An Ethic to Aesthetic: Why Caring Must Become a Fashion

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With the term ‘fast fashion’ we define all retailers that are alluringly cheap, reliant on slave labour and with no environmental concern in the course of production. These brands rapidly transport the latest trends from Spring and Autumn Fashion Weeks into the mass-market to feed the insatiable and everchanging taste of their consumers. Yet the recent history of fast fashion has rushed and strived only in recent years.

In the 1950s, the price of a ready-made dress could have been as expensive as £4 (£140 in current currency), whilst it is now possible to find one for only £10. This deflation, followed by the unconscious devaluation of labour involved, has brought individuals in the Global North to buy twice as many clothes as they did only 15 years ago. Whilst the problems that inhabit the Western society are mostly those of sexism and objectification, the Global South, mostly including lower income populations, has not only economic but also deeply societal issues such as child labour, extremely heavy schedules (up to 14–16 hours per day, 7 days a week), legal restrictions on any unionist action and issues regarding low wages, sometimes reduced to 1/5 of a legal minimum wage. The inability to politically have a say in the workplace combined with the threat of job loss or debt makes the situation of garment workers precarious. In Third World countries, 60 to 80% of family income is spent on food, and every 20% increase in food prices pushes a hundred million people into the poorest condition, living with less than a dollar per day.

Our purchases rarely involve ethical engagement with members of the supply chain which include farmers, spinners, weavers, tailors, finishers and packers, but are focused on the mere aesthetic quality of items. We should always remember that everything is somebody’s work, and our aesthetic should ultimately aim to reflect an ethic stance.
Whilst the West is exceeding its biological capacities, and people are filling their wardrobes with items they may not have the time to ever wear, the Third World is dealing with the consequences of overconsumption, attempting to respond to the deranged demands of requestors. As well as all the economic discriminations to which the West is often blind, as retailers mostly delegate all ethical responsibilities to suppliers, the fashion industry is one of the first concerning gender discrimination, as women count as 80% of the total 75 million garment workers in the world.
For many reasons therefore, it is necessary to realise that fashion has not always been fast and that the situation could possibly be different.

On a global perspective, the fashion industry is the second most polluting industry in the world, after oil companies. In fact, greenhouse emissions exceed those by international flights and shipping combined, freshwater consumption is the largest on the planet, and cheap clothes are responsible for 35% of all microplastics found in the ocean which are released by the garments when washed.
For instance, one of the most harmful textile systems is the leather industry, which demands an enormous quantity of water, uses many chemicals to convert skin into the final product, and has no concern for animal welfare. On an environmental perspective, the leather industry has become increasingly more dangerous to local areas. A clear example the Brazilian government who, after declaring its desire to increase its presence in the global beef market by 2020, had already occupied more of the Amazon rainforest in 2006. For this reason, after the Brazilian government was exposed for expanding herds and profiting from the destruction of a natural rainforest by also supporting illegal ranchers, Amazonian leather was boycotted temporarily by brands such as Nike and Adidas. Although the link between retailers’ demands and the production are separate but closely intertwined, brands should be always held accountable of the ethical choices they make, rather than being allowed to constantly distance themselves from the responsibility that is often outsourced to the supplier.

The two main materials involved in the garment industry are polyester and cotton, which involve more than 80% of all fibre production. Although cotton is referred to as the most ‘sustainable’ material in fast fashion, its cultivation in monocultures requires a serious amount of agrochemicals and pesticides, that according to World Health Organisation, can poison and cause between 20,000 and 40,000 cotton workers to die each year. In addition, the more complex the production, the more water it demands; in this case, up to 11,000–20,000 litres of water are necessary to achieve a kilogram of finished cotton, which is enough for a pair of jeans.
As well as this, more chemicals are usually required for fabrics and dye, which in the past were often coloured with onion skin, native plants, beetroot such as in the production of the traditional Scottish tweed, which reflected and included the biodiversity of local and regional flora. According to the Fashion Pact however, today 60% of our clothing is constituted by plastic.

A new strain of fashion is slowly emerging and finding its place in the market, in spite of higher prices that serve to pay the costs of labour, a higher quality of materials and an economic difficulty due to lesser demands. For this reason, cheap prices often translate into invisible costs that someone else is paying up for in our place. We must always be aware that following our desires does not always coincide with freedom. When we decide not only to consider sustainable options to fulfil our requirements, but begin to question our requirements themselves, we will find that often buying less is better than buying carefully. If we begin to consider the possibility of donating, swapping, recycling and repairing our clothes, we will be able to move towards the model of a sustainable, circular economy in the realisation that we are not actually sacrificing a thing.