The hidden injustice of the fashion industry

Although it was never undeniable to me that the fashion industry was flawed with inequality and unfairness, attending these lectures had not only reassured me, but left me with disbelief of the large measure of inequality within the industry that I had not been aware of. In particular, Julia Crew’s lecture on Power coupled with Anna Fitzpatrick’s lecture on sustainability, really opened my mind to the injustice that prevails within the fashion industry particularly concerning the powers within it and its views toward sustainability.

Upon attending Crew’s lecture it became clear to me that the fashion industry was a system of imbalanced powers and structures that ultimately leads to social and enviourmental inequality. While I do agree with this perception of the industry, I also believe that fashion itself is a source of creativity and community but is being exploited by economic powers and factors. Crew’s lecture made this extremely apparent as she pointed out that the apparel industry has helped several individuals become extremely wealthy. However, it was this aspect of the fashion industry along with its ability to allow for self-expression and creativity that drew me into wanting a future within the industry, thus, I merely considered it as being a negative feature of the fashion industry unlike how Crew presented it. However, as the lecture went on, I began to become more aware of the inequality that this brings. Not only is wealth maldistributed but there is also a sense of discrimination as few minorities actually make it to such a level of success. I further learned that a CEO in the US takes just four days to earn what a Bangladesh factory worker will earn in a year. This made me re-evaluate the extent to which I had perceived the fashion industry as unfair and in fact was much larger than what I had expected. However, learning these disturbing facts made me want to pursue working within fashion even more, with the aim to challenge this and create a more equal and balanced industry. A keyway in which I believe fashion can be used to create better lives is firstly to try and eliminate its discriminative aspect. Although we are now seeing more models of colour and of different ethnicities, this is not to say the fashion industry is making a change for inequality. Although it’s a step forward, behind the scenes, within corporations such as CEO, Chairman’s etc. there is still a lack of ethnicity. Thus, a way in which fashion can help to create better lives is to create equal opportunities for all backgrounds. In addition, the distribution of wealth and power is significant to the impact fashion has on sustainability. Fashion can help create better lives for people living in poorer conditions just by simply scrutinising where our clothes comes from and boycotting brands that exploit workers. Anna Fitzpatrick explained how consumerism is a powerful ideology where if we avoid fast fashion and push for a more sustainable way of making clothes, brands will be forced to listen to their consumer and in the long term we will be creating better lives for third-world factory works and the enviourment and the people within it.