As the fever around ethical fashion bubbles over, it is more important than ever to bring back the conversation to what really matters. The dictionary defines ‘ethical’ as ‘adhering to moral principles’ or ‘conforming to accepted standards of social behavior’, but when it comes to fashion, we tend to ignore the simple maxim of doing what’s right, and instead hurry towards clickbait headlines and hot-button issues.
Like many of my contemporaries, I have questioned myself over and over on my decision to continue to pursue work in the fashion industry. Objectively, as someone whose values include environmentalism and human rights, the status quo of the fashion industry certainly does not align with my moral code. The facts are there in black and white: clothing and textiles production is the second largest industrial polluter in the world, UK households sent over 300,000 tonnes of textile waste to landfill last year, the majority of garment workers for fast fashion brands are living below the poverty line, and as reported from Fashion Revolution, on a single day in 2013, 1,138 innocent people died from a factory collapse in Bangladesh as a direct result of the ignorance of health and safety laws in fashion manufacturing.
But as the saying goes, if you can’t beat them, join them. I truly believe that lasting change happens when it starts from the inside out. So how do I make a difference?
For those passionate about the growing movement towards a more ethical and sustainable industry, it quickly becomes clear that until we move on from the #trending topics, we will be forever banished to the bottom of the global priorities list. Fashion is already dismissed all too often as a frivolous and flippant pursuit (despite every person that puts on a pair of pants in the morning taking an active role in the fashion world), so to latch on to hot-button issues as they come and go only sets that stereotype in stone.
The topical, newsworthy topics that the industry almost exclusively gravitates towards can be categorized into social, economic and environmental. The social theme is largely focused on health and safety, as a result of the Rana Plaza building collapse and the subsequent launch of Fashion Revolution, a global ethical fashion charity. The economic theme can be simplified as the movement towards paying more for our clothes so that garment workers can be paid a fairer wage, and the environmental theme is very on trend, centred around the plastic apocalypse and landfill. However, it is imperative to take on a holistic view, and educate ourselves on the multitude of issues that make up our highly problematic fashion industry.