Conserve India is an upcycling project in Delhi. They upcycle plastic bags that litter the city streets and transform them into fashion accessories such as, bags and belts. The project not only aims to tackle the growing mountain of litter, but also employs locals, paying fair wages that can provide a solid income.
"Handmade Recycled Plastic is created through a unique method of upcycling plastic bags.
Because the plastic is kept in its original form and colour,
Conserve's upcycling technique uses much less energy than traditional
recycling and we don't need dyes. A green way of making fashion from waste – Handmade Recycled Plastic is surely a material of the future!"
After putting together a C.V on Word, I have moved it into InDesign and styled it to make it more interesting, also incorporating the logo I created for the business card. The outcome is a lot better than I thought my C.V could ever look, this task has allowed me to consider different design layouts, and understand how a simple word file can be transformed into an aesthetically pleasing document.
Over the past couple of weeks I have been compiling my work from the past 4-5 units into a portfolio which will be printed into a physical portfolio, and also published on issuu.com as a digital portfolio. I've been playing around with different compositions and layouts on Photoshop and InDesign to create an aesthetically pleasing and informative portfolio, however it has been difficult picking out the most important pages and aspects to include. Putting together the pages has also been a lot more time consuming than I had previously thought, I think this is due to the fact that most pages consist of sections of scanned sketchbook pages, which then had to be edited in photoshop before they looked suitable to use.
On a lecture on Sustainability and Ethics within the Fashion Industry we were shown two films, Sustainable Fashion: the movement and the Story of Stuff. The films highlighted the growing issue of Fast/Throw Away Fashion, looking into the harms of pesticides, insecticides, and chemicals, along side carbon footprints, wages and recycling. The first film focused on our actions as a whole within the fashion industry, where as the second looked at smaller groups and how a difference can be made to life in general to obtain a better goal.
We also looked into Corporate Social Responsibilities, with the example of Next being shown. All brands are required to have a CSR and work around being ethical, sustainable and being transparent with regards to these matters. I have found the CSR for Topshop, which is part of the Arcadia group.
"Fashion Footprint is Arcadia Group’s programme to monitor and manage the social and environmental impacts of our business. It provides our ethical activities with a focus and framework, underpinning our objective to be a responsible retailer.
Now entering its ninth year, Fashion Footprint reinforces our commitment to sustainability; a commitment that we believe makes just as much sense from a business perspective as it does from an ethical one. Our Fashion Footprint vision provides us with a mission statement that we can all get behind: to produce fashionable products in an ethical way and demonstrate a responsible attitude towards people and the environment."
This is the job I will be tailoring my C.V and cover letter to, a Design/Pre Press Assistant for a company creating printed fashion packaging. I have chosen to aim for this particular job as it coincides with my love of fashion and digital design, whilst challenging and engaging me with varying tasks. Although I am not familiar with Corel Draw, if I were to consider this type of job after graduation I would do some research into the software, and may attempt to learn the basics.
