Summary
Let’s face it. Moving from pressuring professional environments to the comfortable confines of our homes pushed many individuals to stop paying attention to their aesthetics and fashion during the COVID 19 pandemic. However, others seized the free time to incorporate fashion trends unique to the pandemic into their lives. Therefore, social isolation seems to have created an environment where people can experiment and reinvent their wardrobe through novel fashion trends.
Reflection
After making two podcasts, Sak, Neil and I were more accustomed to recording, so this time making the podcast felt more natural. Despite being more experienced, coming up with a topic for this podcast was surprisingly difficult. We had so many ideas, but struggled to come up with a single topic in which we could go into great depth for our argument. Eventually, we landed on the topic of fashion. We wanted to discuss fashion trends that popped off during the pandemic, analyzing the way the pandemic shaped the way we present ourselves, manipulate aesthetics, and even out shopping habits. Because fashion is such a broad topic, we decided to focus on the concept of fast fashion. This podcast featured our friend Sebastian Gutierrez, an Emory undergrad student and our local fast fashion expert.
Because the topic was fashion, we struggled to think of good audio clips and sound effects that were not only relevant, but royalty free. I found a few tiktok songs and other upbeat music. The audio quality of this podcast was much more clear than previous, which I’m very happy about! I edited the EQ to reduce the volume of lower frequencies, which helped to reduce excess bass. After editing a couple podcasts, the process for editing the final one was smoother and less time consuming.
As with the other podcasts, one of the key take aways from this experience is being able to collaborate. It was a struggle to find time in which we could all meet up. Having midnight meetings into the early morning to record did put a bit of a stress on our production process. However, because Sak, Neil and I are very close friends we were able to turn recording sessions into a fun experience. We were able to provide feedback to each other on how to improve our arguments or if we ever started to get off track from the subject. To control our argument, we assigned loose roles to keep ourselves on track. Saketh focused on arguing for our thesis that the pandemic encouraged people to advance their fashion choices and I argued for the antithesis that the pandemic allowed to relax our standards for fashion. Neil focused on deeper analysis.
After producing/editing 3 podcasts, I think I have learned a many useful skills that are applicable to writing in multiple fields. Specifically, I’ve learned to craft a strong argument and present it through a conversation. I’ve become more comfortable with using editing software (Garageband), and drawing on Adobe Draw.
Overall, I’m fairly satisfied with our final podcast.
Cover art
As with other covers and the title, my goal was to blend aspects of covid and the podcast topic into a single image. Because the topic pertained to aesthetics, I wanted to create a simple image with clean lines and strong contrast. The concept was inspired by Saketh’s example of a decorative masks he noticed in Indian weddings. The design of the earrings reflect the virus structure.
adriana english 