Better Lives Blog 1: Power
Throughout the course of these lectures, I’ve found that the lecture I am most interested in was the Power lecture by Julia Crew. I found it interesting that the power of fashion should lie in the origin of creativity, but it now lies in the economic power, as fashion is increasingly becoming a commercial product.
In the lectures I learned that factories are being pushed to produce larger amounts at cheaper prices forcing unpaid overtime and harassment. This may also push companies to produce in other countries that produces their products quicker and where the legal minimum wage falls short and keeps people stuck in the cycle of poverty and exploitation. In addition, the growth of technology, there’s a higher number of influencers and advertisers pushing consumers to buy the latest fashion, hair and makeup trends. An example of this would be that researchers suggest that 200 million Instagram users follow at least one fashion account, who have influence on their followers surrounding the trends – in a lot of cases, fast fashion. This severely affects sustainability due to mass produce of fast fashion. In addition, it calls into concern ethical issues surrounding fair trade and employment due to the fast rate of production companies are driven to for maximum profit.
As I am a makeup and hair for fashion student, I find that with the fashion industry, makeup and hair plays a part in becoming a large role in economic power. The industry has exploded, with fashion, in becoming a disposable industry with mass productions. When looking into this I found that large makeup brands, I found that a lot of brands mislead their customers by claiming to be vegan and instead, testing on animals in order to sell products into China. This shows they are abusing their power in order to receive higher profits from foreign countries with different laws and restrictions surrounding animal testing, and additionally misleading their vegan consumers.
However, the lecture showed the argument that the consumer has substantial power, the power to spend their money and ‘vote with their wallet’ on what to support. Its argued that we can take steps to make a change in the direction that we are going in by personal decisions, so we can eliminate our wasteful mindsets. Alongside this, influences speak out to talk about the fashion industry critically, which contradicts the idea that influencers help promote the fast fashion industry.
My own personal perspective from this lecture is that there is power at every stage, yet some power can be negative whilst other power may be positive. Power driven by profit brings a lot of ethical, social and environmental issues. However, power which is driven by morals can be beneficial, for example: consumers actively choosing not to support certain brands due to their own concerns around the issues the brand may be creating, which essentially will affect their profits. One of the main elements of power is within us, as power can be small, power can be collective and power is also about freedom, there is an ability for us to challenge the system.