Category: Sustainable Fashion

Response to Li Edelkoort, Li. Anti-Fashion: A Manifesto for the Next Decade：

One comment that stuck out to me from Edelkoorts video was when she pointed out that everyone single person no matter how insignificant is credited in movies while in fashion there is only one persons name or just the brands name. I think that one way to get people working in the fashion industry to take a little more responsibility both personally and for the companies would be to give individuals more credit. With more real people to associate to brands they would have more of a personal reputation to maintain and have more invested in keeping a good image. However I disagree with her idea that in the future couture designs will become open source. Fast fashion brands already copy the runways as quickly as they can and if the couture patterns were open source there would be no reason for people to actually buy from the brand that designed them. After hearing about all the problems in the fashion industry it’s great that she’s actually listing a bunch of solutions, for example focusing on everyday clothes, specifically mens fashion, and learning about textiles. It seems like many of her solutions centered around education both for fashion students and seasoned designers as well as the media. I think that if her advice on education is taken and especially as the younger generation starts to rise up in rank in garment companies sustainability will become also be more of a focus.

Response to Kate Fletcher “Slow Fashion: An Invitation for Systems Change” ：

I’m part of the generation that has grown up with fast fashion and done most of my shopping at stores like forever 21 and H&M. When you live somewhere like the US it’s so easy to be ignorant of all the negative externalities faced by the people and environment in the countries where the clothes are actually produced. I like to travel and it’s constantly a struggle to get away from all the major brands and places that have been normalized to all be the same. It’s the same way with clothing, even ethnic minorities wear mass produced jeans and t-shirts and it’s becoming harder the even find people who know how to make the tradition clothing anymore. Like the loss of cultural food the fast fashion industry is also affecting cultural clothing. For example in Haiti and some other places in Africa there are so many clothing donations from the US that their own designers and brands are put out of business. The pace of production and change in styles is not really the issue, its the negative effects on the laborers and environment. I think that fast but sustainable fashion could be possible, however it would come with a price increase that neither companies or consumers would be willing to accept just for the sake of being good people. At some point there have to be government regulations and changes made to the economic system for progress to be made.

Response to Kate Fletcher’s “Slow Fashion: An Invitation for Systems Change”:

Kate Fletcher’s written voice could not be more similar to Li Edelkoort’s own spoken voice. Both women have a strained, anger-filled plea aimed at all those who engage in fashion products in any capacity. In this incredibly passionate paper, Fletcher illustrates just how insidious the fast fashion industry’s effect on humanity and society has been. She equates it to the fast food movement: both traded familial values and tradition for newness and short-term convenience. She clarifies that “fast” is not necessarily bad; the speed alone of how fashion products are made is not to blame for fast fashion’s pernicious consequences. Instead, the business culture of “growth by any means necessary” that lies within “fast” for any industry is what ultimately leads to long term ethical, environmental, and societal damage.

Fletcher’s paper is the only position I have read that focuses enough, if any, attention on the impact fast fashion has on our society. She emphasizes that having more things does not add to one’s life in any meaningful way. The way she juxtaposes previous values standards for fashion products versus current ones is intense to read. Once the durability, memory, and lifespan of a garment were its most important qualities. Now, however, the flexibility, adaptability, and disposability of a fashion product are its main selling points. Fletcher suggests looking to the food indusry’s fight against fast food chains for suggestions on how to manage fashion’s “fast” problem. 

Response to Li Edelkoort’s “Anti-Fashion: A Manifestó for the Next Decade”:

Li Edelkoort’s talk on sustainability at the Business of Fashion’s Voices conference was refreshing for one reason: where most sustainability activists only present problems, Edelkoort only provided her audience with solutions. The audience was full of fashion professionals, from educators to ad men, and they were all hooked on her every word. Edelkoort doesn’t mince words; she identified problems at every phase a fashion product goes through and immediately suggested several solutions to these quandaries. She started with the education issue. Fashion design students, Edelkoort argues, are not being taught worksmanship and creation of garments, simply the conjuring of them. She claims that in order to create sustainable designers, they must be accurately taught just how much work goes into a fashion product, how working with certain textiles affects the end product, and how to ensure that product quality is controlled. Edelkoort also tackles the underrepresented textile industry. Because fast fashion retailers so often opt for cheaper synthetic fabrics, the textile industry is barely treading water. She is a world-reknown trend forecaster, so to hear Edelkoort explain just how in peril the textile and fabric market is was jarring to me. She explains that fashion houses must buy textile mills in order to ensure quality fabrics, made sustainably and with care, will not become a thing of the past.

“Sometimes, when you buy a t-shirt, you kill somebody; it’s better to buy fur.” This quote from the video stuck with me. On Monday, I mentioned in class that it is not sustainable enough to just focus on fixing fashion’s environmental consequences and ignore the ethical ramifications, and vice versa. Although she said it with a hint of sarcasm, the hidden meaning is not so difficult to find. What lives are we prioritizing? The consumer with more than enough options to meet their daily needs? The disadvantaged worker in an outsourced Nike factory with no other job prospect? The fashion designer struggling to keep up with ever increasing fashion seasons? The animals in cages poached for their fur? Once we are honest about which of these is our collective priority and then choose to improve on that, our collective society will move towards a more sustainable fashion route. 

I found the talk, Anti-Fashion : A Manifesto for the Next Decade, by Li Edelkoort super interesting and eye opening. First of all, I loved her outfit. One of the first points she mentioned was that “fashion industry is old fashioned”.  She mentioned how student studying fashion design think the only way to become successful in the industry is to become a catwalk designer, and she pointed out teachers should point out the importance of designing everyday clothes. This makes a lot of sense to me as people will wear the every day clothes so it should be more important to design those than something for a show. She also pointed out that no one, the designers, consumers or students know a lot about textile and she suggest textile research should be also emphasized in academia. Some of the large fashion brands already recognized this and are opening research departments. This is also really important for finding sustainable materials. She mentioned some cheap brands that sell their clothes cheaper than a sandwich and which, in her opinion, should be regulated in Europe by introducing a minimum price.  One other thing I also found really interesting in her talk is that she said more should be invested in men’s fashion as today’s men are more interested in fashion and their lifestyle has changed a lot in the past century. One other thing she pointed out was the trend for “non fashion” which is the idea that many people nowadays don’t have to dress up for work , or don’t have time. These two could be interesting target groups for the final project. 

In the article, Slow Fashion: An Invitation for Systems Change, the author, Kate Fletcher talks about the idea of “slow fashion”. In the past decades, just like fast food, fast fashion appeared. Clothing is produced in mass quantities and sold for very cheap price around the world. They are often produced in developed countries and sold in the west for a few euros or dollars, just like Li Edelkoort said, “cheaper than a sandwich”. Many started to realize that this is not sustainable in the long term because fast fashion effects many people and the environment. Clothes are thrown away very quick because they lost their value. When McDonalds opened in Rome, a bunch of Italians started a movement, called the “Slow Food Movement” that means not only the rejection of eating cheap and unhealthy food but also the rejection of large-scale, mass-production business models. Similarly, in fashion the term, “slow fashion” understood as products that are “less fast”. I often read in magazines how a woman should always have a little black dress that can be worn any time for many years because it is classic and does not really go out of style. ( And probably no one will notice if you wear it twice). However, “slow fashion” is not only that.  Slow fashion products are produced and sold with a different business model. The author mentions that economic and social practices have to be part of the fashion debate. “The challenge for us all is to model and influence the overall regulating fashion system to promote balance accompanied by richness across economic, social, and ecological systems as a whole”