Jiahui Yan

I read one of the peers work about the human cost of fashion. It first tells about the status quo of fast fashion in the industry and the reasons why people like to buy fast fashion products. It then clarifies the problems of fast fashion in working environment, child labor, worker safety, etc., and employs a few quotes of trustworthy people to increase the credibility of the article. In my opinion, the advantages of this article are as follows.

First, it has a logical analysis. A common problem with many articles, including mine, is that opinions are too superficial and there is no in-depth analysis. This article is a good example which succeeds to avoid this problem. It can be seen from the article that the author is good at induction and summary. Combining quotation with quotation, the author significantly enhances the depth of the article, which is reasonable and founded, and highlights his own thinking on this subject, which is well worth learning.

Secondly, the author adds a lot of professional terms, such as “race to the bottom”, which requires a lot of research work in the early stage. The author also has mulitple credential references to a plethora of literatures, indicating that the author has invested a lot of energy and time on it. In addition, the author then gives an easy-to-understand explanation and adds his own understanding, which adds another highlighting point to the article.

As I mentioned in blog 1, I believe that fast fashion has indeed increased the burden of the industry to a great extent, and these problems cannot be solved properly in a short time. The problems should be recognized as a crisis of the fashion industry and a hindrance to the development of the whole society.

To conclude, I believe there are many aspects that I can learn from this article, and I will apply my reflections to my work in the future.

To reduce the impact of fast fashion and waste of couture as a reflection of the theme of sustainability, I decided to change all the garments I would use in my project to second-hand clothes. I have read a report before which illustrates how an ordinary young guy did his own style which were all made of waste materials and second-hand clothes. As he successfully got himself into fashion week and caused a sensation, media outlet vied to break this news. I started to wonder the limit between high fashion and brand-less clothes – Are quality and brand image the only differences between them? 

One of my favorite KOIs on Instagram is named Molly Chiang. She used to shoot a project in Egyptian pyramids. The special part in this shooting was that she made all the garments by herself: a belt made of a two meters pink satin cotton her bought from a local traditional fabric market, a floppy hat made of a hollowed-out khaki fabric, etc. It turns out all of these elements worked well together and brought a special feeling to it. As a photographer, I know that a good piece of work is feeding on the ideas and story line behind it, and a piece of luxury garments is never not the only thing. Another influencer named Lu Xianren implemented a counter attack on social media. Because in his photos, “plastic bags”, “rubber gloves”… every fashion insulated “single product”, in his interpretation, would become particularly fashionable. Sooner he was known by the public as a “wild supermodel” or a “country supermodel”. Some comment that he not only has the temperament of the runway, but also the gift of styling and the collocation of color schemes. He does not have the opportunity to wear couture from the stage, but he can make full use of the objects in the rural house. For example, he would make woven bag into a delicate dress, and make the bamboo leaves and sweet potato leaves into a triangular cloak and hanging ornaments. Now he is part of models in Pairs fashion week, and his faces are on all sorts of fashion magazines. There are plenty examples of recycling the waste into fashion items, and all gain a huge success. 

For my future project, I would like to use garments from last season and decorate it with limited materials I have in hand. For example, I plan to use a sportswear I barely wear to make a tied bow on my model’s head which would looks like a headscarf. This kind of combination delivers a sense of nature and wildness into the picture, which to some degree adds more texture to it. 

Bobb, B., 2020. Gucci’S Global Head Of Diversity And Inclusion Renée Tirado Is The Outsider Fashion Needs. [online] Vogue. Available at: <https://www.vogue.com/article/gucci-diversity-inclusion-renee-tirado> [Accessed 9 May 2020]. 

The growth of fast fashion has always been a concern in terms of sustainability, especially when it comes to the damages to environment. It is consoling to note that there are fashion firms in the UK who are making attempts to attain sustainability targets set by the fashion industry (House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee 2019: 8). M&S, for instance, is looking forward to obtaining about 50 important raw materials from sustainable sources by the year 2025. Primark also has the vision of sourcing all the cotton in their supply chain in a sustainable way (House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee 2019: 8). Primark, to achieve this vision, has established a sustainable cotton program with CottonConnect. ASOS has also made its commitment to ensure that about 60% of all its raw materials are obtained from sustainable sources by 2020 (House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee 2019: 8). It is evident here that some firms in the fashion industry have become aware of the need for sustainability in the progress of the fashion industry. 

Sources indicate that the matters of sustainability in the fashion industry have been of serious concern for about four decades (Thorisdottir and Johannsdottir 2019: 2). In this, there have been attempts by governments and organizations to find ways and strategies in making the industry sustainable. This is to say that the significance of the sector to society is great, and that is why its sustainability is critical to firms and political leaders (Drexhage and Murphy 2010: 1). 

I do acknowledge how the fast fashion has a great impact on the traditional industry in terms of its feature – a keen and accurate understanding of fashion. It also takes only a few days to incorporate the elements into its own design which exists on the stage or garments worn by the celebrities and influencers within quite a short time. Before, I always thought this kind of mode was completely opposite of traditional fashion, as the products of traditional fashion industry cannot reach such a fast speed. Under the traditional production mode, the product renewal cycle is 4-12 months, and the new products are usually delivered on a seasonal basis. But what we learnt during better lives lessons changed my mind, especially an article our tutor shared with us, named “Gucci’s Global Head of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Renée Tirado Is the Outsider Fashion Needs” (Bobb 2019) really grabbed my eyes. For now, due to the impact of Coronavirus, it has a huge blow to the industry’s economic side. Factories were forced to lockdown and the purchasing power sharply declined. During the quarantine, experts were starting to wonder whether do we really need so much of clothes. Is 6 seasons a year too much for consumers? Many influencers have pointed out that most of their clothes have only been wore by once, and it has been left in their closet.  

I relate it to my work in the future. After exploring the theme of fast sustainability, it did change the way I look at fashion industry in some degree. Some audience would think that it is not my responsibility to keep the industry sustainable, it is company’s. However, for me I would notice this issue more frequently, because individual’s behavior influences the whole industry a lot. 

Speaking of power in fashion, the first thing comes into my mind is how the western oil paintings and politics had influenced fashion. I could list countless designers who are inspired by this – Alexander McQueen, John Galiano, etc. Among all these designers, McQueen is always top 1 in my heart in terms of how he had used the element of power in his work. In 1997 his collection It’s a jungle out there caused a sensation. The patterns of the show were from Robert champion’s artwork completed in 1430. The theme was about the Lord Jesus Christ and his cross, similar to his collection Angles and demons which got inspiration from the artwork from Hieronymous Bosch and Stephen Lochner. There was also a hint of connotation of politics in his design. In 1998, his collection Joan, particularly the pattern used on the garment, was inspired by the last emperor of Romanov dynasty, whose family had been all murdered. His 1995 collection Highland Rape was another example. The material he used, especially the broken lace, directly relate audiences to female’s social status during that period – mistreatment, bullying, and violence. In addition, a deeper meaning behind the garment was to reflect the England aggression to his hometown Scotland. Celebrity and history has always encouraged McQueen to create new things, especially the darker side of humanity in terms of politics and religion. Precisely because of these events, we have the honor to see all these precious designs and garment today. All the political events contribute to varieties of story lines, which would help designers to enrich their ideas. Also, because of the special property, it somehow adds a sense of mystery in the design. 

Another concern of fashion industries in terms of economic sector, particularly in the UK, has to do with the growth of fast fashion and its associated issues of low-living wage. It has been found that fast fashion produces relatively cheap garments that are targeted at customers who desire to change their wardrobe on a regular, trend-driven basis (House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee 2019:6). According to a garment manufacturing hub in Leicester, there are factories in the fashion industry that side-step the law to enable maximized profits. Since the fast fashion clothing market is full of intense cost competition and unpredictable demand, such unethical behaviors bring producers enormous convenience and benefits.  One exemplary case of their unethical behaviors is their non-compliance with the law on minimum wage (House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee 2019:6). This implies that factories, in their attempt to become cost competitive and meet market demand, refuse to pay their workers as required by laws. Sustainability on this occasion becomes questionable as it appears firms tend to do anything that they deem necessary to remain their business.