Introduction:
Part 1. Civilization has had a vested interest in clothing as a form of identity for ages. Getting dressed is a universal human task and an essential part of our daily routine or ritual. Dressing broadly involves adornment or covering for a multitude of purposes. What people wear not only signifies their culture, climate, or geography but often reflects their social status, and gender, and involves their political, religious, philosophical, and ethical beliefs as well. Whether it is a conscious decision or not, a person’s choice of clothing, both worn or through purchasing power, impacts the larger ecosystem and social structures involved. Throughout history, fashion has been a catalyst for social change. There is a paradox within the world of fashion, between the fast fashion industry’s negative impacts on social welfare and the use of clothing as a political statement in activism. Clothing is a necessity, but access to fashion should come at a fair and equitable cost to garment workers, consumers, and global ecosystems alike. Fast fashion’s business practices contribute not only to environmental degradation but to the hardship of its disenfranchised workforce, and requisite for its consumers. Alternatively, activists' use of fashion as a platform to bring attention to political issues and social injustice has transpired for decades. Ready-to-wear clothing is a design and manufacturing innovation that originated in the United States during the early 20th century.(1) Globalization of the garment industry has transformed fashion and the methods by which it is produced, creating the business of fast fashion. The term “fast fashion” is defined as low-price clothes influenced by high-end designers but made for the mass market, replicating luxury fashion trends. Fast fashion is mass-produced with a short lead-time, has a quick inventory turnaround, with new merchandise produced bi-weekly. It enables consumers to access trendy clothing that replicates their couture counterparts at artificially low prices, encouraging hyper-consumption. Companies have profited from this use of low-cost mass production overseas for decades.(2)
In this blog series, I examine the contrast between the fast fashion industry business practices and ways that fashion can be used purposefully for social change, through a review of academic corpus to compare industry virtues and shortcomings.
1. Phyllis G. Tortora, “The Geographic and Cultural Region,” in Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion, The United States and Canada, vol. 3 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).
2. Miszuk, Jacqueline Ann. “Changing the Fast Fashion Paradigm: Defining Opportunities for Improvement Within Industry Methodologies,” December 5, 2020.
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