BRAND ME by Sophie Taylor

CONTENTS 8-15

INTRODUCTION TO BRAND ME

(16-91)

SUMMER BRIEF

16-19

INTRODUCTION

20-65

PART ONE

66-91

PART TWO

92-99

CONCLUSION AND WHERE NEXT?

100-108

REFERENCES

INTRODUCTION

I found the Brand Me project to be one of the most challenging yet rewarding on a personal level. Much of the work I have created so far at university has been heavily research based – producing an idea and a process based on facts I have travelled through, picking up more influences and information along the way. External sources. Brand Me was all about looking in on myself as its core research. Over the Summer of 2021, in preparation for returning to university for the last time, I had plenty of work to do. I was tasked with investigating into myself, for the first outcome of the final year. Brand Me is all about looking deeper at who I am, what made it that way, and why. This is all in order to gain and create a deeper understanding of myself and who I am as a creative, and where I fit within the fashion industry.

This research is what will and has aided me throughout my journey to creating, developing, and discovering myself as my brand. As well as reflecting on how my upbringing and childhood have shaped me, I will also be looking at influences and why they appeal to me in the way of which they do. It has been challenging but liberating. Pushing myself to think and question all aspects of myself, things I had never thought previously to second guess.

SUMMER RESEARCH

The summer brief was set in two parts. The first one being heavier on questions aimed at my own character and sense of self, an internal investigation. Looking over my own experience of the world so far. The second part being about selecting brands and influences from both a list and free choice, of which the intention was to make links between choices and building on an understanding of myself.

SUMMER RESEARCH

PART ONE

WHO AM I REALLY?

Going into part one of the summer research, I had to be brutally honest with myself, about myself. The questions were all put together with the intention of getting the most honest answers, no matter how much I may have wanted to shy away. As I mentioned in the introduction, I enjoy working with research. I like being able to back up things I say with information I have discovered. With a lot of my answers, I had to accept that I was not able to just casually back things up, as it was coming from myself as an internal source. “Who am I Really?” This was the concept of which the first round of questions was based on. To me, it was hugely daunting how it sounded to begin with, as over the years I had developed some negative, harmful ways of thinking and seeing myself, but in the same vein was something I had avoided thinking too deeply into the reasoning behind. There was a huge lack of self-belief, imposter syndrome if you will. Negative ways of seeing myself coming derived from how others had perceived me in school as a child – bullying was something I had always been used to. I had accepted it as I was happy to be different, but more had stayed with me subconsciously than I had first thought.

DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE IMPACT OF WHAT YOU DO? I answered this with yes. I spend a lot of my time thinking about how things I may say, or may do can impact the aimed recipient, and more importantly how they could be misinterpreted or misunderstood. The thought process that “… How you have conducted yourself during these interchanges will shape how you influenced that person’s response. As you can see, impact can go in two different directions: negative or positive” (Urban, 2017) isn’t something I think about lightly. This is on a more personal level than as a creative, as I had been deeming other people’s feelings a higher priority than my own boundaries. Through conversation, this trait was identified as peoplepleasing, and it is a trait I engage with too often. Although, on the flipside, these things are not something I consider within my work. I never worry about others understanding the work I am creating or not, when putting together more conceptual pieces. I never worry about people misunderstanding or misinterpreting the way I do on a personal level. I feel like I would put this down to being confident and content in the work I present to the world. I love what I do so I do not think about whether another does. I think I do it on a personal level as effect of lacking that sense of confidence.

I try my best to think and act sustainably, as this action holds impact. There are things I do which are good, but there are also things I do which would not be deemed sustainable, but I am okay with this as I see myself and my actions as a constant development, things to always be working on and towards. I learnt that digital footprint is also another crucial factor to me, of which I have been mindful of throughout my life, from internet safety workshops in primary school to anxieties from bullying, I have always thought my online presence through. Online is such a fragile place, once you leave your imprint, it cannot be taken away, “the things you share create an image of who you…need to ensure that you’re putting your best foot forward on these platforms. Only by doing so can you prevent them from taking a toll on your online reputation down the line.” (STAFF WRITER ReputationDefender, 2019)

HOW SAFE ARE YOU AS A COMMUNICATOR? This is a key question to me. My work and future as a creative fashion communicator, image creator and storyteller is one of the most important things to me. For me, borders of safety within a creative environment are relative to the person. What I may deem a safe move within my work, would be unsafe to another. My work is, and for most of my time within university conceptual. Not everybody will want to be part of, nor understand that bracket. I’d argue that I am both safe as a communicator, in the sense that the work I create is done through my vision of what I want the outcome to convey. I would also say I do take risks, as I love to experiment within software to see what newness I can create. To be conceptual there is always a sense of risk for if it isn’t viewed in your ideal portrayal, but I have the confidence within what I make. My preffered methods of working is the mixing of media, combining physical, analog ways of working with the digital realm. There are times where I don’t know where to stop within my work, but that comes from the part of me which strives for doing my best. (Examples of my favourite pieces of work on next page)

CHILDHOOD To create a foundation for my research into myself, it was vital that I investigated my childhood and upbringing, as everything I learnt whilst travelling through the ages has resonated in some way, shape, or form. Growing up, I never really had to go without things I wanted (apart from the life-size play kitchen set I never got for Christmas which I haven’t let slide to this day!), I was generally a happy child. For most of my childhood, it was Mum, Dad and my younger brother (by two years), Ben in the family home up in Anglesey, of North Wales. Where our family home is, is the middle of nowhere so to speak, almost as ‘countryside’ as you can get. This was never an issue for me though, I liked the spacious area of which I always got and still do get to call my home. We live on the caravan park of which my family own. These days now that I have a car and can drive, I can appreciate it for what it is, but before I was fortunate enough to pass that awful test, I found the older I got the more frustrations that arose with it, for how far out in the sticks it was, away from friends and major civilisation.

My youngest brother, Jack was born when I was eleven. Stroppy Sophie was admittedly not best pleased to hear she would have another brother (unless you count sulking and crying in the corner as a sign of happiness of course). Fast forward ten years on, after being born two months premature and a multitude of health issues of which he’s pushed through, he’s going strong for a ten year old, and I am no longer so stroppy about having him around. As previously mentioned, school was hard, kids were cruel, but I guess it really did make me stronger.

I don’t often agree politically with my parents, if anything I tend to avoid those conversations. Growing up though I gained a really large music taste. Music really influences me today, and my parents have always been passionate about it too. Dad used to work in the nightclub near me, working the lights and taking care of supervisor type stuff, which explains a lot.

As a child, something I guess which helped to shape me (in a literal and not so literal way I guess) I was in a cast for a while as I’d been born before my hips had formed correctly. Still wanting to move around, I learnt how to crawl with my shoulders on my back – perhaps I’ve been an innovator since the beginning, hey!

“HEY ALEXA, PLAY ‘HIPS DON’T LIE’ BY SHAKIRA”

FIGHT OR FLIGHT? I learnt that my fear of being misunderstood, through people-pleasing a lot of the time would leave me acting as flight. I’ve always hated confrontation. Again, something that’s left behind mentally from school. A fear that if I voice something which was going against something another person had said or done, that they’d leave me. Which I know now, is silly, because I’ve learnt that a person like that is not worth having around anyway. But through working on myself, and learning to set boundaries, I’m becoming more fight.

STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES From the first part of the summer brief, I learnt (or I should say accepted responsibility for) some key strengths and weaknesses about myself. Some of which are more serious than others.

STRENGTHS 1. I’m actually a good person. My advice is great so I’m told, I always want to help whenever I can, and I like to see the good in everybody. I like knowing I can be a friendly face. Experiencing bad mental health helps to appreciate the good more, and if I can be the good for someone that needs it, it’s worth it. 2. My dress sense is a strength. Lockdowns helped with this one, but through learning to love myself, I’ve gained confidence to be who I want to be and dress how I want to dress. Living in a very rural area has always been like a big, red stop sign for fear of what we call small island mentality would think of me. 3. Creativity. I’ve never been academic. This used to bug me in a school environment, but since moving on I’ve realised my creativity has always been my strength, and I am now in a position where it is being appreciated and used in the way I want it to be, rather than being told it has to be used to draw a pomegranate or something of the sort.

WEAKNESSES 1. Time management. I say this through gritted teeth, for the sake of honesty I’ve had to accept it. It just isn’t a talent of mine. 2. Health. To be more specific, a deficiency in B12. The bigger weakness is forgetting to take my vitamins everyday though. 3. I’m actually a good person. I went through this in strengths, but it can also be a weakness for me, as I have struggled with setting boundaries in the past, and have ended up burning out from allowing people access to me on an almost 24/7 basis.

MY MESSAGE AND BELIEFS Looking into what my message is, was an important part of my research I’d say. I think I learnt, or more so realised a lot more than I initially did about myself. I’m not religious, but I am open to spirituality. That has always been a big thing in my house. I lean more towards things happening for a reason, the universe giving or taking what’s right or wrong for me, the existence of Angels or similar spirits. Anxiety is something I’ve struggled with, the people pleasing, fear of being abandoned, taking so long to accept myself for how I look and for what I want to wear for fear of other people having something negative to say – it all makes sense when you put it like that. My mind is something I have slowly but surely been regaining control over. I’d openly say the beliefs about the universe and all that jazz help to train my mind acceptance, learning that thinking about a situation isn’t going to change the course of the universe etc. My message would be about encouragement. For people to be themselves, emphasising the importance of acceptance and kindness.

PEERS

I don’t believe I am who I surround myself with. I have plenty of people I’m friends with, but I wouldn’t say they influence my character.

“BE SOPHIE TAYLOR” Speaking to friends about how they’d describe and see me, a lot mentioned that I can be quite a motherly friend, making sure everyone is doing well and always being there for people. Others complimented my creativity and unique vision of how I see the world.

SUMMER RESEARCH PART TWO

INTRO TO PART TWO Part two for the Summer Brief into Brand Me was to start building an understanding of ourselves in the context of the industry. Where we sit, what we liked, what worked for us, etc. To do this, I had multiple tasks to choose from a list of specifically chosen brands to research into. This flowed from the previous task. In question was Charles Jeffrey, A Cold Wall, Fred Perry, Priya Ahluwalia and Zara. When assessing, I was able to specify for myself that Zara wasn’t the right choice, because my preferred market level throughout my time at university has always been more on a visionary/ conceptual level than high street, so that wasn’t the fit for me. I’ve researched into Priya Ahluwalia on a previous module, and I did love the consistency within brand identity and the values behind it, it wasn’t visually engaging enough for me. I was able to understand from the list that there were purposes to each, whether it was down to being high street, sustainable, heritage, streetwear, or conceptual. For me, it meant the obvious choice was Charles Jeffrey.

FIGURE 1. Instax courtesy of Charles Jeffrey

CHARLES JEFFREY

Charles Jeffrey is described as a “radical creative” (Somerset House, n.d.), and it isn’t difficult to understand why. The Glaswegian designer and illustrator is the “ringleader of London’s next-generation [of] club kids” (Hope Allwood, 2015). LOVERBOY his brand really stood out to me for it’s conceptual way of telling the narrative of the club nights it is inspired by. The brand “born as both a fashion label and a cult club night, each informing the other.” Visually maximalist, eccentric and thought provoking, the designer has experience under LOVE Magazine, Vivienne Westwood, and in the “haute couture ateliers of Christian Dior in Paris.” (BOF 500, n.d.). Other ways of which the brand resonated with me was through the values. As mentioned earlier, I’ve been brought up by parents heavily into their music, which included the era of New Romantics, and were also heavily into club culture, similarly to the brand. The brand values also align up with my own of which I discovered during part one of the summer task, such as kindness, self-identity and diversity. The PS21 collection, communicated during the pandemic also was “looking into ‘the mind, consciousness and spirituality’” (Conroy, 2021), which piqued my interest especially as these are things I learnt inspired me. The visual narrative captured by Tim Walker of the SS21 LOVERBOY collection explores a sense of warping ones selfidentity, to me a visionary practice. This sense of form alteration is something I’ve been drawn to, such as Balenciaga for the way it plays with form.

As a creative, I like to combine digital and analog ways of working, which I see in DBLG x LOVERBOY “Digital Souls”, “Jeffrey’s unmistakable scribbles and illustrations” (ShowStudio, 2021) throughout. Having reflected on Jeffrey’s work, I find it super inspiring as many of the brand values line up with what I’ve learnt about myself over the first task. From my message being about selfidentity and expression, to my beliefs in spirituality and diversity.

Within the second part, I also had to choose from a list of publications. I chose i-D and Dazed magazine. These two magazines both communicate fashion through a younger lens of which would speak to youth culture. Fashion magazines are a big part of where I think I’d like to work in the future for a career, and Dazed and i-D are two of the first.

DAZED Dazed, was founded in 1991 and started out as “created in a poster format with three different A3 pages that folded into an A4 cover. It was done that way simply because it was the only thing we could afford – it was the most inexpensive way to create something that behaved like a magazine” (Hack, 2016). With such a raw and analog beginning, it’s no wonder it sticks out to me, “when a magazine begins life as a photocopy, you know it’s being done for the right reason. A question of intention, when spirit is bigger than packaging, it arrives with all the potential of shaking things up” (Mayo Davies, 2021). Jefferson Hack and John Rankin Waddell were the co-founders behind the popular magazine.

The magazine values the idea of community, starting out like “…a place for people to drop in and hang out. It was a ‘living magazine’” (Hack, 2021). Community is within the DNA of the magazine, developing from just a magazine to being a whole media company, with studio spaces, responsibility over other magazines (such as AnOther), screenings, and special events. I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to head to Dazed Live this year. “Today, Dazed Media encompasses digital, print, social media and talent activations across four titles; Nowness, Dazed, AnOther and Dazed Beauty.” (DAZED Media, n.d.)

i-D is owned by VICE Media. For years I’ve watched VICE videos on YouTube, always entranced by their ways of visually storytelling. “i-D has built its reputation on being a consistent source of inspiration in fashion culture. It began as a fanzine dedicated to the street style of punk-era London in 1980” (i-D, n.d.). i-D stands for a wink, the logo if you will. The publication has “developed into a glossy magazine that documents fashion and contemporary culture, and has broken ground defining it too.” (i-D, n.d.). A fanzine is something produced as an unofficial source of media for a particular form of entertainment. Both these publications started as something raw, edgy and uncut and have developed, and innovated themselves to stand the test of time. These were the best fit for me because of their origins, how they’ve innovated and because of the unique youthful lens they communicate through.

i-D

Moving onto indicating two market levels of which I fit, and the brands of most influence to me. Easily I chose Visionary level, and Luxury level. The brands of which make sense for me here are Balenciaga and Vetements. Both brands have a dark, yet strong aesthetic about them.

BALENCIAGA Balenciaga is visionary and timeless.. Founded in 1919 by Cristobal Balenciaga, the label has always worked against the natural form, creating structured pieces of art. Today, they do just that, with Demna Gvasalia, Dazed 100’s “Enigmatic visionary” (Nirui, n.d.) at the helm, resurrecting the couture line, and communicating their identity through video games and The Simpsons. I researched into Balenciaga in my first year of university, to reflect on how the brand had developed and inspired today.

VETEMENTS

Vetements similarly plays with the form in an ironic way. Super thighhigh boots, strong cut garments and spliced fabrics are some of their staple pieces. Vetements is of Post-Soviet heritage, founded by Demna and Guram Gvasalia. The brand’s values are protest, politics and irony to name a few examples.

These brands are both of very strong narratives and stories, communicating the raw and arguably archive-esque/apocalypse-core garments conceptually. Between Balenciaga enlisting The Simpsons and Vetements having their own ‘uncensored’ private, but inclusive Instagram space, it’s no wonder they’ve built cult followings from their ideas of innovation.

BRAND ME CONCLUSION AND WHAT NEXT?

Brand Me has really opened the floodgates for me in terms of my future, and understanding of myself creatively. It’s brought to my attention that my best industry fit is the visionary/concept market, and that I am definitely a visual communicator and storyteller. Maximalism, concept and colour are some of my apparent core values as a brand too. A mixture of analog and digital ways of working are also key to me as an individual. Moving forward, I’m excited to develop my own visual style and narrative further and look further into these ideas and brands from the Summer research to find similar influences to inform my brand further. This has acted as a springboard into my own research narrative. I look forward to delving deeper into my creative interests, like fantasy, concept and designers such as Matty Bovan who I’ve linked to Charles Jeffrey and photographers like Sharna Osborne who I’ve discovered diving further into Dazed. Next this research and the research it will inform will begin to build up a stronger representation of my brand, of which I will next build a visual narrative for, and it gives me a very strong foundation for the 360 FMP of which I will create.

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REFERENCES

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REFERENCES 1. BOF 500. Charles Jeffrey is part of the BoF 500. The Business of Fashion. , from https://www.businessoffashion.com/community/people/charlesjeffrey-1. 2. Conroy, V. (2021). Enter Charles Jeffrey’s Hallucinatory Lockdown Universe | SHOWstudio. Showstudio.com. from https://showstudio.com/news/charlesjeffreys-hallucinatory-lockdown-universe. 3. DAZED Media. About | Dazed Media. Dazedmedia.com., from https://www. dazedmedia.com/about. 4.

Hack, J. (2016). We can’t do this alone - Jefferson Hack the system.

5. Hack, J. (2021). Dazed: 30 Years Confused: The Covers. Rizzoli International Publications. 6. Hope Allwood, E. (2015). Meet the ringleader of London’s next-generation club kids. Dazed. from https://www.dazeddigital.com/fashion/article/25087/1/ meet-the-ringleader-of-london-s-next-generation-club-kids. 7. uk.

i-D. about us. I-d. , from https://i-d.vice.com/en_uk/page/i-d-about-us-en-

8. Mayo Davies, D. (2021). Dazed: 30 Years Confused: The Covers. Rizzoli International Publications. 9. Nirui, A. Demna Gvasalia. Dazed. , from https://www.dazeddigital.com/ projects/article/29519/1/demna-gvasalia.

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10. ShowStudio. (2021). Charles Jeffrey Calls Upon Creative Studio DBLG For New Film | SHOWstudio. Showstudio.com. from https://showstudio.com/news/ charles-jeffrey-calls-upon-creative-studio-dblg-for-new-film. 11. Somerset House. , from https://www.somersethouse.org.uk/residents/ charles-jeffrey. 12. STAFF WRITER ReputationDefender, 2019. [online] Available at: <https:// www.reputationdefender.com/blog/social-media/how-social-media-can-ruinyour-online-reputation 13. Urban, E., 2017. Council Post: What Is Your Impact?. [online] Forbes. Available at: <https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2017/10/16/what-isyour-impact/>

IMAGE REFERENCES FIGURE 1. - INSTAX Courtesy of Charles Jeffrey. https://dazedimg-dazedgroup. netdna-ssl.com/1600/azure/dazed-prod/1120/3/1123254.jpg ALL OTHER VISUALS ARE MY OWN, OR ARE ALTERED BEYOND STANDARDS

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COMING SOON.

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BRAND ME. SOPHIE TAYLOR

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