#get me out of this company man half your workforce is minorities because you built your brand on it lmao

[weaseltotheface]

ok

[yokofashioncoms-blog]

ETHICAL LECTURE DISCUSSION

As a young fashion designer, the debate about the ethics of the fashion industry has come at me from two directions.

The first wave came from school, where ethics is built into design centered GCSEs. The problem is that responding to guidelines set in the official curriculum makes the subject dry and formulaic.   It’s not that I don’t care, because I do. But I feel we are repeatedly told to act sustainably within the design and manufacture of our products, but never really told why. Without the why, it’s difficult to get yourself motivated to act in a different way.  

This dutiful approach continues to some extent in university degree courses, so when experienced fashion industry creative Anya Person delivered a lecture on ethics, sustainability and social responsibility in fashion, I feared it would be a repeat of the many non-engaging, unrealistic and dull experiences us young designers have had endure.

Anya began by asking the question of who makes the clothes we wear. For her this is the big question. And the truth is that not many of us know the answer. A minority of people probably check labels to ensure their clothing is made in a particular country. Many, probably most, consumers purchase clothing not even checking the label and even if they did this wouldn’t hinder their decision in purchasing a ridiculously cheap pair of jeans. There are also no laws requiring a manufacturer to display their COO - country of origin.

Clothing and fashion are an integral part of contemporary society, where tastes change rapidly, driven by digital advertising and recommendation.  The buyer asks: what trends are emerging, why did Kendal Jenner wear that? What’s hot and what’s not?  Very few consumers ask how these clothes are manufactured and how they can be sold at such low prices. This lack of concern explains why the fashion industry’s vast sustainable and environmental problems have been allowed to get so out of hand.

Anya highlighted a few key trends in the fashion marketplace. Never before have we been able to buy clothes so cheaply and this encourages the idea of throw away fashion as fashion trends change at the blink of an eye. Statistics indicate that in Britain we only wear 70 per cent of the clothes that we have stored away in our wardrobes, which leaves us with a total of 1.7 billion unused items. As trends are constantly changing what we wore last week can be out of fashion one week later.

The result is a mountain of unwanted, unused or barely used clothing that mostly ends up in landfill. I myself have been guilty of buying garments and not ever getting around to wearing them, letting them pile up in the back of my wardrobe to collect dust.  Anya helped me understand the importance of educating people on what to do with clothing that is not being used. It’s a more promising strategy than trying to prevent the over purchasing of items.

After some research, I came up with a few of the most sustainable ways to get rid of your unwanted clothes and I am pleased I did so as I intend to put these into practice.

First, find your local Clothing swap. These can be a great way to get rid of clothes you are tired of or that don't fit you anymore while ensuring that your clothes end up with someone who is excited to wear them. Repurposing or up-cycling your clothing, can also lead to dramatic transformations, turning an old sweater into mittens, turning old jeans into baby bibs, or making a quilt out of several old shirts. Donating your clothes to local organizations or non-profits can be another really good way to give your clothing another life. At the same time, it helps those in need within the community, such as the homeless, and your clothing doesn’t end up in landfill.  If you’d like to get some of your money back, the digital world has thrown up loads of trading platforms, like eBay, Gumtree and Etsy. What you may not like anymore someone else may love.     

These are the easy steps.  It’s more complicated to understand and make a response to the conditions in which many of our clothes are made. Manufacturing hot spots include countries like Mauritius, Taiwan, Indonesia, Bangladesh, China, India, Turkey and Vietnam. Most of these places are very far from Britain and we don’t know much about them. They are all relatively poor countries, with big economic development issues reliant upon workforces which have no choice but to sell their labour very cheaply.  That’s how the brands we enjoy can make things significantly cheaper in these countries. Most of the workers are women and children and, unlike in a country such as the UK, companies can pay women much less than they pay men and the children’s wages are even worse.  It’s not unusual for children to be paid as little as a £1 an hour as compared to £7.50 for the minimum wage in the UK.

Like others, Anya points to Primark as an example of a high-street store which picked up a negative reputation for exploiting workers in developing countries in order to produce their extremely affordable clothing. I have to admit that I’m a Primark customer myself.  It’s probably the place I do most of my shopping because in recent years they have been really on top of trends and selling what for me looked like very nice stuff.  As a consumer, I asked myself why should I pay £10 more in Topshop for something in Primark which I liked more.

In the light of Anya’s lecture, I can see that I have been naive about the ethical issues involved.  Perhaps because like many in my generation, I was too young to understand at the time what was happening or what it meant. Along with a lot of other people, I have attempted to turn a blind eye to it. I’ve shopped at Primark for many years, it’s hard for me to stop.

Anya has opened my eyes to the actual effect of fast and cheap fashion. For the first time, I have been directly exposed to the working conditions of those who manufacture the garments we wear. Watching a selection of graphic videos, I have witnessed the horrific conditions in which these people work, whether women, children or men. No-one should have to be exposed to these working conditions, with long hours and minimal pay.

How can we make things change? I agree with Anya that it’s down to us, the consumers. If we stop buying cheap goods, they’ll stop making them. We, as the young generation of designers and consumers have the power to make this difference if we say no they must listen.

Until now, I’ve always felt that maybe I was just too small a fish in a very large pond. But I’ve changed my opinion. Every little thing we do as a generation can make the biggest of impacts. Product portfolio director Christel Vaenerberg explained that ethical and sustainable issues require “solutions which meet the needs of today without compromising the ability of future generations to fulfil their own needs.” If we don’t put a stop to this it will ultimately be bad for our generation in years to come.

I have always been interested in an ethical and humanitarian approach to design and manufacture, whether in fashion or other industries.  I have learned from Anya’s lecture and my research that my own buying decisions have effects way beyond my local shopping mall, including in global environmental issues where the problems go well beyond the activities of the fashion business. The lecture offered a more honest, accurate and insightful look into this aspect of things than I have experienced before.

Anya provided insightful statistics into the damage caused. The clothing industry is the second largest polluter in the world, second only to oil. Processes involved 70 million barrels of oil just to produce the virgin polyester used in fabrics each year show how severe these effects are. Other results include large amounts of harmful chemical waste being dumped directly into water systems, along with vast fossil fuel consumptions resulting in large CO2 emissions and air pollution, damaging eco systems such as aquatic life. Then there’s the sheer amount of clothing being put into landfill, which take years to decompose. We throw away 2 million tonnes of textiles each year. Textiles have become the fastest growing waste product in the UK, even though we also know that 50% of the clothes ending up in landfills are recyclable. The average woman only keeps a piece of clothing in her wardrobe for 5 weeks. These are shocking statistics – it’s hard to believe that they are real – but they make the case for a response among consumers, designers and the whole fashion industry.

There are plenty of alternative paths, especially in regard to choice of materials. Cotton, a very popular natural material used widely across the world, has some of the most devastating consequences. £1 billion worth of harmful chemicals are sprayed on the world cotton crops every year. And at least half of these are classified by the World Health Organisation as extremely hazardous. The effects on those working around the chemicals can be potentially devastating, with 1 million agricultural workers requiring hospital treatment due to pesticide poisoning. The alternative - organic cotton production -  only represented approximately 0.4 % of global cotton produced in 2014/2015.  Another option is to use more alternative fibres, such as bamboo. This needs no help from man, not even extra water, fertilizer or pesticides. It is the world’s fastest growing plant. Young designers need to understand these things and then act to work with new, more sustainable materials.

Coming away from the lecture and having time to reflect has enabled be to see what I have really understood and learnt. The most important point is that our new generation of fashion designers, manufactures and creatives can make the difference. It’s up to us to strive for better. As Anya says follow each project with the guideline planet, people, profit. I now aim to make a difference as a member of the fashion industry as well as a consumer of this ever-growing industry.