WHAT & WHY… THE HOW CAN QUESTION

WHAT: What is the subject or area that you intend to research? What is the precise question that you will be addressing:

How can the medium of fashion communication helps redefining and pursuing beauty standard in the modern society?

WHY: Why will this research be of value to you – and the world,  why is this research project worth pursuing? Why is it important to you:

• The old cliché says that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But who is the beholder? That’s complicated when we look through the unique lenses of different countries and societies. In a more globalised world, culture, race, media, and power intersect to create an idea of ‘beauty’ admired by a collective, rather than an individual.

• I have this struggle myself with defining the ‘beauty standards’ and suffer from reaching to such ‘beauty ideals’.

• I am intending to generate a series of creative outcomes which I hope shall improve and criticising the fact that women have become conditioned to believing in the unrealistic standards of beauty set by society.

• Women these days, and seldom men, their self-worth is so very often decided by others’ perception of them. And by the end of this project I hope to help people have a better understanding on measuring their own personalities.

• Fashion communication, these days is one of the relatively new concepts and avenues to the fashion and lifestyle industry. A variety of skills are included such as: graphics communication, visual merchandising, styling and photography. These areas and beyond are still where my interests and potential future career paths are. Hence why fashion communication would be a reasonable medium to start with.

HOW: How will you accomplish your project in practical terms? What will be your methodology, management strategy, and schedule:

• Background research
• Primary and secondary research focus on topics including: beauty standards, male gaze, female gaze, body shaming, cultural and racial influences throughout history
• Research photographers and artists who commented on this subject area
• Research beyond books and journals: also include modern media representations, i.e. youtube, documentary
• Questionnaires and interviews
• Be analytical and critical on data collected

WHAT IF: What are the positive implications and potential if you achieve this mastery? How will this position you (and your stakeholders) at the end of the Course? 

I hope this project would be a stepping stone towards better self-recognition, meanwhile helping crowds with similar annoyances expanding their visions beyond what so called as ‘current beauty standards’. This would also be a great practice to reflect on how visual media communications in fashion and the creative industries impact on the society.