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Fashion Skool
As a fashion design student well versed in the horrors of the sweatshop system and the environmental impacts of the textile industry, the dilemma for those entertaining a possible career in the rag trade who hold a principled position against labour exploitation and environmental destruction is uncomfortable and unavoidable. In the last 6-7 years, global awareness of sweatshops, has moved into the public consciousness, with near universal agreement that the human rights abuses perpetuated by the sweatshop system need to be addressed and stopped. Similarly, the textile industry is widely known to be among the most polluting and destructive industries to our waterways and interconnected ecosystems. Yet despite years of anti-sweatshop activism and advances in textile technology, progress in the material conditions for outworkers and homeworkers, and reducing the harmful effects of textile and clothing manufacture have far to go. In the context of a seemingly naturalised global free-trade rhetoric and the race towards corporate globalisation, the choices for the aspiring designer or manufacturer appear slim: abide by the fashion rules or give up the game. Or are there other ways to play?
Sweatshops and environmental vandalism are the symptom of the capitalist system's economic logic, the logic of an inherently unsustainable system which requires new products, new markets and new development, in a worldwith limited physical resources. Sweatshops are the manifestation of aspecific organisation of work, where high profits, unskilled labour and the garment industry's unpredictable market place defer responsibility and costs down a complex web of retailers, suppliers, contractors and subcontractors. Often this chain disregards national boundaries, as the globe is increasingly divided into first world consumers and third world producers. For sweatshop workers at the end of the chain, historical improvements to working conditions have come through union organisation, increased independent monitoring and government regulation.
The textile industry relies heavily on chemical processes to produce fibres cleaned and treated for ready weaving, knitting or dying. Numerous fertilisers and insecticides are used to produce cotton and linen, sheep require chemical dipping and are grazed on cleared land, polyester and nylon carry the baggage of the petrochemical industry. Multiple washing and preparation processes consume large amounts of water and energy, all in preparation for dying and treatments according to the latest fashion trends. The trends, of course, are never about a better product or a better idea, but ceaseless novelty and increased commercial activity. Often textile production is based in developing countries where environmental laws are lax and enforcement is more so.
In an age of decreased union strength, free trade zones, an undemocratic World Trade Organisation, third world debt and desperate poverty, the outlook for sweatshop workers and the environment has infinite room for improvement. The future remains open for imagining and implementing alternatives to business as usual. Philosophically, the first question for designers must be 'does the developed world need more products for reasons other than to maintain the economy and ensure our entertainment and material pleasure'? Perhaps the answer lies in the sort of products - ones that recycle raw material like PET poly fleece, those made from organic renewable protein and plant fibres like wool and cotton, biodegradable and non-polluting dyes, and smaller, community based production cycles and living incomes for garment workers. Likewise, education programs about collective organising, research and development into sustainable textiles and factoring fair costs for labour into the production process.
Better pay for garment workers and improved environmental standards may allow profit for profits sake to retain the status quo, but they are a tangible starting point for struggle around concrete material gains with a direct impact on everyone's quality of life. They also clearly indicate that the fashion rules need over-ruling to make way for new ways of thinking, creating and playing.
Jonothan Wilkinson 2002