For this Exercise I decided on this article – ‘Why I’m Mugging Off Love Island’s Fast Fashion’  – It was actually in my Google news feed. I have recently been reading a lot of articles and watching documentaries on the effects of fast fashion and our throwaway culture. A lot of these stories are based on US consumption so when I saw this article pop up from the metro of course I clicked.

Love Island Clothing Advertisement – Image Source

I am not a watcher of reality TV so this was a real eye opener to me. The reality TV show ‘Love Island’ has partnered up with a brand called ‘I Saw It First’. The brand supplies the TV show with outfits – and then sells the same ones on it’s website for viewers to buy. Newspapers, websites and social media stars (including the contestants) then promote these cheap clothes. It is sold as a lifestyle – If you wear this, you’ll be like me!

Love Island Contestants with adverts for their outfits
Image Source 1 – Image Source 2

However these pieces are all of typical fast fashion quality – cheap to buy, poorly made. designed to be worn once and never again in most situations. The materials are artificial, and despite me spending some time on their website – I can’t find anything about their manufacturers or ethics –  which speaks volumes! Because these clothes are not made to last, many of them end up in landfill and fashion is one of the worlds largest polluters.

“To cut a long story short, buying clothes at the rate we do (the UK purchases two tonnes of clothes per minute) is massively fuelling climate change.” – Tori Keene – Metro

I made a mind map around the topic of fast fashion, re-reading the article and choosing words that relate to the phrase – including what fast fashion is and the problems it causes.
I then re-read the article and listed all the words that stood out to me. I then re-read those words and underlined all the ones I found most important. The thing that really stood out to me when writing these words and re-reading them is really the juxtaposition of the two prevalent themes – Fashion and Environment. It really seems like a Fashion vs. Environment situation and the environment is definitely losing – and it seems like the customer bases of the websites do not care or don’t even know!

Image Source 1 – Image Source 2 – Image Source 3

When thinking about what I wanted to draw for this exercise I kept in mind that these need to be illustrations to accompany the article, I wanted to keep it simple but effective. I started by referring back to the fast fashion website that sells the clothes discussed in the article. I knew that I wanted to represent the Fashion vs. Environment theme, something to make the reader think – ‘Oh, is it really worth it?’. When I was on the website I found it so incredibly ironic that a lot of the designs feature floral and animal prints, when the production of the clothes is so harmful and the disposal of the clothes is almost impossible.
I started sketching some of the clothes in procreate and then added them to my sketchbook where I could think. I chose the clothing above because it had elements I could tie in with the environment theme – the sandy coloured dress, the blue co ord could represent water or sky. I also chose the silver bikini because to me it really encapsulates everything fast fashion in one image – overly edited body, garish, cheaply made, plastic and impractical. I decided to do it in grey rather than try and depict silver because I want to display that more natural environmental look.

When explaining my work for this project I thought it would be best to screenshot the image as I worked (please note I am working on an iPad, with the Procreate software and an Apple Pencil). Working digitally on procreate has been my favourite method for the past year – however I am still learning all the time as my experience with digital art before that was minimal.

I planned out each image in my sketchbook first however I did allow myself to alter the drawings as I went if I had an idea that I preferred. I used the initial sketches I made and then on other layers I started building the image up. I used a watercolour brush to give a more natural look. For the outline, I decided to use a brush that looks like a dry ink – I think both of these brushes make the image appear organic. I then started drawing a world map onto the skirt on another layer (using a reference image from google). This took me way longer than I would like to admit! After drawing the map I moved areas around – Some on the top and some on the skirt. Although this is the way I originally planned it in my sketchbook, I was unsure because it makes the map so inaccurate – however it does make the drawing more pleasing – it definitely seems more like a print you would find on this website.
The inspiration behind this piece is a globe – prompting viewers to think about the bigger picture when they look at the garment. I am happy with the way it turned out, I have never tried using a more ‘sketchy’ brush for outlining before, but now I definitely want to explore/experiment with more textures and effects!

I worked in the same way for each of the drawings, taking the initial sketch and building up on layers on top of that. I actually refined the sketch for this one to clean it up – obviously it needed doing but now I look back I do feel like I have lost some of the movement of the fabric. For the sandy coloured dress I made a drawing inspired by the ocean, this dress represents the sea and sand. It looks like nice clean water and sand, much the opposite of the places these garments will end up. I played around building up different layers of blue and white and blending them to create the effect of waves. To give the ‘sand’ a little more texture I added a spray paint effect in the same colour as the line art in a low opacity. I toyed around with changing the outline colour to blue, as it matches the bottom of the dress, but I just thought the brown worked better. It helped create a consistent ‘organic’ feeling that matches the first drawing. The first drawing was also blue so I wanted it to be different – I think they are still coherent though. They would look at home illustrating the same article.

For the third and final piece for this exercise I focused on a sky and clouds design. When I decided on grey for this piece I knew I had to do those beautiful British grey skies – I did actually make it a little bluer than I originally intended as I wanted it to represent beautiful parts of nature like the clouds/sky but the darker grey made it seem smoggy. I wanted this series to be sort of a trade off – our natural scenes vs your clothing however it would also be interesting to do a series where I look at the after effects of this showing the scenes of damage. It would definitely be more shocking – but I think the ones I have drawn are more appropriate for the article I am looking at. To create the clouds I did use a special effect brush that already gave the appearance of clouds, I drew the shapes and blended different colours to get the effect I was looking for.

Finished Images

I am happy with the way these images turned out. I don’t think they would look out of place alongside an article based on fast fashion and I think they go well with my chosen article as I drew clothing from the actual website/tv show being discussed. I also enjoyed working with the more organic brushes on procreate – they look like hand drawn pieces even though they are 100% digital – this is something I will definitely come back and explore in later exercises.