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“Financial District” by Ralph Damiani            

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Source

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Iris Van Herpen Haute Couture S/S 2018 

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Gen Z

When Generation Alpha is old enough: protect them. Protect them now, and protect them into the future as well. These are your siblings, your cousin’s children. Guide them in this fucked up world we call home. Guide them through the bullies and the awful school hallways. Treat Generation Alpha the way the generations before us didn’t treat us like. Respect them, love them, help them, accept them. Generation Alpha will need our help to survive. Lead them into the battles of the future. Lend them a hand when they don’t think they can go on another day. Try to make their lives as easy as possible so they don’t have to inherit our depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, and other mental illnesses. Fight for their rights like you would fight for your own.

Because at the end of the day, they’re just little kids, and they, too, are afraid.

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This one's for the next gen

Maybe they’ll call you gen alpha or maybe they’ll come up with some other thing.

You’re our little siblings. You’re our older cousins kids and you’re our youngest aunts and uncles kids.

I want to say this, from gen z:

Join us, when you can, in the fights we fight. Bring with you your childhood optimism and joy, and hold onto that with all your strength, because we need it. We’re flickering candles, even now on the edge of going out. We have the spark, but we’re running out of wood to burn with it.

I won’t tell you to do anything we haven’t done. I won’t tell you to stay happy or to win. I’ll tell you to try, I’ll tell you to give it everything you’ve got, and I’ll tell you to hold on to the things you love with every ounce of strength you can muster.

When, in the end the torch does fall to you, as it has to us from millennial hands, we will stay fighting while we can. I apologize in advance for our failings, and for the things we won’t be able to fix in time for you to inherit anything but a half renovated house.

I apologize for calling on you already, generation alpha is still coming into this world, depending on who’s definition you listen to. You’re primary schoolers and barely even allowed online, but we need you, and it’s terrible that it is this way, but you’re in danger too.

We will fight with everything we have on every front for a better world, but we need you running support. If you’re generation alpha and you’re aware and you want to fight, use every scrap of energy you have to keep us going when we get home exhausted every night from school. Play your games and laugh your wonderful laughs and help us remember why we’re still trying.

And then, when you’re ready, when you’ve learnt enough, when you’ve learnt to speak with confidence while you’re shaking, when you know how to debate a bigot and convince the bystanders, when you’re ready, step forward and fill out our ranks.

There might be a generational divide between us, but it’s not yet widening into the great chasm that millennials have formed with us, and if we build the bridges now, and hold onto both sides with everything we have, we can remember that our differences make us stronger together.

I’m generation z. I’m tired already, but I fight on every single day because you’re all around me and you’re still so happy, and I desperately want to let you keep that. We’re doing everything we can to shield you from this fight, but soon enough the cracks will come, because we can’t last forever. We’re barely turning 20 and already we’ve given almost all we have.

Hold on as long as you can and then unleash your voices upon the world in a great tidal wave of rage and love and sadness and joy and stand arm in arm together with whoever of generation z remain.

There are a lot of metaphors to come, in the next 20 years, about you. Restating the alphabet, a new beginning for everyone. Leaving behind the past and moving on to the future. Embrace them, make them part of you, and reshape this burning world with every tool those metaphors give you.

Embrace the technology as it comes. Use it to keep yourselves together. Use it to tear the system apart. Use it to laugh. Use it for every little thing it has to offer.

You keeping your youth, innocence, optimism and joy is the most radical and defiant action you can take. Never ever let those things go.

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What is the fashion industry?

“Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.” - Coco Chanel 

Fashion communication can be vaguely divided up into photography, film, public relations, trend and journalism. 

Finding what you are interested in can be a long and hard journey, or it could be the easiest thing. In terms of fashion I am interested in photography, film and more recently blogging. 

Photography and film can capture such powerful moments and movements. “A picture is worth a thousands words”, as for film it can really express a beautiful story, mood or even movement. 

With the rising issue of pollution and global warming. To this day it still seems that people in the fashion industry are unaware of the causes of fast fashion and how it affects the environment and human lives. Therefore blogging is a great way to express you opinions and raise awareness for good causes, discuss the latest fashion trends and last but not least to promote yourself. 

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The Art of Experience

Through my research it shows that the younger millennial’s ranging from 18 years old to 27 years old and students in full time education are the most likely to make the effort to visit museums and art galleries. 

“78% of Millennials would choose to spend money on a desirable experience or event over buying something desirable” - Eventbrite, 2016

Besides the increasing demand for leisure activities but fashion brands are always looking for new ways to engage their audiences, creating incredible installations. 

In recent years fashion brands and artists have come together collaborating to create amazing installations to drive diverse audiences to them. They have become more inactive, modern and inspiring. The impact of seeing artwork and exhibitions in person rather on social media or online, is a whole experience in itself. 

Exhibitions are not only educational but they are hugely inspirational, which may be why they appeal so much to younger millennials. 

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Retail Controversy: Physical Stores VS Online Shopping

1. Physical Stores

Studies show that 70% of generation Y (Millennials) prefer physical stores and it is unlikely to drastically change in the future. 

Consumers value their time in stores and the physical experience. The fact that the can try on multiple clothing options there and then to you suit your need. 

Many online retailers this year have opened physical stores, one in particular which caught my eye was ‘Misguided’ as it is a cheap, fast fashion brand therefore the constantly turning around new trends and clothes. 

2. Online Shopping (e-commence)

On the other hand in the 21st century as generation X grown up and technology developed so has online shopping, therefore they have adjusted easily to this new way of shopping. 

For a lot of people, online shopping is very convenient because no matter where you are or what you are doing, you can order clothes, shoes, make-up, whatever you want, and get it delivered when you want. 

The more important question: Which one is more sustainable?

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WATCH NOWW: Adidas x Parley at 747 Warehouse St

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Fashion Vs Sustainability

In this day in age we know that fashion is one of the major contributors towards waste, the garbage island and unsustainability. Now we want to know what brands are doing about it and how they are changing to help.  

In 2017 ‘Adidas’ collaborated with ‘Parley’ (which is an business created to help save the oceans), to create a swimwear collection from up cycled materials and debris such as plastic and fishnets. “Parley is the space where the creators, thinkers and leaders come together and raise awareness or the beauty and fragility of our oceans and collaborate on projects that can end their destruction”

“If the oceans die, we die” - Captain Paul Watson

Since the ‘Adidas’ swimwear collection was so successful the newly collaborated team are working on their next project ‘Adidas x Parley at 747 Warehouse’. This involves “two days of creativity, basketball and the oceans” as the have come together to create sustainable trainers. 

‘Parley’ makes several appearances to raise awareness for the ocean at places such as Berlin, fashion week, New York, United Nations and many more. Their current projects involves collaborating with brands or islanders to improve and tackle their current situation, for example ‘Bali biggest clean-up’.

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The True Cost

MUST WATCH! - AMAZING DOCUMENTARY MOVIE ABOUT THE HUMAN PRICE OF FASHION

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“This month marks the anniversary of the Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh which killed more than 1,100 people- mainly women. Be an active citizen, 30 wears and beyond, say no to disposable fashion and yes to ethical fashion”

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BUY LESS, CHOOSE WELL, MAKE IT LAST.

Vivienne Westwood (via heritagedeathlegacy)

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your $5.80 Forever 21 t-shirt comes at a human price 

1000s of sweatshop workers are killed each year

Fashion is the second most polluting industry in the world, after petroleum

reduce, reuse, recycle - ask how your clothing is made

Credit: “The True Cost” documentary, now on Netflix

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The True Cost

Are your clothes really worth dying for?

Fast fashion was originally structured so that “people in the rich world could buy cheaper goods and people in the poorer parts of the world could get jobs and work their way out of poverty.” However, this enormous industry works on supply and demand, and demand is a powerful object. It has reached a point where brands did not put the safety of their workers before their products. Is fashion really worth dying for.

To what extend do people go to for materialistic products. Materialistic products come at a very high price. At what point does buying clothes, shoes and make-up to fill your want and desire, become irrelevant. When it comes to buying these products we never realise that there is always a greater price paid behind each and every product, the true cost. When thinking about the true cost, the common and iconic phrase “beauty is pain” and “pain is beauty” comes to mind. 

The superficial desire to change your clothes to keep up with the trends. We are not only killing the workers who create the clothes we so desperately want but we are killing our planet.

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Garbage Island – where did it all go wrong?

Over the billions of the years humans have lived on this planet we have done such a great job of polluting our home. To the point where Earth has formed a ‘Garbage island’ in the Great Pacific Ocean, where all types of plastic and fishing gear get collected together from the ocean currents.

The ‘garbage patch’ known to this day is described as “larger than Texas”. It is located between Hawaii and California. When plastic is left sitting in the ocean for long periods of time it is broken-down by the wind, sun and waves until it is the size of a grain of rice. Marine ecologists discovered a lot of this broken down plastic is unaccounted for and missing. This is concerning as the production of plastic has quadrupled in the last 40 years and you do not know what impact and damage the missing plastic is doing. 

Fashion is the second most polluting industry worldwide. Considering and looking at the effects of ‘garbage island’ it makes you sick thinking you could have caused and have added to this on-going problem. ‘Garbage island’ is now so big that it is having a huge impact on wildlife around surrounding regions and countries. Resulting in a devastating loss. 

The garbage patch is now a $32 billion project called ‘Ocean Clean-up’. What astounds me is how it has taken this long for the message to get across to people and how still people carelessly throw plastic away because it does not affect them or litter on the street. It is not ok.