THE DARK REALITY BEHIND FAST FASHION PHENOMANON
By Alexandra Davis
At the prestigious Burberry runway show, a pack of elite models march down the runway against the backdrop of a full orchestra and renowned blues singer Alison Moyet. On the surface, this multi-trillion dollar industry is the epitome of glamour and sophistication but 5,000 miles around the world in a textiles factory in the Bangladesh capita, Dhaka and the reality is decidedly different.
The collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh remains the worst ever industrial accident to hit the fashion industry. On the 24th April 2013, the textiles factory came crashing down, killing 1,133 people and injuring thousands more, whilst over 800 children were left orphans. From this, harrowing stories of survival emerged, of workers who had no choice but to amputate their own limbs in order to be freed from the rubble. At least 29 global brands, including Primark and the United Colours of Benetton, had recent or current orders with the factories in this building.
In the immediate aftermath of the collapse, fashion designer Carry Somers founded the global movement Fashion Revolution. Describing the catastrophe as “a metaphorical call to arms’’, Somers wanted to “keep the most vulnerable in the public eye and challenge the industry to do better”. Somers explains: “The supply chain is fractured and producers have become faceless. This is costing lives so we need to re-establish this broken connection.”
But for millions of people in some of the world’s poorest countries, cotton is a vital link to the global economy with asmany as 300 million people working in the sector according to the Fairtrade Foundation. Gosia Piatek, founder of Kowtow, a fair trade and organic cotton fashion brand, describes how farmers “become enslaved to the pesticide companies in a cycle of debt which they cannot climb out of”. This spiralling debt has contributed to an epidemic of farmer suicides, with 200,000 suicides in the past decade alone. Piatek explains: “Using organic cotton, ensures farmers are working within a safe environment, and avoid becoming ill through pesticide poisoning, which is responsible for 20,000 deaths a year.”
Academy has set an example to the fashion industry by working alongside companies to promote more sustainable methods. Michael Schragger, the Founder and Director of the non-profit organisation, explains: “We educate and train designers about how to make better choices for people and the environment.” He continues: “We realised we could help change the world, by showing the industry how consumption and sustainability can go hand in hand.”
One of the first well-known designers to advocate sustainability came in the form of British designer, Stella McCartney. McCartney states: “I believe in creating pieces that are not going to get burnt, that are not going to landfills and that are not going to damage the environment.”
High street brands have followed suit, with H&M, the world’s second-largest clothing retailer at the forefront of the change with their Conscious Collection. Catarina Midby, the brand’s head of sustainability, states: “There will be little future for our industry unless we focus on sustainable, long-term practices and solutions, like our garment collecting programme.” As the world’s leading user of organic cotton, Midby explains how the Conscious Collection is “made with more sustainable materials” resulting in “less impact on people and the planet”. Despite other brands such as, Freedom of Animals and Unmade joining the fight for sustainable and ethical clothing, it is clear more still needs to be done.
When we imagine pollution, we envision coal power plants, oil rigs and overflowing landfill sites yet rarely do we think about the luxurious fashion industry. From water to waste, the industry hides a hugely damaging impact on the environment as the world’s resources struggle to keep up with our increasing demand for throwaway fashion. The social injustices show no signs of slowing down either, as more and more children are deprived of an education to work 10-hour days for the clothes on our backs. Carry Somers summarises the issue as she explains: “Sustainable fashion has to become the norm, to be simply fashion. Our planet will not survive anything less.” As millions of people all over the world suffer in the name of fast fashion, are our clothes simply worth dying for?
More than 3.5 million people are employed in the Bangladeshi garment industry, trapped in a vicious cycle of producing clothes under appalling working conditions to feed the Western appetite for new styles at cheap prices. Elizabeth Cline, a New York journalist and author of the book, Overdressed The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion, argues: “Garment jobs are locking people into poverty all around the world just so we can have cheap clothes.” Women account for 85 per cent of the textile work force, typically working six days a week, often for 14 hours a day for a minimum wage of $68 a month. Cline states: “Around the world today, women who work in garment factories make poverty wages and their pay checks have stagnated in recent decades.”
The fashion industry hides an equally devastating toll on the environment too, as the second most polluting industry on earth after oil, according to fashion designer Eileen Fisher. Rivers across the world flow denim blue as a result of deadly chemicals released through processes such as cotton dyeing, whilst the water in the Aral Sea has almost completely evaporated into thin air, largely through cotton farming. As the world’s most commonly used natural fibre, cotton makes up nearly 40% of all our clothing. On average, 20 million tonnes are produced every year and as Cline explains “cotton needs extensive irrigation with over 20,000 litres of water needed to produce 1kg of cotton”, the equivalent to a T-shirt and pair of jeans.
With teams in over 80 countries, every year on the 24th April, Fashion Revolution calls on people around the world to ask ‘Who Made My Clothes?’ as part of the annual Fashion Revolution Day. As the third anniversary of this tragedy approaches, what has been done to protect the industry’s workers?
Following the collapse, the Bangladesh Accord was established to improve and monitor factory conditions. Somers describes it as a “significant milestone” that has led to over 1,200 factory inspections for safety hazards, and 41 closures for those that failed to meet the standards, but this is just one country where our clothing is made. The social injustices on a wider scale remain increasingly prominent, as we witness a growing epidemic of cotton farmers
committing suicide, alarming numbers of children in child labour and disgustingly poor working conditions for those in third world countries.
The fashion industry is now one of the most labour-intensive industries, directly employing at least 60 million people globally, and indirectly employing millions more. As Somers explains, “fast fashion has engendered a race to the bottom” as retailers rush to adapt designer looks for a fraction of the catwalk cost, forcing companies to find the cheapest sources of labour. Children are viewed as the obvious choice working at all stages of the supply chain, from the planting of cotton seeds in Benin, harvesting cotton in Uzbekistan, yarn spinning in India, right through to sewing garments together in factories across Bangladesh.
Furthermore, approximately 20% of industrial water pollution comes from textile dyeing. Kirsten Brodde, the leader of Greenpeace’s ‘Detox My Fashion’ campaign explains: “The fashion industry is one of the largest global polluters of freshwater as roughly 3,500 chemicals are used to prepare a single garment.” The Citarum River is just one notable example of the damage caused by the industry. As the longest and largest river in Indonesia, it supports more than 30 million residents who rely on the water source for domestic, personal and agricultural use. But almost 70 percent of the facilities along the riverbanks produce textiles and pump out a cocktail of hazardous chemicals into local waterways. According to Greenpeace, this has contributed to the Citarum developing a reputation as the most polluted river on earth.
However, we are beginning to see some change within the industry as supporters of ethical fashion emerge with alternatives to the fast fashion phenomenon. The Sustainable Fashion