What can we do about fast fashion, given its profit margins and popularity? Could the fashion system deliver greener fun if it were to develop its more performative side? Community workshops might, for example, up-cycle and co-design fabrics in order to create local fashions and brands. After all, the process of dressing up before a party can deliver cheaper dopamine hits than any impulse-buy.
The good news is that fashion glamorises the performance of being alive. The bad news is that it still echoes with the unbridled vanity of Louis XIV, whose obsession with control inspired the more slavish aspects of fashion (i.e. dressing ‘à la mode’) along with some of the more mechanistic aspects of ballet. Of course, fashion has since given way to a more permissive sense of creative licence. Nonetheless, if fashion’s DNA was always shallow, ephemeral and exploitative, how can we re-invent it for celebrating community pride and ecological wellbeing?
In Hans Christian Anderson’s apocryphal tale of the Emperor’s New Clothes, everybody knows that the leader is naked but nobody is bold enough to shame him. Shame is a complex and fascinating phenomenon. Recently, the UK Government Environmental Audit Committee invited fast fashion companies to give evidence regarding their progress towards sustainability. Judging by their non-attendance, fifteen of these brands were too ashamed to defend their position. Professor Dilys Williams, founder and director of UAL’s Centre for Sustainable Fashion, told the committee
“Fast fashion has now become instant fashion, which is about overstimulation of the market”.
But how might we go about greening the fashion sector? Isn’t ‘sustainable fashion’ an oxymoron? Until now, much of the problem has stemmed from standard business models that focus on profits made at the point of sale. Fierce competition on garment price then leads to exploitative conditions of employment and the wasteful overproduction of single use garments. However, as the Audit Committee found out, even brands based on ‘pre-loved’ garments appear to be as guilty of ‘greenwashing’ as their fast-fashion counterparts.
But these more circular and ‘long-tail’ models of business are an important step forward. Fashion has a communication aspect and a tangible product aspect. Fortunately it affords a rich spectrum of meanings that extend from signalling slavish social conformity to celebrating an individual’s uniqueness. In order to think beyond the clichés of catwalk swank and narcissistic excess we might first reflect upon the deeper purposes of individual identity and why we need to manage it.
For many 21st century consumers, noticing that one’s taste in clothes attracts the wrong kind of attention may be enough to summon feelings of shame. We may even feel slightly ashamed when we admit this is happening. Yet at the biological level, identity can be a life or death issue. In their theory of how living systems stay alive, Maturana and Varela declare that for a cell to survive it constantly needs clear acknowledgement of its active role and purpose within its habitat. Unless it continues to receive ‘thumbs-up’ signs from neighbouring organisms it may fail to maintain the biochemical interactions that it requires to maintain its metabolism.
This normally leads to ‘apoptosis’, a pre-programmed process in which it will kill itself. Even though human cultures are more complex and multi-layered, similar processes occur. If I stay indoors for weeks and my TikTok or Instagram site stops getting ‘likes’ I may get depressed. I may even feel suicidal. If I resolutely believe I am a tiger and venture boldly into the savannah to greet my tiger comrades I will either have to persuade them to accept me as a friend, or I risk ending up as lunch. How we present ourselves may be crucially important to balancing our self-identity with how others see us.
We all know that the emperor’s identity as a ruler depends largely on his ability to commission the finest wardrobe in the land. We may grudgingly respect him for it but we are amused by his all engulfing vanity. Indeed, he is so self-absorbed that he is oblivious to how others see him. However, as Iris Apfel famously said,
“Fashion you can buy, but style you possess.”
This is the levelling aspect that enables creative makers to laugh at those we see as money-rich but taste-poor. While listening to Akomolafe’s talk it suddenly occurred to me that behind Hans Christian Anderson’s primary narrative is the older story that nakedness is shameful. This may seem self-evident to anyone raised in a Judaic, Islamic or Christian tradition. It is the basic assumption without which the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes would make little sense.
Green Conversations’ Event:
How can local communities reduce their shopping impact? Join us for a fun and informative event how experts are making fashion sustainable. Prof. Dilys Williams, Prof. Mathilda Tham and Dr. Francesco Mazzarella will be guest speakers at a forthcoming ‘Green Conversations’ event on 24th June 2024. Please contact john@newschoolfutures.com for details. Reserve your spot admission free
Read more of John Wood’s articles in Sublime
Further Reading
- Barthes, R., 1990. The fashion system. University of California Press.
- Busch, O.V., 2008. Fashion-able. Hacktivism and engaged fashion design. School of Design and Crafts; Högskolan för design och konsthantverk.
- Maturana, H.R. and Varela, F.J., 1987. The tree of knowledge: The biological roots of human understanding. New Science Library/Shambhala Publications.
- Stankevičiūtė, K., 2021. Blowing up the fashion bubble, or nine things wrong with fashion: an outsider’s comment. A critical essay on fashion as a creative industry. Creativity Studies, 14(2), pp.376-390.
- Webb, B., 2024, H&M, Boohoo face off with UK legislators over sustainable fashion policy, Vogue Magazine, May 2nd 2024, https://www.voguebusiness.com/story/sustainability/handm-boohoo-face-off-with-uk-legislators-over-sustainable-fashion-policy
- Environmental audit committee
