B L O G 1 – society and empathy
“What do you think of when you hear the words social and fashion together?”
My initial thoughts regarding this opening question were, social media, political change, rights movements and equality within the industry.
During the lecture Katelyn Toth Fejel touched on ‘throwaway’ culture, specifically the exploitive conditions fast fashion promotes and produces. Brands and companies that perpetuate these features, are often what is promoted by influencers on Instagram. This results in mass consummation, accounting for the some 100 billion garments produced in 2015. When Fejel noted this figure in comparison to the global population of only 7 billion people, we then begin to see fast fashion as a real issue and in fact we as consumers are buying 60% more garments than little over a decade ago.
Movements like Fashion Revelation and the Copenhagen Fashion Summit have increasing social awareness and impact in this day and age, with sustainable fashion becoming a major trend and talking headline in recent years. However this “trend”/movement has not yet deterred the public from reducing consumption and making a collective conscious effort to eradicate unsustainable production methods, and take an interest into social, environmental and economical issues effecting humans around the world, for the sake of their Primark maxi dresses.
In Lorraine Gamman’s lecture she discussed topics of empathy and how there is a huge lack of it within the fashion industry.
One case discussed by Gamman; the 2010 Calvin Klein Lara Stone Campaign which was highly criticised for its depiction of sexual assault. An issue which is massively insensitive to anyone working in the fashion industry or beyond, who has experienced sexual assault.
This idea of lacking empathy within fashion can be related to Fejel’s points on ‘throwaway’ fashion. There is a lack of empathy as consumers are driving the fast fashion industry forward, by buying the goods, whilst companies are doing little to change, causing social issues regarding the exploitation of workers, cheap labor and poor working condition.
From an environmental perspective there is a lack of empathy also, this again is down to consumer wants and from this the industry will provide. For example, overproduction of cotton in Uzbekistan has caused the Aral Sea, once one of the fourth largest lakes and home to 24 species of fish and surrounding villages and ecosystems, to dry up.
A true example to where lack of empathy in the fashion industry has had detrimental impacts on innocent people/animals, changing the landscape and habitability of an area forever.
In relation to better lives, as a community from consumer to supplier, we need to come up with sustainable solutions to ‘throwaway’ culture. Sustainability and mindfulness of consequence, should be at the forefront of every company and in the mind of every consumer. Whether this change is a generation of new renewable low cost materials, or changing the way in which people shop, any reduced/mindful consumption within the industry would have a positive environmental impact and help to preserve the planet, on a social and environmental level.
L I L I P I P E