Writing A Rationale For A Fashion Publication

Thumbnail Credit: Bethany Hutchison

As part of my BA1b fashion publications project my group and I were tasked with delivering a pitch. By pitching an individual is essentially advertising their products to potential investors, customers or clients. It is therefore imperative that the pitch is informed and to a high standard. As editor-in-chief of my groups publication, Pink Riot I believed that it was my duty to write the rationale for our publication.

A rationale is essentially another selling tactic. In terms of our publication it was used within our pitch to justify why we had created our magazine, why we have chosen a particular audience and why we have decided on certain content. The rationale which I ended up producing was incredibly detailed and therefore was heavily cut down by Rae Shields in order to fit onto our PowerPoint. Whilst I understand that this was a necessary action to take I have decided to share the entirety of the rationale on this blog post.

As an individual hoping to move into the publication industry It is imperative that I feel confident in writing rationales in order to justify my creative ideas. Although I have prior experience in writing rationales (courtesy of my BTEC Media qualification) I have never written a rationale for a publication. Creating this rationale highlighted the sheer amount of research that needs to be undertaken in order to create a compelling and well-informed piece. However, after writing this document I feel confident in my writing skills and believe that, if tasked to write a rationale once I have joined the industry, I would be able to create a informed and articulate body of work.

The entirety of my rationale for Pink Riot can be found below   

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Pink Riot Rationale

Ideas for fashion publication

Pink Riot is a quarterly arts, culture and fashion magazine catered towards female Gen Z’s with a focus on rebellious femininity. Although at first these heavily juxtaposing topics (rebellion and femininity) may not appear to coincide with one another rebellion is, in fact, an incredibly prevalent part of femininity. Whether this be evidenced by Joan Of Arc’s scandalous adoption of male clothing and short cropped hair, the suffragette movement or (in most recent years) protests for female reproductive rights it appears that both femininity and rebellion are inexplicably linked (Kellett, 2023). Throughout this rationale I will be referencing a survey created by myself which generated 58 responses (91.4% of those being within our core demographic) In order to back-up my findings. However, it is important to acknowledge that this questionnaire is not representative of the international population and therefore, whilst it gives a good indication to individual’s views, it may be flawed.

Although the world has taken collective steps in terms of equality there are still many reasons why women may feel the need to rebel against the current political system. Evidence of this can be seen in the United States with the 2022 overturning of Roe v Wade. This overturning has had a knock-on affect outside of America with the United Kingdom’s Pro-life All Party Parliamentary (APPG) tirelessly working to adjust abortion rights in order to reduce a woman’s autonomy (Bindel, 2024). Aside from the APPG the way women are treated in the workforce differentiates from their male counterparts with the hourly pay for female employers averaging 7.7% less than their male counterparts in April of last year (Francis-Devine, 2024) (Brione, 2024).

Image Credit: UK Parliament

These struggles are also exemplified in third-world countries. In an article by UN Women exploring rural, third world countries gender inequality is highlighted as a major cause of hunger and poverty. Despite women making up forty-three percent of the agricultural land in developing countries sixty percent of hungry individuals within these environments are women and girls. In addition, women make up more than two-thirds of the worlds illiterate population which directly impacts a woman’s employment prospects with women in rural areas working more seasonal, part-time, and low wage jobs than men. The problem then spans further with there being a large gender gap in terms of female leadership. This overall disregard for women exasperates issues such as domestic violence (unknown I, Unknown).

These political issues help to establish a clear gender divide and power dynamic in which women are seen as meek and mere desirable objects in relation to the ever-powerful man. From this ideology stems the idea of the male gaze. A term in which women, often unknowingly, self-objectify themselves in order to be seen as desirable. According to a survey conducted by myself 62.1% of individuals state that they feel pressured to behave/ dress in a certain way due to patriarchal expectations. Pink Riot aims to actively subvert this notion within our publication focusing on ways to dress for the female gaze. In order to achieve this, we will be creating look book imagery which encapsulates the female gaze from a rebellious viewpoint. This notion of dressing for yourself is key for our core demographic (18–25-year-olds) who are entering the formative years of their adulthood and are therefore entering a period of self-discovery (Brinkle, Unknown).

Aside from look book imagery Pink Riot aims to create it’s own merchandise line with aesthetics aligning to both our brand and the notion of the female gaze. Creating a merchandise line will help to create a sense of community amongst our readers (something which, 77.6% of individuals like to feel part of). In addition, we believe that our merchandise line is one of the brands unique selling points (USP’s). As a portion of profits from each sale will be donated to female charities (such as Bloody Good Period). By donating some of the profits of our merchandise sales to women’s charities we will be helping to combat issues such as period poverty. According to Allience For Period Supplies, one in four individuals struggle with period poverty with a quarter of Black and Latina people having struggled to afford these products. Causing over one-third (38%) of low-income individuals having to miss school or work due to lack of access to period supplies. These high statistics suggest that a portion of individual’s within our target audience will benefit directly from this charity work (Unknown II, 2024).

Image Credit: The Gentlewoman

Although we hope for our merchandise line to be a rally for change and a chance to build a community it is imperative that we ensure that the line is both ethically produced and sustainable. According to an article by Prototype fashion our brand can ensure this by ensuring that we use supply chains who pay their workers a fair (and legal) living wage ensuring that these workers are in safe, clean and healthy working environments. Alongside producing clothes from deadstock or recycled fabric/ materials which

do not contain any harmful chemicals. If we must source raw materials for our merchandise line then it is imperative that we source these materials from suppliers who adhere to the relevant ethical and fair trade practises. This will, subsequently come with an increased cost. Using www.goosestudios.co.uk as an example their organic cotton T-shirts range between £22- £30 (Unknown, Unknown). Competitor publication, The Gentlewoman, also runs its own merchandise line with their slogan T-shirt retailing for £37. It can therefore be inferred that our brands T-Shirts will be around the £30 price point. However, this will differentiate depending on the items we are producing (Unknown III, Unknown).   

We hope to create a safe space for women in an otherwise heavily patriarchal world. In order to do this, we aim to help solve problems which many young women (including our audience) may face by providing a charity spotlight in each edition of our publication. In reference to my survey 56.1% of individual’s said that they would find feminist charities beneficial to them. Aside from spotlighting female charities Pink Riot hopes to provide a voice for pioneering female creatives who are often overshadowed by their male counterparts. We aim to achieve this by creating research-based articles and through first hand recounts (Q&A’s).

Pink Riot acknowledges that there is not one type of feminism. In a survey conducted by myself 31% of individuals stated that they were not aware of other forms of feminism aside from white, western feminism and many of the responders said that they cared about topics such as racism and xenophobia. In response to this, we aim to highlight women from a range of different ages, backgrounds and socioeconomic standings. This highlights Pink Riot as an innovative publication as although some of our competitors (such as The Gentlewoman or gal-dem) may highlight individual’s from some of these categories they do not highlight them all! 

Although our publication covers somewhat difficult topics we also hope to be fun, engaging and creative. One of our innovative, USP’s of the publication will be a paper doll page. Although we are catering to a mature audience (18-25) we hope that this paper doll page provides some respite for the reader and allows them to digest what they have learned whist embarking in a creative endeavour. According to the Mental Health Foundation, engaging in arts is a great way to improve your mental health. With a clear mind this will allow our readers to truly digest our publication and choose how they’d like to respond to it.

According to my survey 72.4% of individuals use Instagram the most frequently followed by TikTok (69%) and YouTube (53.4%). In addition, 77.6% of individuals said that they like to feel part of a community. In order to respond to this we have created an Instagram page for PinkRiot. By creating an Instagram page we will be able to directly converse with our audience through DM’s (direct messages) and comments. In addition, we also hope to use our Instagram to generate content. According to my survey 75.9% of individuals said that they would be interested in engaging in content providing them with tips for navigating womanhood. This may suggest a current discontent for the resources available to them. Pink Riot hopes to solve this problem by creating an advice column from comments and DM’s left by readers.

Chosen Format

When deciding on our chosen format sustainability was at the forefront of our minds. With 75.9% of our respondents wanting to purchase a physical magazine and 76.4% of individuals stating that they are more inclined to purchase an object if they know its been sustainably made it was imperative that we created a physical format which both appealed to our audience whilst also being sustainable. In order to achieve this we have had to look not only at the materials which we will use to print our publication but also at matters such as distribution. In order to create a sustainable publication we hope to use FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) paper alongside printing with eco-friendly dyes such as soy and water based ink. Another way which we hope to reduce our carbon footprint is by printing on demand with local printers in order to reduce paper wastage and to reduce our environmental footprint during transportation.

We have decided to create a publication with dimensions 6.7 x 8.7 inches as opposed to the industry standard size of 8.5 x 11 inches. We have settled on this size for our publication as we acknowledge that our readership will be made up of individuals living in the city who may want to read during commuting. In order to ensure that Pink Riot is an easily portable magazine we have chosen a dimension of magazine which is slightly larger than a standard paperback but, nevertheless, compact. 

As a start-up independently ran publication we have decided to make our physical publication available to UK residents only with a digital edition available to international customers. We have decided to make this decision due to the increased carbon footprint which would come with internationally distributing our publication. Although this carbon footprint could be offset by rail or water transportation these methods would take considerably longer than air transport and would therefore limit the amount of time we could spend on creating our publication. Therefore compromising the quality of the publication. In addition, international customers may be deterred from buying a physical publication due to shipping/ custom charges. Digital editions will be available to purchase via the Pink Riot website as a digital download and will be considerably cheaper than the physical edition (£7). However, as our publication continues to grow we hope to implement a cost effective and environmentally friendly way for our physical publication to become available internationally (Unknown V, Unknown).

Although our publication is politically driven and tackles the notion of feminism we hope to convey both an immersive and creative tone. This will be achieved via our editorial design through the use of fun graphics (drawing inspiration from photographers Petra Collins and Marina Hunter), alongside interesting typefaces and layouts. However, we understand that this editorial style may not be accessible to all. In particular to those who are neurodivergent, dyslexic or partially sighted. According to my survey 56.9% of individuals said that they would benefit from reading a magazine with assistive features. In response to this statistic I turned to an article written by the British Dyslexia Association and, using the article as a guide, created a spread with sans serif fonts, bold headings/subheadings and text with increased character and line spacing. As someone who is not dyslexic nor neurodivergent I decided to share the spread to my Instagram page to ask for feedback from people who are. In response to this post 90% of individual’s said that they were able to read the spread. The 10% of individual’s who voted no were invited to provide suggestions on how the spread could be more accessible to them however, I was met with no responses. This accessible version of the publication will be available both as print and digital download. If purchased in print individual’s will be provided with a QR code which will take them to an audio described version of the publication. We have decided to offer audio description in order to appeal to a partially sighted audience. In addition, in order to further cater towards these individuals, we may consider using tactile images within our physical editions (Unknown VI, 2023).

Image Credit: Bethany Hutchison

Bibliography

Brinkle, Alyson (Unknown) ‘Dressing For The Female Gaze Versus The Male Gaze’. Available at: https://www.strikemagazines.com/blog-2-1/dressing-for-the-female-gaze-versus-the-male-gaze#:~:text=Oftentimes%2C%20dressing%20for%20the%20male,aesthetics%20unrelated%20to%20their%20bodies(Accessed: 30.03.24)

Francis-Devine, Brigid (2024) Brione, Patrick (2024) ‘The gender pay gap’. Available at: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn07068/

(Accessed: 30.03.24)

Julie, Bindel (2024) ‘The US war on reproductive rights should concern women everywhere’. Available at: https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/3/22/the-us-war-on-reproductive-rights-should-concern-women-everywhere (Accessed: 30.03.24)

Kellett, Ian (2023) ‘Joan of Arc- Condemned to Death for Wearing Trousers?’. Available at: https://goldhillmuseum.org.uk/joan-of-arc-condemned-to-death-for-wearing-trousers/ (Accessed: 30.03.24)

Unknown I (Unknown) UN WOMEN- ‘Facts & Figures’. Available at: https://www.unwomen.org/en/news/in-focus/commission-on-the-status-of-women-2012/facts-and-figures#:~:text=Gender%20inequality%20is%20a%20major,labour%20force%20in%20developing%20countries(Accessed: 30.03.24)

Unknown II (2024) ‘U by Kotex Period Poverty Awareness Week- Survey Results’. Available at: https://cdn.b12.io/client_media/HJ1wIVtI/1d8564dc-bf10-11eb-9c7a-0242ac110002-U_by_Kotex_Period_Poverty_-_PPAW_Data_Set.pdf (Accessed: 30.03.24)

Unknown III (Unknown) ‘Ethical & Sustainable Clothing Manufacturing’. Available at: https://prototype.fashion/ethical-sustainable-clothing-manufacturing/ (Accessed: 30.03.24)

Unknown IV (2019) ‘How arts can help improve your mental health’. Available at: https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/explore-mental-health/blogs/how-arts-can-help-improve-your-mental-health(Accessed: 30.03.24)

Unknown V (Unknown) ‘How to be international and environmentally sustainable?’. Available at: https://www.solutions.kompass.com/blog/how-to-be-international-and-environmentally-sustainable/#:~:text=The%20use%20of%20a%20rail,returns%20by%20using%20reverse%20logistics(Accessed: 30.03.24)

Unknown VI (Unknown) ‘Dyslexia friendly style guide’. Available at: https://www.bdadyslexia.org.uk/advice/employers/creating-a-dyslexia-friendly-workplace/dyslexia-friendly-style-guide (Accessed: 30.03.24)