Nikoline Buhl

After watching several of the Better Lives lectures, I’ve come to find the most inspiring to be about Well-being with Jekaterina Rogaten. Not only did she include well-being as a state of mind and the psychology behind it, but she also drew comparisons to the fashion industry – explaining that fashion can improve well-being. She argued that sustainability plays a huge part in well-being. That consumers [of fashion] feel better when they make eco-conscious decisions like recycling or choosing sustainably sourced materials.

I was very inspired by the idea of how fashion can improve well-being. Jekaterina explained how choosing your clothes in the morning is a huge factor in your identity, she integrated the room with questions about how long we take to choose our outfits. It made me think more about how much clothing adds to our personality and identity. She also explained how one can use clothing as a coping mechanism to overpower and regulate a low mood, in relation to fashion anxiety.

“Fast fashion is not a socially or ecologically responsible as that which is well-made, long-lasting, free of sweatshop labour and capable of being appreciated for more than a few weeks.” (Karpova & Lee, p. 13 as cited in Cohen 2011)

Included in the lecture was this quote, that reflects greatly on the lecture and the meaning of it. Well-being and fashion go hand in hand. From this lecture, I learned that well-being in fashion is not only about loungewear, and the feeling we get when buying a new garment. But, that it’s also about the workers creating the garments. The ‘food chain’ in fashion, from how the material is sourced, to the designer, to the garment worker, to the consumer. All of these variables are important for fashion to be sustainable.

We often think about sustainability as something we do to better the earth we are living on, but this lecture made me widen my perspective and see that sustainability is something we focus on to better our lives. Sustainability and social responsibility lean on each other in this context. We want to better everyone’s lives, including the workers and designers, not only the consumers. Working towards eliminating sweatshops, even if the prices have to go up, will better both consumers and workers lives. Since better clothing that lasts longer, made from someone who is working under the right circumstances, is the ultimate outcome.