Doing good and looking good: women in 'fast fashion' activism

摘要

There has been a long history of scrutiny and activism directed at the fashion industry. Garment factory conditions in New York in the early twentieth century gave rise to female workers taking to the streets to protest over labour conditions, and in the 1990s the sweatshops of high-profile brands like Nike made international headlines and prompted a wave of consumer boycotts. In the last five years the critical discourse surrounding the fashion industry has taken on a new inflection. The 2013 collapse of the Rana Plaza factory in Bangladesh, in which over 1100 workers died, has galvanized debates about the social and environmental costs of the garment industry. Many of this industry's problems have been blamed on the rise of 'fast fashion' - a term used to refer to the accelerated cycle of fashion production and consumption that puts pressure on fashion brands to manufacture garments as quickly and cheaply as possible. Fast fashion has been linked to a number of 'High St' fashion brands, such as TopShop and Zara, all aimed at a young, trend-conscious female market, who offer their customers affordable imitations of high-end, and rapidly changing, designer styles. This retail business model involves a particular form of planned obsolescence. In a marked shift away from the traditional cycle of two fashion seasons a year, these brands produce dozens of 'micro-seasons', with new styles appearing on shelves every week. In doing so, they create the conditions for an insatiable consumer demand; in their quest to keep up with ever-changing fashions, consumers need to shop more often, and can only do so if prices are low enough.