followthethings.com
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“University Lifestyle: Fabulously British“
Undergraduate coursework designed & written by Charlotte Brunton.
Available in full in slideshow above. High resolution download available here.
After researching examples of trade justice activism to add to this site, students taking CEO Ian’s ‘Geographies of material culture’ module at the University of Exeter are tasked to make their own. Charlotte Bruntonâs inspiration comes from the junk mail arriving at her student house. Instead of getting interesting letters, she and her housemates get student fashion catalogues. In particular, Jack Wills catalogues â six or more every season. They’re selling students an âaspirationalâ lifestyle, tempting them to buy the commodities they feature. The people in them, the things they have, the carefree, stylish and connected lifestyles they picture – the designers want students to want them. Charlotte and her friends imagine themselves using this, wearing that, experiencing the lifestyles these things can support, together. But who made these things? What about their lifestyles? Charlotte asks herself how she can create a catalogue that highlights how personal these things are both to her and to the people who made them? In real life, she has an interdependent, culture-crossing, ‘British’ life which they are very much part of. So she designs a âlifestyle catalogueâ that you can browse to imagine and buy into with her.
Page reference: Charlotte Brunton (2014) University Lifestyle: Fabulously British. followthethings.com/university-lifestyle-fabulously-british.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)
Estimated browsing time: 15 minutes.
Page credits & sources
Page created as coursework for the âGeographies of material cultureâ module at the University of Exeter. Reproduced with kind permission of the author.
Sources
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Image credit
Speaking icon: Speaking (https://thenounproject.com/icon/speaking-5549886/) by M Faisal from Noun Project (CC BY 3.0) Modified August 2024