Ethical Fashion is an
umbrella term to describe ethical fashion design, production, retail, and
purchasing. It covers a range of issues such as working conditions,
exploitation, fair trade, sustainable production, the environment, and animal
welfare.
The high street clothing industry
accounts for a massive share of Western retail. Every year, 100 million
shoppers visit London's Oxford Street alone. Garment shopping has changed dramatically in the last 30
years or so. Fast Fashion is the term used to describe the clothing industry of
the most recent decades. Whereas the price of most of our items - houses, fuel,
food - has increased in this time period, our clothing has become cheaper and
cheaper. It is actually cheaper to buy clothes now than in the 1980s
Globalization means that materials and labor
can be purchased in different parts of the world where costs are very low. Industrialized
methods of growing cotton mean that fabrics can be produced quickly and
cheaply, and in very large quantities. These savings are passed on to the
customer, meaning that high street fashion is available at increasingly low
prices, and much of it is regarded as disposable. Most major clothing brands launch a number of collections per year and
have moved production to developing countries. There the work is done by people
who tend to work for low wages, long hours and in dangerous working conditions.
Convoluted supply chains have hidden these concerning facts from customers and
often from the brands themselves, with price and profit being the main
considerations.
Following the Rana
Plaza tragedy that rocked the
glamorous world of fashion, international clothing brands were made to
reconsider how their manufacturing processes affected their employees, the
communities they inhabited, and the environment. Philanthropists,
environmentalists, human and animal rights activists, and conscious individuals
around the world began actively protesting unethical fashion.
Below is a link to a short doumentary about the Rana Plaza Tragedy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Fkhzdc4ybw
So what are the real ethical issues that revolve around this multi-million industry?Serious
concerns are often raised about exploitative working conditions in the
factories that make cheap clothes for the high street. In 2010, it was revealed
that a factory in Bangladesh supplying to Swedish-based clothing retailer
H&M had caught fire – with the fire exits blocked and with inefficient
equipment to stop the fire – and killed 21 workers
Child workers, alongside exploited adults, can be subjected
to violence and abuse such as forced overtime, as well as cramped and
unhygienic surroundings, bad food, and very poor pay. The low cost of clothes
on the high street means that less and less money goes to the people who
actually make them. Although
it has tried to advertise itself as a pro-green company, H&M has a spotty
track record overall, with a 1997 TV documentary in Sweden accusing the company
of putting young children in the Philippines through child labour to produce
their clothes. In 2007, it was revealed that the lingerie company
Victoria’s Secret – a company that has vouched for free trade –was making their
products out of cotton picked by children working in Burkina Faso.
Cotton provides much of the world's fabric, but growing it
uses 22.5% of the world's insecticides and 10% of the world's pesticides,
chemicals which can be dangerous for the environment and harmful to the farmers
who grow it. (Ethical Fashion Forum) Current textile growing practices are
considered unsustainable because of the damage they do to the immediate
environment. For example, the Aral Sea in Central Asia has shrunk to just 15%
of its former volume, largely due to the vast quantity of water required for
cotton production and dying. (Ethical Fashion Forum)
Most textiles are treated with chemicals to soften and dye
them, however these chemicals can be toxic to the environment and can be
transferred to the skin of the people wearing them. Hazardous chemicals used
commonly in the textile industry are: lead, nickel, chromium IV, aryl amine, phosphates and formaldehyde. (Greenpeace)
The low costs and disposable nature of high street fashion
means that much of it is destined for incinerators or landfill sites. The UK
alone throws away 1 million tonnes of clothing every year. (Waste Online)
Many animals are farmed to supply fur for the
fashion industry, and many people feel that their welfare is an important part
of the Ethical Fashion debate. The designer Stella McCartney does not use
either fur or leather in her designs. In an advert for the animal rights
organisation PETA, she said: 'we address... ethical or ecological... questions
in every other part of our lives except fashion. Mind-sets are changing,
though, which is encouraging
The change has started, and I personally believe that
it is all in our hands, The CONSUMERS. No one is vile enough to overlook the damage
that surrounds the fashion industry ,
but because everything is hidden miles
away from us we tend to never question
anything about it. When I firstly became aware of this topic I was shocked and
I coudnt believe the way consumerism has blinded me . I have started researching
and researching and with every article
read I was coming closer to what I am now , an INFORMED Ethical Consumer. Are
you one of us?
If you care about the principles as well as the price
of your shopping then you are. A person’s ethics are very individual but
generally an ethical consumer is someone who makes product selections based on
criteria in addition to price and function of what they are buying. This might
be to do with product ingredients (vegan, cruelty free, organic), it might be
environmental (low carbon production, biodegradable) or human rights related
(fairtrade), or even a mix of several of these areas.
If you wanna become an informed customer and be part of the change you will be surprised to find out how easy it actually is.
Below I have attached a couple of links that can provide you with a great deal of information.
http://www.ethicalfashionforum.com/
http://thenotepasser.com/blog/2013/9/13/ethical-fashion-resources
http://www.thetinytwig.com/2013/11/12/shopping-with-ethics-a-5-step-guide/
http://the-curious-button.com/10-ethical-fashion-bloggers/
http://www.thr3efold.com/news/5-must-see-ethical-fashion-documentaries
