ETHICS
What are my personal ethical beliefs?
I would place myself at 3 on the scale of 1-10 (10 being most ethical) simply because 1. I have been brought up that way and 2. I can't make myself interested in something that I am not. I understand that we have a duty of care for the world as designers but I honestly felt that it is shoved down my throat all the time as a student. Which being the stubborn person that I am, makes me even more uninterested. Having said that, I am a lot more aware of sustainability within fashion and I am genuinely starting to show more of an interest in sustainable fabrics and the ways that scientists are finding interesting ways around the problems we face today.
I am starting to see the appeal of paying a bit more in order to feel that you've done the world a bit of good. I would perhaps now be happy to pay a small amount extra as a customer and as a designer, I have been buying into more sustainable fabrics for my projects but one thing I will not be prepared to sacrifice is aesthetic and comfort, I myself don't buy clothes I don't like or don't feel comfortable in just because they're ethical and I wouldn't expect my customer too either. There has to be a balance.
What are our terms?
Here at Whimsic, we would place projects at 3 on the scale of 1-10 as we would not choose to disregard colaborations with a company just because they're not ethical, yet we wouldn't want to associate with a company that was extremely affecting the world with their consequences.
What are the impacts of our materials?
At Whimsic, we would see it as our duty to carefully consider where we import and buy our fabrics from. The only way for a product to disappear completely would be to create biodegradable products, and that is not what we do at Whimsic. However, we are conscious of what happens to our excess and waste fabrics and how our actions affect the world we live in. We would mark ethical fabric choices at 7 on the scale of 1-10 (10 being most ethical) as we are very concious about our fabrics and like to promote sustainability within this aspect of our brand.
What is the purpose of our work?
We do wish to change the world, but with our philosophy rather than our sustainability. Teaching and encouraging young children may be a further step for us but at the moment, our main focus is to bring the fun of being young, however, we do want to make a positive impact on the world with our fabric choices and possibly factory processes. We would mark our ethical purpose at 6 on the scale of 1-10.
WORKING DRAWINGS
I arranged and fixed my working drawings to split them into two pages- Six outfits to a page. I did this so that my working drawings would look more presentable in the zine and so that the drawings were even in size.
BUSINESS PLAN
This week I wrote up my part of the business plan. I was assigned to write the 'Business Opportunity' in 'STEP ONE' which is basically an in-depth description about who we are as a brand, our philosophies and our USP's (Unique Selling Points). Here is what I wrote:
The name ‘Whimsic’ comes from the word ‘whimsical’ which means playful and energetic- we shortened it to appeal more to both genders. Our name was chosen after a lot of deliberation as we wanted a name that really represented our brand and what we stand for. Our brand came about when a discussion evolved about the birth of unisex and genderless clothing and it’s powerful statement to not just the fashion industry, but the whole world. We live in a world that constantly strives and fights for equality within many areas but specifically gender.
We have been lead through a life whereby garments are assigned to gender without a logical explanation as to why. Most people probably haven’t even questioned why it’s socially unacceptable for a man or boy to wear a dress or why the colour pink is automatically associated with femininity. Although unisex and genderless clothing is making its impact on the world we live in, the world still isn’t ready to dress boys in pink dresses.
Our aim is to create genderless and unisex children's clothes that fight the stereotypes of colour and garment type. We want our collections to be laid out in store without the clear divide in gender that other stores use. For the meantime, we are avoiding the colour pink and skirts, dresses or anything else that is associated with femininity. Some may say this is going against the whole idea of challenging stereotypes and gender association but we are simply aiming to remain on the same level as the outside world. We are not going to push anything that society is not quite ready for. This is not to say that boys won't be wearing pink dresses in the future but for now, we’re taking small steps at a time.
Although genderless and unisex are a very big part of who we are, we don’t want to be too obnoxious about it. We believe that the hype around genderless clothing is unnecessary. We refuse to abuse our philosophies in order to create appeal and in return, make more money. We feel that the world has been deprived of genderless clothing and that society has had their eyes shut and their minds closed for too long. It’s time to give up on old fashioned views of gender and just let children wear what they want to. There are so many aspects of our lives that are controlled. Fashion is a form of expression and a statement to the world. We should be able to wear whatever we please without judgement.
Our main philosophy and USP (unique selling point) is our focus on bringing back the ‘fun’ of being young. We aim to do this by using exciting and innovative textures combined with bright, fun colours that are both trend driven and appropriate for both genders. Our ultimate goal is to have our own textile factory whereby we create our own textures. This means that we cut out the cost of a middle man and makes our textiles unique to us. This would be very costly but would be very beneficial to our brand as we would be in control of where and how our textiles are made and our fabrication would set us apart from any other brand. We would perhaps think about sourcing our fabrics from a textile store to begin with for cost reasons as this would be more affordable to us at the time.
ZINE PAGES
I then split my Business Opportunity into three pages for the zine that we collectively contributed to. Here are the pages that I made;
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