced before. We do not yet know just how it will unfold, but one thing is clear: the response to it must be integrated and comprehensive, involving all stakeholders of the global polity, from the public and private sectors to academia and civil society.”

14 Jan 2016 Klaus Schwab Founder and Executive Chairman, World Economic Forum Geneva

A new approach in delivering a 21st Century D&T Curriculum

The aim at WHS is to equip students with the new skill set that they will require for the predicted ‘Fourth Industrial revolution 2020’ and to meet the shortage in UK Engineers, especially with women. We needed to change the approach to how Design and Technology is taught in response to a changing world.

As part of my research I came across a project called ‘Designing Our Tomorrow’ (DOT) which was being developed by the University of Cambridge and linked perfectly to where I wanted to take D&T. I made contact and the initial results have already had a significant impact on the students’ learning and experience in Year 7 with WHS now playing a major part of the University’s research. We introduced these projects to our sister schools on 26th June at the annual GDST D&T Conference held at WHS, in the hope that GDST will take the lead in changing how D&T is delivered in schools.

The ‘DOT’ Box ‘Unpacking Asthma’ is the first project trialled at WHS. The Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining ran the competition on behalf of the University of Cambridge via their Schools StarPack Awards, where our Year 7 students walked away with the top prizes, despite the project being aimed at Year 9 and Year 10 students. We had a range of textiles and card outcomes which were innovation and responded well to the brief.

About DOT

Designing Our Tomorrow is an initiative from the University of Cambridge that brings together expertise from the Faculty of Education and the Department of Engineering in order to research and develop resources for teaching STEM and secondary level D&T as part of the mainstream curriculum. It puts authentic challenges and engineering practice at the heart of the learning experience.

Unpacking Asthma Project

Sponsored by Peter Brett Associates LLP, and developed by The University of Cambridge in conjunction with the NHS and Asthma UK. Peter Brett Associates LLP (PBA) are an award winning development and infrastructure consultancy consisting of 700 engineers, planners, scientists, and economists delivering major development and infrastructure projects.

www.peterbrett.com

The Brief

The DOT Challenge is a new award that focuses on solving a real world problem. This year’s challenge focuses on the problems with treating asthma with children who are under 6 years old. Solutions that best address this problem received the StarPack Award and their ideas were taken forward for implementation within the NHS, giving students the experience of seeing how ideas are developed and realised in Industry.

Working with Designers

On Thursday 8th June 2017, five of the WHS Award winners had an initial interview by Bill Nicholl, a Cambridge University researcher and Lecturer in Design and Technology Education who has been working on the research and public engagement so that the whole process could be tracked and accurately portrayed in their research paper. The girls were then giving an opportunity to work with international packaging design company D S Smith at their Derby branch on Tuesday 13th June 2017.

The students had an amazing day. There were 10 trainee teachers also present who were looking at how they could implement this in their teaching as well as a parent who has a child who suffers from asthma and wanted to share his traumatic experience and how a child friendly solutions could make a difference to many parents and young child.

The day started with introductions and our girls presenting their concepts to all who were present. They then worked 1 on 1 with a designer, discussing their ideas and further developing them based on the new constraints given by NHS. They all made several iterations before it was time to leave. The day ended with the girls presenting the improved concepts with their designer. However, this was not the end of the story only the beginning, all 12 girls who were entered were shortlisted and achieved an award which they received on 28th June at a special celebration ceremony held in London at the IOM3 offices. The five selected students had another day out on 30th June to present the ideas at the British Paediatric Respiratory Conference.

Presenting at the NHS British Paediatric Respiratory Conference

This was another valuable opportunity where the girls stood and presented their concepts. They responded extremely well to the questions from various delegates who were very impressed with their ideas. After their presentation a number of delegates had further conversations about how the ideas developed and took closer looks at the latest iterations developed in conjunction with DS Smith. A number of delegates were keen to see it progress and one in particular, Sara Nelson RGN from Healthy London Partnership based at the Evelina Hospital at St Thomas, was very interested in running a pilot at her clinic with the textiles monkey bag design created by Sascha. A great day was had by all.

Collaboration

Sascha was asked by Cambridge University to develop her design further over the summer holidays ready for 15th September HLP Asthma Campaign launch. She had adapting her design to made in card to make it more cost effective as the NHS as we know has a tight budget. Her ideas were then forwarded to DS Smith who work on the next iteration.

On the 15th September, our 5 students were asked to work once again with designers from DS Smith in a collaboration with some students from Grieg City academy, who had also entered the competition. This was a partnership of our 5 girls who, were now in Y8, and seven Y10 students from Greig City. The new challenge was to work alongside designers and educational experts to improve the winning monkey card mask design, generate concepts for the supplementary information to go with the mask, to launch the prototype idea and integrate with the Healthy London Partnership Asthma campaign. Students also had to consider making aspects such as the inhalers more inclusive by consider the issues associated with ageing, as one of the stakeholders in this brief was Grandma.

This was an amazing experiencing seeing our students taking leading roles, in the teams they were allocated to, and engaging with a real world context applying their problem solving skills which will make a real difference to young people’s lives. Working alongside industry and educational professionals allowed the girls to experience all aspects of a design process and broaden their horizons through the effects of their efforts in genuine practice.

Evelina Children’s Hospital visit

Sascha, with her winning design, was invited to present her concept to the NHS Lead for Paediatric Respiratory conditions, Richard Iles, and Sara Nelson, ‘Ask About Asthma’ Programme Lead at Evelina Children’s hospital, St Thomas, London on Wednesday 20th September. It was a very exciting opportunity where Sascha was able to discuss her idea with clinicians, had a photo shoot and presented it to a young patient to trial. We were able to see developments of the spacer by industrial companies which were more efficient and could work extremely well with Sascha’s design.

We await the results of the trial period and the next steps. The journey does not stop here for Sascha…

The future

The Asthma competition will run again this year, as Cambridge University and the NHS would like a number of possible solutions that would appeal to different children’s requirements who have asthma. We will be running it with our Year 9 students so watch this space…

The DOT team are in the process of developing other DOT boxes. I have hosted another training session with a project that focuses on Inclusive Design and our ageing population, in the hope that our ‘Designers of Tomorrow’ can empathise and develop commonly used products which cater for the majority of our population without special adaptions.

 

Follow the WHS DT department on Twitter.

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How far can fashion trends be considered to be dictated by the social and political climate?

Alice Lavelle (Y13) looks into how fashion taste can be shaped by different trends in social and political thinking.

In this February’s Vogue there was an article written by Ellie Pithers ascribing the sudden popularity of the jagged hemline among both designers and consumers, to the current uncertain political climate, post Brexit and post Trump. Pithers claimed, with support from the Preen designer Thea Bregazzi, that the sudden interest in the more bohemian, asymmetrical hem was a representation of people’s confusion and uncertainty following both Britain leaving the EU and Trump being elected president. Pithers further highlighted how this trend of rollercoaster hemlines can be linked to the fluctuating value of the pound, and more generally the uncertain economic climate, citing the climbing hemlines of the prosperous twenties and sixties, and ankle grazing skirts of the poorer thirties as her evidence. How far this can be considered true, or rather an overzealous journalist reading too far into an otherwise trivial catwalk trend is of course debatable.

However I would argue that this link between fashion and politics is not only accurate in today’s changing social climate, but one that can be seen throughout history – and, when considering this idea, one name immediately springs to mind – Jackie Kennedy. The first lady was a style icon within the United States throughout her husband’s presidency, with the clothes and styles she wore immediately being copied by designers up and down the country. However, what the women of the time who looked to the first lady as means of inspiration were not aware of, was that her beautifully designed gowns and brightly coloured skirt suits were in fact designed in response to the changing US political policies. Following the McCarthyist era of the 1950s, the Unites States was pushing to reinvent itself as progressive, self-believing nation, and Jackie’s traditional, yet simultaneously cosmopolitan ensembles, with a hint of European influence at the hands of Hollywood designer Oleg Cassini, were essentially a well-crafted response to the country’s growing global presence.

Looking further back at iconic moments in the history of fashion it becomes more and more evident that the garments which have shaped the way we dress today were in fact themselves shaped by the political climate they were created within. Take Christian Dior’s ‘New Look’, the long skirted, cinched waisted silhouette that reinvented feminine dress, created in 1947 in response to the more liberal society emerging following the second world war. Or Paco Rabanne’s metal disc dress of 1966 – favouring experimentation over practicality, this design embodied the hopes of the emerging European society.

In terms of designers creating garments as a response to the social climate, you have Rudy Gernreich’s topless dress in the early 70’s, showing the still persistent objectification of the female form, rapidly followed by Bill Gibb’s eclectic, romantic collection in 1972 that paved the way for the ‘hippie movement’ within design, and the debut of Diane Von Furstenberg’s iconic wrap dress in 1973 – a garment that became synonymous with female empowerment within the workplace, a statement of society’s changing attitude towards women. The speed with which these popular styles changed and evolved is just a further representation of how the fashion industry responded to the changes of attitudes towards women in the workplace for example, again showing how intrinsically linked both fashion and political trends are.

And this concept, as explained by Pithers, is relevant today beyond the sudden popularity of rollercoaster hemlines. The spring shows in September all indicated that the previous androgynous styles of autumn/winter were out, and feminine florals and chiffon were back, this time with an edge of female empowerment. Models walked the dior catwalk in white t shirts emblazoned with the slogan ‘We should all be feminists’ taken from the title of an essay written by the Nigerian born Chimamanda Adichie – a bold statement from the newly appointed, first female head of the iconic fashion house, Maria Grazia Chiuri. This surge of feminism across the spring/summer shows again was more than just a trivial fashion trend, it was an embodiment of the rising power of women in the workplace, and within politics – with Hillary at that time still being the potential president of the US.

And it is these trends, the jagged hemlines and cinched waists that eventually get filtered down through the high-street stores and into our wardrobes – meaning the clothes that we wear, either to make a statement or purely because they are comfortable, are essentially just a physical representation of our current uncertainty towards our political climate in a post Brexit post Trump universe.

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