Hey guys!
What is your relationship with fashion?
Since becoming a fashion major in the fall of 2017, my relationship with fashion has evolved and grown into ways I never saw it going. For the average person, your relationship with fashion might just be you buy clothing you think is cute and you wear it and it doesn’t get much deeper than that. Some people may follow fashion influencers on Instagram or maybe even own a few luxury items. My relationship with fashion is a huge part of my life. I study it every day whether in class or reading WWD or Vogue or seeing what’s big on Instagram, for most of my days I am studying fashion and relating it to my school work or my career. Then I have a personal relationship with fashion. I buy clothing that is “trendy” however for most of my adult life I have tried to stay away from fast fashion trends and create my own style that doesn’t have a time stamp on it.
My belief that trends are fleeting and unimportant (for the most part) grew deeper upon my Contemporary Fashion History class. We learned about historic fashion houses like Yves Saint Laurent and about new luxury labels like Vetements. However, what I want to share with you that I learned in that class is sustainability in fashion. Not just what we are doing to our environment, but what we are doing to people over seas.
In my history class, we learned about Bangladesh and what is happening there in regards to the garment industry. The biggest example I can share with you is Rana Plaza. On April 24th 2013, the deadliest garment factory accident and the deadliest structural failure accident in human history happened at Rana Plaza in Bangladesh. After the search for survivors ended on May 13th, it was concluded 1,134 people died in the collapse. The collapse was caused by cracks in the foundation of the building, which were showed one the news the day before. The owner of the building said that the building was safe and that everyone should return to work the next day. The owners of the garment factories operating inside the building threatened to withhold a month of pay from each worker that did not show up to work. The workers in these factories were most likely working there because of the little opportunities that are offered specifically to women in Bangladesh. Women often go into prostitution in Bangladesh because they cannot afford to feed themselves or their children. When the police catch them in prostitution, they often give them a choice of leaving their children and going to prison, or going to work in garment factories. That is how bad working conditions are in these factories, that it is being compared to prison. The women chose to work in garment factories, which has been called modern day slavery. They live on around 38 euros a month. Withholding those 38 euros from workers would cause their families to starve. So, the garment factory workers showed up to work on April 24th. At around 8 am, Rana Plaza collapsed.
These workers were forced to come to work because of fast fashion cycles. Because us western consumers expect new clothing to come out every week from fast fashion brands. And because we want them at cheaper and cheaper prices.
This past week, I listened to Liz Ricketts speak more about the sustainability of the garment industry. I had previously heard her speak in my contemporary fashion history class and the topic was so intense she and others listening started crying. So I was excited to go hear her speak again because she had already taught me so much. This time, she spoke about Ghana and Kantamanto Market in Accra.
When we donate our clothing, we assume we are doing a good thing and helping the less fortunate. However, only about 10% of the clothing we donate reaches people in the United States that need it. Another percentage of that goes to Goodwill, and ultimately has a very good chance of ending up in our landfills. However, majority of the clothing we donate, about 80%, gets shipped to Ghana to be put in the Kantamanto market. Basically, giant shipping containers get sent to Ghana and one of the about 30 major families in Accra buy the shipping containers. Then, retailers from the market buy 120 lb bails of clothing out of these shipping containers. They are betting on the quality of these bails. If they don’t have any good clothing, they loose thousands of dollars and essentially get put into debt slavery. If everything goes according to plan, the owners of the booths make about a 10 dollar profit a week and go without electricity or phones. The only way that the clothing can get to markets is when workers carry the 120 lb bails of clothing on their heads for up to 2 miles at a time. They make $1 and live next to one of the most polluted e-waste dumps in the world, Agbogbloshie. They end up living with 10’s of people sleeping on the floor in one room, and after carrying 120 pound bags of clothing on their heads for hours of the day, they cram up and sleep on floors. If they take any time off to recover, they also end up in debt slavery.
This is your relationship with fashion, unfortunately. When you consume fast fashion and buy new clothing for every occasion and treat your things like they are temporary, this is what happens. We don’t see it, so we don’t know what’s happening. We previously became very aware of products made in China, and a lot of people began to stop buying products made there. But imagine we stopped buying all the clothing made in Bangladesh? Imagine we stopped donating all of our clothing?
Unfortunately, we may be too far gone with some of these things. I know personally, my closet is way too full and I don’t know what to do with the things in it. Since I am aware of these things, I’ve been very conflicted on what to do with my surplus of clothing. However, there are things we can do. We can share this information and educate ourselves further on issues in the fashion industry. We can end single use t shirts and only buy clothing that we are realistically going to wear on a normal basis. We can learn how to sew and alter our clothing so it lasts longer.
In school we learn about how business is evolving and changing with AI and the internet and advancements in technology, however we never learn how the garment industry is growing and how we can change it. We all wear clothing every day, yet most people know nothing about the industry. So many people stopped eating Tyson chicken because they learned about it in high school health class. Imagine everyone knew that majority of the water we are drinking has microfibers in it from clothing dyeing? Would we all stop dyeing our clothing? Whether you like fashion or not, you probably like our environment and the people on our planet. Let’s start the conversation and make changes in our consumption of fashion.
XOXO
Kris