fast fashion and feminism
Fashion Revolution Week is an initiative encouraging people to come together to campaign for systemic change in the fashion industry, specifically regarding fast fashion.
This year, Fashion Revolution Week takes place from the 20th - 26th April, which marks the seventh year since the Rana Plaza factory in Bangladesh collapsed in 2013, killing 1,138 people and injuring many more.
What is fast-fashion?
Fast fashion is an umbrella term which refers to all clothing produced rapidly by mass-market retailers to keep up with the never-ending changes in fashion trends. Examples of fast fashion brands include Zara (and all the Inditex Group), H&M, Topshop, Urban Outfitters, and many more.
Why is fast fashion a feminist issue?
At its core, fast fashion throws up numerous environmental, racial, economic and political issues, all of which deserve their own discussion. Here, we will look at some of the ways in which fast fashion facilitates gender-based oppression and has serious implications for feminist discourse.
Fashion production not only makes up 10% of humanity’s carbon emissions (making it the world’s second biggest polluter, after oil), but also involves 75 million workers, 80% of which are women and young girls. Most are vulnerable to exploitation, physical and verbal abuse, long, gruelling working hours and unsafe working conditions - exemplified by the Rana Plaza factory collapse. On top of this, garment workers receive less than minimum wage for their labour, which is often substantially less than the amount necessary for them to make ends meet. Women in Bangladesh factories receive, on average, 25 cents per hour.
The severity of this exploitation of labour is, of course, problematic in its own right, but it accrues still another layer of complexity when we look at a product that has seen increased levels of popularity in recent years: the feminist slogan t-shirt.
Although the best-known feminist slogan t-shirts remain the “This is What a Feminist Looks Like” and Dior’s “We Should All Be Feminists” shirts – famously donned by dozens of big-name celebrities including Benedict Cumberbatch, Eddie Redmayne, Natalie Portman and Rihanna – t-shirts displaying messages of feminist empowerment are now everywhere on the market. We can start to see where the problem lays here.
Earning below minimum wage in unsafe working conditions is not only a violation of fundamental rights for fast fashion factory workers, it is also a stark contradiction to the message displayed on the t-shirts they are producing.
How can we wear t-shirts expressing a message of empowerment and gender equality when the very women behind those t-shirts are not empowered, not equal, and definitively not included in the “girl power” movement proliferated by the clothes they are making? This opens up a plethora of questions around the feminist movement rooted in consumption-based societies, from the limits of feminism as a Western movement to how we can be more responsible as consumers.
As most of the clothes we wear are not manufactured in the country of the people who wear them, there is an increasing disconnect between our clothing and the people behind it. Initiatives like Fashion Revolution Week are not only asking for radical change in the way our clothes are made, but also for more transparency for brands so consumers can make informed choices when purchasing their items.
Easily accessible information is not straightforward to find, and we are still waiting for companies to step up and clearly show how their workers are treated and how much they are paid. But there are resources that we can use in the meantime.
If you are interested in knowing more or getting involved, here are some amazing resources to look up:
The True Cost (documentary)
Fashion Revolution Website at https://www.fashionrevolution.org/
Good on You at https://goodonyou.eco/ which offers a directory where you can easily check how brands score in areas such as Sustainability, Workers Rights and Animal Cruelty
Alternative ways to shop without contributing to fast fashion:
Shop your wardrobe – see how you can make the most of what you have
Shop your family/friends/partners/flatmates wardrobes
Take part in or organise a swap party where you can exchange clothes with others
Visit charity shops – they are a goldmine of great finds, it just takes patience!
Shop second hand online (Depop is my go-to choice but there are many more)
Support brands that do fashion properly and are conscious of the environment, their workers and animals
Lastly, it is important to underline that what I am saying here comes from a position of privilege, rooted in my racial and social background. I have the privilege to spend time and resources looking for alternatives, to be picky about where I shop and to gather information. I am by no means judging the choices of other individuals.
Illustration by Petra Wonham.