At 18:30 in the evening of February 16th, SCIE 2023 Fashion show kicked off with the double themes of “Ecstasy of gold” and “Deconstruction”.
“Ecstasy of Gold” symbolizes the extravagant and luxurious lifestyles. It is an addictive kind of lifestyle. It traces us back to the time of Great Gatsby. This is when America economy was developing rapidly, and the hedonism was prevalent. The Art Deco movement emerged during this period, advocating for the use of decoration to functional objects. Designers are encouraged to express their own thoughts and deliver them by their designs of fashion clothing.
“Deconstruction” is a deliberate attempt to make clothes imperfect or rough, it is a statement of anti-fashion. It usually corporates raw edges, exposed seams or distressed textiles. Designers can manipulate the structure of the clothes, reversing people’s common ideas on clothes, to reconstruct and re-invent. They present their thoughts on society and the world, through their designs of deconstructed style of clothing.
The audience not only immersed in the beauty of the fashion designs, but also understand different interpretations by designers on different themes. It is a show of creativity and beauty.
The fashion show began with the words of the hosts Jason and Vivien. With the applause and of the audience, Sparkling performed for us first. Their powerful dances immediately ignited the enthusiasm of all the audience.
After their performance, the show moved on to the mostly anticipated part—The catwalk show.
The models were divided into 7 different groups. In each group, the models came out one by one. After their first appearance, the designers went on stage with their models to introduce their design concepts and their interpretations on the theme. The judges (Ms Barbara Delprete,Ms Zeynep Attar,Ms Lindi Shi,Mr Yusir)would present their valuable comments and suggestions. At the same time, they would grade the designers work based on visual appeals and creativity, and grade the models based on their expressions.
The lights on the stage dimmed suddenly, as the music started, an elegant profile walking in accordance with the music stepped onto the stage. From seeing only glimmering gold pattern and some white veil to the suddenly ignition of the models by the spotlight, the show started with the theme “Ecstasy of gold” in such an unexpected way.
The second group of models came up immediately after the first group of models and designers finished presenting their ideas. They have completely different styles and ideas with the first group although they are presenting the same theme.
The third group was also unique. The blue dress seemed special in this theme of “Ecstasy of Gold”.
A different piece of music started, suggesting to us the change of the theme. Group four to six presented us with the theme of “Deconstruction”. The first model on stage surprised the audience with a design combined with different materials and a very special structure.
The fifth group was eye-catching: the irregular golden pattern and deconstructed dresses. Clodia’s walk won a lot of applauds and shout outs from the audience because of her specially designed postures that carried strong personality.
Group 6 continuously brought us various surprises. Kingfu and Qiqi’s design received appraisals from the judges and the audience.
The designers in the last group combined both themes together, bringing us to the end of the show with more depths.
The models came back onto the stage in pairs after group seven. Irene from SCIE singing club then performed us “Adore u” with her beautiful voice to end up the show.
Then it came the most exciting part of the show—the awards ceremony. There were four awards this year for a pair of ‘Best Model’ and ‘Best Designer’ voted from the audience, and another pair voted from the judges. Mr. Yusri went on stage to congratulate the winning models and designs.
Best designer from the judges: KingFu & Qiqi (Left)
Best designer from the audience: Lynsey(right)
Best model from the judges: Eden (Left)
Best model from the audience: Alaina (Right)
After the awards, the Fashion Show officially came to an end. Finally, we should have special thank to Dora, president of Fashion Show, and her staff for their efforts in planning this Fashion Show. We are grateful for teachers in the school for their support, designers and models for their works, and all the audience who came to watch the Fashion Show.
My essay is on the recent development of China’s mental health care system and how it can help address this question. Though, I actually parried the question raised by the prompt, and I did not in the end emphasise too much that more care should be devoted to the socially vulnerable. Rather, I intended to underscore the complexity and ambiguity in any employment of these two notions — “socially vulnerable” and “responsibility” — in the concrete working of society. Through my study I discovered that the train of legislative efforts made in the 1980s to 2000s to legally recognise, to enhance public knowledge of, and to erect new asylums for, “the mentally ill,” in fact coincided spatiotemporally with government efforts in putting new agendas of foreign policies and city development to work. Thus, the recent development of China’s mental health care, from scratch to full maturity, is not solely the consequence of “humanitarian effort,” but also of some other ulterior motives. In my conclusion, I hinted that any answer to this question would entail empirical investigation into the concrete working of social institutions, and depending on the nature of this “socially vulnerable” group, claims of “responsibility” may be leveraged as veils for other purposes.
Before starting my research I did not by then have a well-formed hypothesis, but I did have Michel Foucault’s intriguing study on madness in mind. Due to the rather peculiar nature of the object of my study, I was not able to apply the sociological theories (Marxism, Functionalism, e.g.) I learnt in class to my own research. I must thank my sociology teacher for his encouragement and provision of many textbook resources and classical studies done in the field of mental health care. In addition to that, he prepared a statement of the school for my application to conduct short interviews at a local mental health hospital — this application, however, though quite expectedly, sank into oblivion — without his help this project would be very difficult.
I made a documentary “The Definition” about the situation of elderly in Shenzhen to enter this competition. As I have some previous knowledge in filmmaking, learning from TBU studio, I though it would be meaningful if I combined my filmmaking skills with sociology knowledge. In the meanwhile, after learning the very first chapter of sociology, The Family, I found out that the situation of elderly in the UK is different from that of elderly in Shenzhen. For instance, elderly have the responsibility taking care of their grandchildren and dance in the park for entertainment is distinctive in China. Therefore, I decided to make a documentary to record the interesting culture.
I learnt a lot during the preparation for the competition. I learned a lot about how to carry out an individual primary research when I was filming “The Definition”, which helps a lot in my current sociology study. Also, I understood sociology theories better. For instance, postmodernism used to be only a vague theoretical perspective for me, yet it amazed me knowing that elderly people participate actively in public activities can be considered as view of postmodernism.
Most importantly, I realized filmmaking can make some impacts on people, portraying problems of society. Experience of BSA opened my eyes and led me rethink about my future major in college. I want use my skills and knowledge to help more people, so I will probably try a major with humanity and filmmaking combined instead of pursuing the dream of being an artist alone.
Learning sociology gives me a new perspective in seeing how the world works, and it also lets me care more about the vulnerability in the society. Thank you to my sociology teacher, Richard Driscoll, who gave me lots of inspiration such as filming the dancing in the park, which is interesting to British people, and recommenced lots of sociological books about the elderly.
By listening to his advice, “The Definition” eventually divides into two parts: one is about the elderly in nursing home and the other is about people dancing in the park. Also, there is many interviews in the documentary to give a more well-rounded perspective.
I would like to thank my Math teacher Michael Jin and my friend Franchaska, who helped me with the voice over. Also, thanks to my family members, especially my dear grandmother, who gave me lots of insights related to the issue of elderly.
I made this documentary just before the deadline, thus it’s not so perfect. I’ll probably elaborate some shots and reedit it in the future.
If you are interested, you can click the link below and watch it.
Teng Xun Video:https://v.qq.com/x/page/u0862usad2v.html
Bilibili:https://www.bilibili.com/video/av38188271?from=search&seid=10452775157822232568