October 2022

October marked the start of my first formative assessment, the Future Thinking Annotated Bibliography. This developed on from my first summer concept of a macro trend and had me honing in to a specific research topic that interested me allowing for me to utilise my critical thinking skills for my study. Gaining feedback on my Digital Innovation macro trend from my personal tutor enabled me to develop a deeper understanding into the trials that I will face in Third year and allowed for me to gain first-hand advice on what path I can take in this assignment. Personal feedback is always a positive tool for me even if there are negative criticisms, as I can take those points and improve them for the next project in order to achieve the best overall outcome. Dr Naomi Braithwaite gave valuable insight into Fashion & Identity in a lecture that truly assisted me to analyse further my macro trend and pinpoint the exact key marketing features of this development that I wanted to explore deeper. Els Dragt also delivered an inspiring lecture on Trend Analysis particularly emphasising how to research trends which truly benefitted me and allowed for me to reflect on the research I had done so far and how I could take it to that next step. These lectures and seminars at the start of October truly aided in my research into Digital Innovation in the fashion sector and helped me pinpoint specific trends such as Alternate Reality and Virtual Reality try-on features and Digital Wardrobes.

The end of October focused on writing up the Future Thinking Annotated Bibliography and emphasised the need for time management skills in order to complete the word count by the due date of the 28th October 2022. Critical writing seminars helped me to cultivate my literature skills and analytically evaluate my previous assignments to understand where needed development. The brief stated that the Bibliography needed to consist of 3000 words so setting out a strict time scaled plan was the main method for me to achieve this word count. By sticking to this plan, it not only enabled me to follow each key point in a clear and decisive way without causing unnecessary pressure on myself it also meant I had plenty of time to focus on my Computer Aided Design input into the submission. CAD is an aspect of the course I truly enjoy and find gratification in putting hard work into the aesthetic and creation of my projects. Due to this I want to achieve the same pleasure in my written work as I do my creative and the critical writing seminars allowed for me to find ways to analyse and explore the research to a high quality. Due to my time management skills, I completed all the written and design element of my work the day before it was due which gave me valuable time to reread all my work for errors and also thoroughly analyse the layout of my piece. I often find that by being unforgiving towards the inspection of my work has permitted me to truly focus on what the briefs and rubric are looking for and ensure I have stayed on task.