blog post one: the lectures (power)
In these last two weeks, I have attended some really interesting lectures. Julia Crew’s lecture on the 10th of February has shaped my thinking on how much influence people in power have over the fashion industry. Fashion is powerful… The fact that Love Island can increase sales by 40% on BooHoo by just including some of their garments on the show illustrates how much power the media and influencers have over the youth and their fashion choices. Similarly, the pressure social media puts young users to keep presenting a new, updated, fashion forward feed, not only leads to increased anxiety and depression but 100 billion garments a year, with 75% of that clothing going to landfill. Personally, I think this is mad. The constant bombardment of fashion brands is becoming very invasive, brainwashing the youth into a fast fashion style craze. Fast fashion won’t decrease until the media understands the power they have is having a detrimental effect not only on the environment but on our youth.
The distribution of money in the fashion industry due to power isn’t creating better lives either, infact, quite the opposite. The industry is competing in the ‘race to the bottom’ to produce clothing at the cheapest price point possible to insure the cost of goods is cheaper for the supplier, to produce even more cheap clothing. A vicious cycle. The businesses that work in this way suggest it ‘creates better lives’ by ensuring the workers keep their jobs. However, in reality the workers are exploited to the max; forced to work overtime and unpaid in terrible conditions, all for our consumer culture and love for fast fashion.
However, as consumers we also have the power to set trends and choose where we spend our money. The power isn’t just in the hands of influencers and rich businessmen, but us. We are the ones buying their stock and generating their money; boycotting gives us the power and the ability to reshape the industry. As a consumer collective, we could bring down the reign of fast damaging fashion. A new dawn. The potential to allow the fashion industry to create better lives by dismantling the current toxic regiment brands are stuck in.
Being young creatives branching into the fashion industry, we are able to influence each other in positive ways. In her lecture, Crew said ‘power is control, but power is also freedom’, the utilization of this can push our generation of designers to inspire a new approach in terms of technology, material, to make sure exploitation is eradicated from the industry. This power shift could also make the media and the way we portray and inform fashion more equal and less harmful to the planet and consumers. Power is positive, if it’s in the right hands. We can change lives through fashion with this power. To quote Extinction Rebellion who has protested against the many negative attributes in fashion and the many environmental issues the industry has caused, “there is no fashion on a dead planet”.