In What Ways Does the fashion industry exploit current social
issues for profit?
Georgia Hamilton
The
following text will explore social issues focusing predominantly on today’s
society and with a particular focus on cultural appropriation, feminism and
body image within the fashion industry, in order to explore the ways in which certain
brands/designers exploit these issues with no real interest or care in relation
to what they stand for, for profit, and the ways in which they are able to do
so. For example, the issue of cultural appropriation will be explored in terms
of uncovering whether brands will use certain clothing or hair styles,
disrespecting the cultural significance behind them by using them solely for
their aesthetic purposes in order to make sales and in result adding to
appropriation within society.
The fast fashion high street brand Top Shop are known for
quickly keeping up with changing trends, with a recent line of t-shirts
available in store and online feature a ‘girlpower’
slogan. Maxine Bérdat’s 2016 TEDx talk focused
around the environmental and human rights violated by fast fashion outlets such
as Top Shop, Bérdat noted that around 80% of the people working within the
apparel industry are women and 98% of them are not receiving a living wage,
with 12-year olds posing as 18-year olds in order to maintain their jobs (M.Bérdat,
2016). When this statement is regarding a brand which promotes and appears to
represent the power within girls the designs sincerity is weakened and the
agenda behind it can be seen as one to profit off of the idea of girl power
through exploiting girls and women rather than it actually being an issue close
to the brands ethos. In terms of Top Shops ‘fake feminism’ it could be said
that they’re creating designs to supply the demand within today’s society of
young people wanting to show their political/social beliefs through their
clothing, supplying to a primary audience of 18-25 year olds who either aren’t aware
or do not care about the conditions in which their clothes are made, however
this leads to the debate in whether clothing brands should make their customers
aware of how their clothes are made, in order to allow them to make an informed
decision.
Of course, exploiting apparel workers is not new, the
'anti-Gap' campaign initiated by the Labour Co-ordinating Committee of the US
in 1995 was the result of intense struggle and extensive publicity drawing
attention to the child labourers used to produce the cheap but high-quality
cotton shirts we have come to associate with The Gap. In the end The Gap signed
an agreement guaranteeing the protection of human rights to all its employees
along with regular inspection of factories (A. McRobbie, 1997) As McRobbie
states, the exploitation was as familiar in 1995 as it is today however it’s as
if consumers and those working within the industry are choosing to ignore where
their clothes come from, wearing a feminist slogan on their t-shirt as if
that’s all they need to do to show they support women, when in fact they’re
worsening the issue.
During 2016’s New York Fashion Week, Marc Jacobs sent his
(predominantly Caucasian) models down the runway for his Spring 2017 collection
in hand-dyed wool dreadlocks. This sparked
controversy over whether it was an offensive form of cultural appropriation, or
whether it was merely an appreciation for the style. Jacobs released a
statement defending his decisions by stating he respects and is inspired by people and how they look, and that he
doesn’t see colour or race.
Rastafarians consider the locks a sign of their African identity and a
religious vow of their separation from what they call Babylon, a historically
white-European imperialist structure that has oppressed blacks and other people
of colour (Migrations In History)
with the cultural significance behind the style, Jacobs’ attempt to justify his
decision comes off with more disrespect than anything, using dreadlocks aesthetically
as a way enhance his runway looks and therefor profit from them, exploiting the
style of the dreadlocks rather than respecting the cultural significance behind
them. Speaking first hand to a
British model who has recently attended castings for London Fashion Week, she
spoke of the lack of diversity she has experienced both first hand and learnt
of through other models she knows. She stated that whilst talking to one of her
friends (who is a black, female model) she told her that whilst at the castings
the casting directors would choose one
black person and then the rest Caucasian in order to look diverse. The
notion of ensuring a catwalk or photoshoot has one model of an ethnic minority
in order to show diversity is not a new thing, in it’s 2008 issue, Italian
Vogue featured only black models throughout it’s pages following media
criticism of the industry lacking diversity, Mears calls this a ‘conspicuous
reaction’ (A.Mears, 2009) implying that the magazine did this very obviously in
order to show that they are racially diverse, however the if anything over the
top way in which they went about it leads the viewer to question the validity
and sincerity of the statement they are trying to project.
Body positivity is a movement which is changing the fashion
industry, with a growing number of leading brands using plus size models in
their campaigns, of course it can be seen as a good thing as it’s spreading the
notion of equality and diversity however theirs also room for doubt when it
comes to the intention of brands and whether they’re using the idea of body
positivity as a way to sell more clothing with little interest in the actual
significance of it.
High
street brand ZARA has faced criticism due to their choice of using images of
slim models alongside the slogan ‘love your curves’. The slogan which you would
assume to be used alongside images of plus sized models, was poorly used with
models no bigger than a size 10, it can be said that ZARA are here trying to
exploit the body positivity trend, in their attempt to encourage women to love
their curves whilst showing women who are clearly not plus sized and who the
statement doesn’t apply to. Tanesha Awasthi, a
UK plus sized fashion blogger spoke of her experiences with ZARA following a
Spanish teenager Anna Riera launched a petition in order to get ZARA to stock size
18’s in store ‘It is not only denying
people the right to be able to shop in the most well-known stores in the world,
but it is also saying that large sizes are not normal sizes, are not sizes that
can be bought in any clothing shop,’. Awasthi comments on the blog post
that her go to clothing within the stores are the outerwear and knit sections
due to the fact that outerwear is made slightly oversized to accommodate for
layers and the kinit section as knitted garments typically contain stretch. It
seems very ironic that a brand which tells it’s customers to love their curves doesn’t accommodate to
plus sized figures, and that customers who have curves have to make sure what
they’re buying is stretchy in order for it to fit.
Fake
feminism within the fashion industry doesn’t just apply to fast fashion
high-street brands such as Topshop, high fashion brands have also used feminism
as a way to sell their couture. Chanel’s Karl Lagerfeld’s 2014’s finale to
Paris fashion week saw some of the world’s highest paid models such as Gisele Bündchen turn the runway in to a faux feminist
protest, with the models supporting megaphones and placards depicting slogans
such as ‘ladies first’ and ‘history is her story’.
Amy
Odell, editor of Cosmopolitan magazine tweeted “awesome feminist statement at Chanel” in response to the show,
however not all opinions of the show were positive. Lagerfeld who has
previously expressed his opinion that ‘no
one wants to see curvy women’ has been accused of jumping on the feminist
band wagon in order to sell his designs, a move which appears to be happening
all over the fashion world. Ashe raises the argument that men cannot be
feminists because they have no experience of gender oppression and therefore
cannot generate oppositional forms of gender consciousness and identity (F. Ashe, 2004) if this is to be applied
to Lagerfeld’s faux protest the protest can be seen as fake in more ways than
just being a creative choice for the fashion show, rather the whole concept
behind it and the messages the placards depict could be seen as false as Ashe
suggests that men cannot be feminists and in result Lagerfeld is feeding in to
the act of faking an interest,
passion or even care in relation to social issues, using them as a way to get
‘like- minded’ people to have admiration and want to purchase Chanel.
Social
issues informing trends in fashion isn’t exclusive to today’s society however
the exploitation of it could be argued to be. During the Vietnam war, the
soldiers stationed in Europe and japan wore jeans as a symbol of home, in the
1960’s America’s middle-class college students began wearing them as a way to stand in solidarity with the
working class; those most affected by the war draft. (D.Miller,2007) In this case
it’s not the fashion industry exploiting social and political changes in order
to sell more clothing, it’s the consumers using clothing as a way to project
their social views (similar to today’s society) and the fashion industry
profiting off of this. This could be seen as the opposite of what is happening in
today’s society, rather than the consumers making up their own opinions on what
to wear and what the clothing means, they are being told what to wear and what
it stands for.
It can be questioned whether
the current surge in young people taking an interest and in some cases, being
activists for current social issues such as the Global Justice Now’s youth
network who organised a public protest against Marks and
Spencer for advertising in the Daily Mail (E.Lewis, 2017), encourages fashion retailers
to create products which are designed around these issues in order for them to
sell. Regardless of the motive behind them, the trend in using social issues
which the retailers and designers have no real interest in, in order to sell
clothes is happening. High Street brands are employing women and girls, in
sub-standard conditions to make feminist slogan t-shirts, profiting off of the
social issues they want people to believe they are fighting for when they are
in fact they’re doing the opposite.
The theory of cultural hegemony by founder of the
Italian Communist party Antonio Gramsci can be applied to the ways in which the
fashion industry and media outlets as a whole are able to exploit social issues
for profit, Gramsci notes that 'culture
is a politics that doesn't look like politics and is therefore a lot harder to
notice, much less resist', when applying this theory in terms of cultural
appropriation the fashion industry can be viewed as possessing a power in which
exploits cultures for profit, using them as aesthetic tools in order to attract
customers, meaning that consumers as a whole aren’t fully aware of what they’re
buying, or the cultures they’re appropriating as Gramsci notes it’s ‘a lot harder to notice’ (A.Gramsci
1916-35).
In terms of cultural appropriation, the fashion
industry uses the power they hold as an institution as a way to profit off of
their customers lack of knowledge, resulting in the problem continuing to escalate.
It’s becoming apparent that the industry will continue to keep on exploiting cultures
for their aesthetic value as long as the consumers aren’t aware of the origins
behind their clothes and accessories. Of course, the industry isn’t going to
educate their consumers on how the clothing they’re trying to sell is
disrespectful to cultures all across the world, and perhaps even if they are
aware they will still choose to support the industry profiting off of it,
however this does not mean that there shouldn’t be the opportunity for consumers
to be educated on the significance behind what they’re wearing.
As well as the fashion industry profiting off of
the growing social awareness within young people, the industry continues to profit
off of the exploitation of cultures due to the fact that their customers aren’t
aware. There needs to be a system in place which will help consumers become
more aware of the ways in which the industry exploit certain social trends or
cultures for financial gain, whether this is through media outlets continuing
to comment on certain aspects of the industry, through design or from the
brands themselves, in order for their to be a change in terms of exploiting
social issues or cultural appropriation, there needs to be the opportunity for consumers
to be made aware of the ways in which their clothes are made, the ideologies behind
the brands who are producing them and the cultural significance behind the clothing
and accessories which are being sold in stores, in order to allow consumers to generate
their own opinion around what they wear and what brands to support, rather than
the institutions holding all of the power.
