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Inverted totalitarianism in fast fashion

“fast fashion companies create aspirational desire for consumption via owned (social media, their own websites, their own e-mail newsletters), and rented advertising spaces (buying advertising space in the media), then provide the product to sate the desire they've constructed. So, for example, a fast fashion company decides the '90s are back, advertises that fact across Instagram and in Vogue by getting Cara Delevingne to wear a floral tea dress, then sell that tea dress in their store. It's such a fluid, all-encompassing process that when we buy that tea dress, we don't know we're complicit in our own control.” -Courtney Sanders, Catalogue mag https://www.cataloguemagazine.com.au/feature/why-are-we-so-obsessed-with-physical-fast-fashion

#fastfashion

Reuse will still be the most environmentally and economically beneficial option in future. Textiles that are only suitable for down-cycling into lower value products like industrial wipers and furniture stuffing (which eventually end up in landfill despite a second use) may increase in value in closed-loop recycling systems. This, in turn, will present economic opportunities for textile recyclers, charities associated with textile recycling, textile manufacturers and retailers.

http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2014/sep/24/closed-loop-textile-recycling-technology-innovation

#recycling

"Sixty million people work in the garment trade globally and it is an industry worth $2.5tn, yet somehow we have divorced the clothes we buy from the fact that living, breathing people make them."

Livia Firth at the Copenhagen fashion summit.

http://www.theguardian.com/fashion/fashion-blog/2014/apr/24/copenhagen-fashion-summit-sustainable-things-we-learned

Entire video of Lucy Siegle's "To Die For: Is Fashion Wearing Out The World?" seminar at Sydney's Opera House, as part of the All About Women event.

#allaboutwomen #sydneyoperahouse #lucysiegle

" eventually, customers “will not just be seduced by the ‘fashion’ but also by how the fashion is made.” " The ideal scenario as presented by Julie Gilhart on The Business of Fashion.

A huge thank you to Lucy Siegle for sharing her wisdom in Sydney's Opera House today. Here is a summary of my notes. If you were there, I'd love to read your notes too. Look out for her upcoming piece of writing 'We Are What We Wear.'

The fashion industry turns over 30 trillion dollars annually, the main area being fast fashion, but luxury is an increasingly strong contender. 80 billion garments are produced worldwide per year. 2 million tonnes of clothes are trashed per year [I missed where this was. Potentially in Australia or the UK]. A lot of these are barely worn. It is quite common for people to hire a storage unit for their clothes. Fashion consumption is akin to an addiction. When one is not fully in control, and not understanding the consequences. This is where we see a rise in credit debt. There is a sense of enslavement to micro trends. The Spring/Summer Autumn/Winter model of trends is no longer relevant at all. There could be as many as 50 'seasons' per year. We've seen the rise of a 'mob shopping phenomenon'.

840 million garments per year are produced by Zara/Inditex. There is money to be gained in the fast fashion business. This is evidenced by the fact that Amancio Ortega, CEO of Inditex, is the 3rd richest man in the world.

Bangladesh has placed all its economic eggs in the fast fashion basket. The sector comprises 80% of the economy. The Cut, Make, Trim section of garment manufacture only encompasses 4-6 of the 101 processes required to make a garment.

Sewing a garment should not be a dangerous job. There were 1133 deaths at Rana Plaza. 1.5 million children are in forced labour in the Uzbekistani cotton industry.

There are 150 signatories to the Bangladesh fire and safety accord. Dr Maximilian Martin's research concluded that consumption will continue to rise and rise. This is despite the Rana Plaza tragedy and the awareness it brought.

The Asia floor wage is a more precise measure of fair pay conditions than 'minimum wage' claims. ... tune into QandA on ABC tomorrow night to hear more from Lucy Siegle.

Ecocide

Have you heard this term yet? The definition is: “extensive damage to, destruction of or loss of ecosystems of a given territory, whether by human agency or other causes, to such an extent that peaceful enjoyment by the inhabitants has been severely diminished; and or peaceful enjoyment by the inhabitants of another territory has been severely diminished.” Click here for the reference, and to read more about Vivienne Westwood's involvement in the push for ecocide legislation.

When things are not what they appear

Elizabeth Gower upcycles everyday objects in her Melbourne Now installation.

"Akin to the light from long-dead stars, the familiar ephemera, which is usually thrown out, recycled or composted, now serves a new purpose and takes on a mesmeric, formal beauty." - Alisa Bunbury, Melbourne Now Exhibition Guide, p.120.

Fabulous Bricolage

By the Slow Art Collective at the NGV's Melbourne Now. A delight to visit. Pop in if you're in Melbourne before the 23rd of March.

The Offcut Project: Landscape Series Film.

Filming the natural-indigo-dyed pieces

Filming the red pieces

The Fundamentals of Printed Textile Design- Alex Russell

Manufacturing and the environment p.38

"It's difficult to think of any stage in the fashion and textiles supply chain that doesn't have an impact on the environment. The fibres used to make natural fabrics are likely to have been grown using fertilisers and pesticides; synthetic fabrics may require the use of non-renewable resources and considerable chemical processing. The process of turning the base fibres or petrochemical product into textiles is likely to require a large amount of energy. Print requires large amounts of water and pollutes with the waste dyestuff and chemicals the process requires- some estimates suggest that up to 20 per cent of industrially polluted water is a result of textile dyeing or other finishing treatments. Cotton farming requires at least 15 per cent of all the pesticides used on the planet, more than any other single crop. According to the World Health Organization, between one and five million people are poisoned by pesticides every year, 20,000 of whom die as a result. Manufacturing products from the printed fabric is likely to add to carbon [Co2] and other environmentally detrimental emissions and the amount of water used. Between each of these stages is likely to be some transportation (between different continents is not unusual), followed by the shipping to the retailer, all of which has a further impact as fuel is used to move them around. By the time it reaches the consumer, a product's manufacture may have involved a journey of a thousand miles and left a big carbon footprint. It can be difficult to get accurate figures on this but some figures suggest that as many as a third of all people employed in the fashion industry are in logistics- moving things around the planet in the complex route from raw materials to consumer. "

What physiological and higher level needs to textiles fulfil? The Offcut Project's latest film seeks to emphasise the comfort and joy given by beautiful textiles. This is done through juxtaposition of an introduction without these things.

One tiny representative pile of all the surplus fabric that is usually sent to landfill.

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