The sad reality of Muslim fashion today
One thing that makes me so uncomfortable about buying clothing or other items is thinking about whether the clothing is ethical or not. By now, it’s a well known fact that common brands that we all love - including Muslims - like Zara, H&M, Primark are grossly unethical. The brands aren’t transparent about where they source their garments from and take no responsibility for tragedies that occur due to health and safety hazards to say the least. But unfortunately - It’s worrying to see that Muslim brands are following suit.
Remember the Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh - 1,100 workers, our fellow Muslim brothers and sisters lost their lives. Brands that claimed to be sustainable and ethical were finally outed - the proof is in the pudding, Primark has paid out money for some of the victims.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/16/primark-payout-victims-rana-plaza-bangladesh
But still - 6 years on and brands are still not transparent! No matter how fashion and garments make us feel, we need to remember that at the end of the day for the people in the business, it’s all about money.
As Muslims, I feel we should be at the forefront of ethical consumerism and fashion - but sadly as our fashion industry begins to boom, we may be years behind. Non-Muslim consumers still haven’t caught on to the unethical nature of it all en masse. May Allah help us before another tragedy like Rana Plaza occurs.
The reality is, when you go and buy a hijab, an abaya, dresses, or even from well known brands, that buying is having a secondary effect on the worker who made the garment. That worker is probably not even getting a minimum wage, and sometimes they have no wage at all. That worker is supporting a family and can't feed them - so whilst your paying the brand a lot of money for one item, the brand is too greedy to give the person who actually made the item in the first place what they are owed. Even worse, that worker often turns out to be a child who doesn’t deserve the life he/she has. Famously Nike has even caught using children as workers for their trainers and footballs in the 90s, I've heard that since then because they lost so much reputation they reviewed their policies and have stopped the practice. Now however, there are reports that they are using forced labour in Uyghur Camps. Ultimately, the more we consume, the more demand there is and the more money there is to be made for large retailers and business men and women.
As consumers, we should push our brands to be totally transparent. The reality is, tonnes of people are building modest brands by simply going to AliBaba (a site where you can buy items from Chinese factories in bulk), buying a tonne of hijabs and items, and then branding it to look chic and amazing to sell at sometimes triple the price. Think about it - I bet you could choose three hijab brands at random, and if you look closely you would see that they stock the exact same hijabs. The only difference is the names given to the hijabs (the amount of times I’ve seen a hijab called mocha or caramel lol).
Let’s be more conscious consumers, and even though it may be uncomfortable and difficult (it really is!), I’d rather refrain from buying garments that I feel I need if it means that a poor worker won’t hold me to account on the Day of Judgement. And don’t even get me started on make-up! Sigh.
If you want somewhere to start on the topic of Fast Fashion and its devastating effects watch this documentary:
The True Cost: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6mpxng
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