Jewellery Textiles

When I was researching 5 senses related to textiles. I came across a company called Sinead Saunders handmade jewellery and accessories. The pieces were beautiful so I thought i'd share with everyone.

This is a beautiful gold ring.a purple knitted corsage. It looks so delicate and feather light lines. The yarn colour and weight reminds me if something from the coral reef.

There are more of these gorgeous designs on www.spring-crafts.co.uk/sinead-aunders.htm

"Made in China" 2

I told my Boyfriend all about the lecture and how I found it interesting and he so happened to be in London and went to The Tate Modern Museum. He came across an unbelievable installation which is named 'Ai Weiwei sunflower seeds' which is associated with "Made in China". This installation consisted of 100 Million hand made and hand painted porcelain sunflower seeds.

I decided to read up about the peice by 'Ai Weiwei' and the installation really does make you think about the products we use and where its from. A lot of the products I use are made from China and the vast number of seeds makes me think of all products china produce. A lot of questions were raised from this work such as "What does it mean to be an individual in todays society?" this relates back to my previous blog about being in competition with people in china and all over, We have to stand out and put ourselves out there in order to be noticed. Another interesting question is "What do our increasing desires, materialism and number mean for the society, the environment and the future?" This question relates well to my dissertation topic consumerism.

"Made in China"

Ni Hao (Hello) Recently I have been taking a Chinese (Mandarin) Language class because I find the chinese culture very interesting. I have a chinese back ground as my parents are from Hong Kong and Grandparents from China. As a child I didnt care much for my culture because I thought it was normal and thats the way everyone lives but as I learn more in design world about culture and global production I find it fascinating and the fact that I was brought up with a chinese background makes it a little more personal.
By chance or luck we recently had a lecture with Jonathan Baldwin who gave a really interesting lecture on China. He called it "Made in China" He talked about the Chinese inventions such as Silk, Tea, Gun Powder and many more. With all these inventions the Chinese Isolation came about as the chinese didnt need to trade with anyone else around the world as they produced all their own products. It has been said that Marco Polo broke the isolation when he introduced Europeans to Central Asia, China. The Opium war started when China stopped trading tea for Opium with Britain. China got defeated in both wars leaving the government to tolerate the opium trade. Hong Kong became the middle trading place.
All this history leads to the present where a lot of products are made from china with cheap labour. This causes a lot of poverty in China. The difference between the rich and poor is extreme because the rich as filthy rich and the poor are living on near nothing. It is known that there is a new Billionaire in China everyday which gives you an idea of the increase of China's economic power. Jonathan Baldwin showed us an interesting video on China and it showed the cheap labour of China is taking over jobs all over the world. It also shows big companies such as apple sending there products to be manufactured in China. This means less money is spent on production and more income for the company. As Jonathan explained that jobs in the design world are hard to find as we are up against people in China, I got a little kick up the bum and feel I need to work A LOT harder. Learning Mandarin is one step in the right direction.

Dissertation Mind Map

For my Dissertation, I propose to research the Topic Consumerism. Within Consumerism I would like to cover consumer culture, Production of products, The influences of media, technology and designers have on consumers. As a textile designer I will look more along the lines of fashion and how textile designers can design ways to make a product sustainable. Some Key words which I find make up consumerism is Fashion, Trend, Production, Media, Culture, Sustainability, Designers, Ethical.

This is a small mind map of my ideas on consumerism. I will expand on each section when I have done more research on the subject. Some of these points I found very interesting when I had the discussion with my group. The video's which I watched in my lectures inspired me to do consumerism as I found it very interesting to learn how people are influnced to buy what they buy. Also my Fair Trade wiki topic related to consumerism which i also found interesting and would like to persue in this topic of production and consumerism.

Dissertation Group Meeting

In our group (9), we all met up in the textiles studio on the monday of reading week to talk about dissertation topics. We all chose topics along the lines of our wiki topic. I had an idea of what I wanted to do but wasnt sure what I could do for it. After speaking to the group and making group mind maps for each other I found that there was lots of ways in which I could take my subject of consumerism.

Design Studies Assignment 1c - Wiki - Fair Trade and Design

Fair Trade and Design

Connie Lou

Textile Design

Definition on Fair Trade

Fair Trade is an organisation which helps people in the world’s poorest countries such as Dominican Republic, South Africa, Ghana, Ethiopia, Uganda and many more, escape poverty and promotes sustainability. The Trade is made up of many organisations from producers, marketers, traders and charities. These organisations are there to make sure that farm workers in these marginalised countries get a fair price for their goods to assure better living and a safe working condition. Products are marked with the FAIRTRADE mark when the product has met the FAIRTRADE standards set and owned by Fair Trade Labelling Organisations International (FLO). FLO is made up of 24 organisations across Europe, Japan, North America, Australia and New Zealand as well as producer organisations from Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. There are many Fair trade products which hold the FAIRTRADE mark such as Bananas, Coffee, Tea, Honey, Olive oils, Nuts, Cotton and many more. Places which sell these products range from high street shops such as Top Shop and Marks and Spencer, to supermarkets such as Tesco and Co-op, charity shops such as Oxfam and online shops such as People Tree and Gossypium.

This is the Fair Trade Foundation Logo from the Fair Trade Foundation website (2010)

Brief History on Fair Trade

“The concept of Fair Trade has been around for over 40 years” (Fair Trade Foundation (2010a)) but hadn’t taken off till the late 1980s. Fair Trade is a dynamic range of movements and campaigns to the negative effects of globalisation. The Fair Trade movement is comprised of a set of groups identified as FINE. The Name came from the first letter of each group. Each group have their aims to improve Fair Trade but all have the same goals which are to improve the livelihood and wellbeing of producers through market access, promote development opportunities for disadvantaged producers, protect children from exploitation, raise awareness among consumers, changing the international trade and to protect human rights by promoting social justice and environmental sustainability. The Fair Trade movement started after a market-based approach to globalisation and Consumer boycotts such as the Grape boycott and Nestle boycott. (Reynolds, Murray, Wilkinson, 2006) These boycotts were used to tackle the hard working conditions of farmers in South Africa. They lasted 5 years which led to Fair Trade in the 1960’s.

The earliest traces of Fair trade in Europe date from the late 1950s when “Oxfam UK sold crafts made by Chinese Refugees”. (Witkowski, 2005) Later in 1964 The Fair Trade Organisation was established. In the early days fair trade organisation’s traded mainly with Handcraft producers as crafts provided extra income to their families which were sold through world shops. World Shops or Fair Trade shops are specialised retail outlets offering and promoting fair trade products. “The European world shop conference took place in 1984” (European Fair Trade, (2010)) which led volunteers to work in the shops from all over Europe.

In the early 1990s food stuff sold in fair trade was rivalling crafts due to the change in consumer marketing by the Alternative Trade Organisation (ATO). In the later 1990’s, new ATOs such as Cafedirect and Day Chocolate Company were “consciously established to operate in mainstream markets, usually specialised in food marketing”. (Tallontire, A. 2006) By the 21^st century these businesses became very successful and beneficial to producers.

In 1997 the Fair Trade Labelling Organisation (FLO) was created, which was later split into two organisations. They certified products with the FAIRTRADE mark and their goal is to make Fair Trade more accessible to consumers They did this by moving fair trade into “supermarkets where most people do their shopping” (Raynolds,Murray,Wilkinson,2007). The best known initiatives within FLO is the Fair Trade Foundation in the UK, they’re an organisation licensed to use the Fair Trade Mark on products in the UK. “Fair Trade bananas were first sold in supermarket Co-op in January 2000 in 1,000 shops throughout UK which other supermarkets soon followed.” (Fair Trade Foundation (2010b)) “Fair Trade has evolved rapidly over the past half century, with consumers spending over £1.6 billion on fair-trade certified products, benefiting over 7 million people – farmers, workers and their families in 58 developing countries.” (Fair Trade Foundation, (2010c)) In 2008 findings show that 70% of consumers recognise the FAIRTRADE mark and 64% are aware of the idea behind the mark. The success in Fair Trade has helped the workers, one cotton farmer from India quoting “I did not get any education but I want my children to, Because of Fair Trade price, I can send them to school” (Fair Trade Foundation, (2010d))

This is a picture taken in the Oxfam Charity Shop by Connie Lou with all the Fair Trade Products

Design Practice and Fair Trade

There are many design issues within Fair Trade, cotton is one of them as it’s only a tiny percentage of all fair trade products sold in the UK, compared to coffee which comprises 50%. Textiles and fashion is a main issue to look at within Fair Trade products due to the use of cotton. Cotton is a relatively new fair trade product which started in 2005. Textile and fashion design has become increasingly popular and are made all over the world in unethical conditions. Even if textile or fashion products use fair trade cotton, it isn’t to say that the products are constructed ethically. Some companies which use and produce products ethically with fair trade cotton are People Tree and Gossypium. People Tree is a high fashion company with designers who aim to “create a garment that’s truly beautiful” (People Tree, 2010) with the producers in mind at all time and tries to maximise the benefits to them. The People Tree fashion is aimed at the upper market as the prices are higher; this is due to the organic cotton used and the hard working labour of each product. On the People Tree website there are little symbols beside each garment showing techniques and craftsmanship involved when making each garment. This gives the consumer a better idea of what they are buying and where the product has come from. Fair trade cotton is generally more expensive and better quality. Although consumers may understand the reasons behind fair trade, people generally don’t think about it while they shop and would still go for the cheaper alternative which is not ethically produced. Fair Trade is always looking at new ways that can improve the understanding of fairly traded products by trying to push the ethical fair trade garments to all markets. Fair Trade has recently tried by putting in fair trade products into high street shops such as Top Shop and Marks and Spencer which have had a positive effect. Other ways which have had a positive effect on fair trade cotton is Tesco’s new range of clothing made from organic fair trade cotton. This new range was in a lot of newspapers and on internet web pages where the biggest and most powerful marketing is made effective. Fair Trade Foundation has recently put out a project to Northumbria University to the fashion students, where they had to design a fashionable piece made from cotton produced in the developing world. The effect on this project deepened the students understanding of Fair Trade cotton which may influence the way they work, planting a seed for the future. Fair Trade are placing workshops in some Fashion courses which will continue to expand around the UK. This way more designers will be using Fair trade cotton and will learn to produce ethically. Fair trade foundation quoted ‘we want fair-trade cotton to become the norm” (Fair Trade Foundation, (2010e))

Bibliography

European Fair Trade, (2010) www.european-fair-trade-association.org/efta/Doc/History.pdf

Fair Trade Foundation (2010a) www.fairtrade.org.uk/what_is_fairtrade/history.aspx

Fair Trade Foundation (2010b) www.fairtrade.org.uk/what_is_fairtrade/history.aspx

FairTradeFoundation, (2010c) www.fairtrade.org.uk/what_is_fairtrade/facts_and_figures.aspx

Fair Trade Foundation, (2010d) www.fairtrade.org.uk/producers/cotton/agrocel_pure_and_fair_cotton_growers.aspx

Fair Trade foundation (2010e) http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/products/cotton/questions_answers.aspx

People Tree, (2010) http://www.peopletree.co.uk/content/handcrafted.php

Raynolds, L. Murray, D. Wilkinson, J, Globalisation and its antinomies, Fair Trade The challenges of transforming globalisation, Routledge, 2007, pg8

Tallontire, A. Chapter 2 The development of Alternative and Fair Trade: Moving into the Mainstream, Ethical Sourcing in Global Food System (Barrientos, S. Dolan, C) Earth Scan London,2006, pg37

Witkowski, T. Fair Trade Marketing: An Alternative system for Globalisation and Development, California State University, Long Beach, 2005

Design Studies Assignment 1b

On our 2nd meeting with Group 9, we all researched our subject and talked seperately on our findings. I found this helped me a lot as I understood my subject more as I said it out loud. It was interesting to hear what everyone else had learnt about their subject. We all made up mind maps on our own topic which we all found really useful in remembering our points and researching our subjects.

This is my initial mind map

I found writing it again when i had more researched helped me outline my Wiki so I wrote out another one with more detail.

I went into more detail about the History so I made up another mind map.

Design studies - Assignment 1a Seminar Meeting

During the first seminar I met up with Group 9 in the DoJ canteen. We were all asked to have an idea of the topic we would like to persue for the Wiki Page. I had chosen Fair Trade and Design which luckily no-one else in my group wanted to do.

This is a picture of our group meeting.

Below is a list of all the topics which we chose in Group 9

Ailsa McCreadie - Textile Design - Green Wash and Design

Ruth Hill - Graphic Design - Environmental Sustainability and Design

Karen Rodger - Graphic Design - Crime and Design

Sarah Finnigan - Jewellery Design - Education and Design

Graeme Kennedy -IED - Biosphere and Design

Jennifer King - IMD - Interactivity and Design

David Smith - IMD -