For my group’s pitch, we created Threads., a fashion app which finds clothing across the internet when users scan the item, similar to how Shazam identifies music by listening to it. The app also has a suggested/recommended section which shows users clothes they might like and are in fashion.

When creating my digital artefact, I drew inspiration from tv shows “A Current Affair”, “60 Minutes” and other news shows, and produced a satirical news story. The video begins with a short introduction where I welcome the viewers to the show “BCM214 World News” and tell them who I am. I then proceed to introduce Threads., and give a short description as to what it is.

The news story focuses on the different opinions that people may have regarding the app, by presenting various features and opinions of the app. When ideating our app, we aimed to encourage sustainability and eco-friendly fashion, rather than fast fashion, a major issue in the fashion industry. According to BWSS (2019), the fashion industry is the second most polluting industry currently, therefore, Threads. seeks to encourage environmentally-friendly clothing. In my digital artefact I touch on this, because despite this being the mission of Threads., the app only shows where to buy clothes, and it isn’t actually producing its own clothing. Threads. does include a filter option to show eco-friendly clothes only, and will advertise and promote more sustainable brands and products, however this is only so effective since they do not produce their own. Therefore, the underlying message I am communicating via my digital artefact is that although the app seeks to be environmentally-friendly, it cannot do this by itself and instead must promote and influence sustainability amongst its users/stakeholders.

As I chose to do a satirical news story as my medium, I did not feel 60 seconds was enough time to deliver my message, instead, my video was 2 minutes 6 seconds long, and I used a green screen in iMovie and editing in Premiere Pro, to create the news room effect. For platforms such as TikTok, 60 seconds is enough run time, however, news stories are about informing viewers about the topic being discussed. This means that news stories are often much longer, from anywhere between 5 minute clips and hour-specials. Therefore, condensing this medium to 1 minute was not practical and instead I chose to leave it at just over 2 minutes, so I could get all the information in without ruining the pacing.

Our idea of Threads. seeks to disrupt the current fashion industry by introducing software that allows customers to find clothes that would normally be difficult to discover. It also covertly seeks to influence customers to shop more sustainably, by promoting more environmentally-friendly shops and sellers. By pushing our agenda we hope to potentially disrupt the fast fashion industry and instead raise awareness to the benefits of sustainable clothing.

My digital artefact and Threads. itself are reflective of the shared economy, particularly the digital economy and second-hand economy, as Threads. connects buyers and sellers through the internet, whilst also connecting peers who seek to sell unused items. Threads. also utilises the Spotify effect of convergence culture, as it brings together the Shazam-style scanning feature and potentially applies it to the fashion industry, allowing users to find items of clothing instantaneously.

References

Department of Industry, 2020, ‘Participating in the digital economy’, Australian Government Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources, viewed 20^th June 2020, https://www.industry.gov.au/strategies-for-the-future/participating-in-the-digital-economy

BWSS, 2019, ‘The Problem with Fast Fashion’, Battered Women’s Support Services, viewed 20^th June 2020, https://www.bwss.org/fastfashion/

Chappelow, J., 2020, ‘Sharing Economy’, Investopedia, viewed 20^th June 2020, https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sharing-economy.asp#:~:text=The%20sharing%20economy%20is%20an,-based%20on-line%20platform.