sustainability and body image pt.2

Size-zero hero: Fashion's high priestess calls time on 'size zero'

 Stella McCartney Lingerie Advertisement

In 2009, Editor in Chief at Vogue, Alexandra Shulman, spoke out against the size-zero.

In writing, to some of the biggest names in fashion including Alexander McQueen, Karl Lagerfeld and Stella McCartney, she begged for a ‘recast (of) the beauty ideal’. She blamed these fashion houses for encouraging eating disorders by designing clothes that even unrealistically skinny models would have to squeeze into. Shulman admitted that Vogue were often to touch-up models; not to cover up blemishes or air-brush imperfections, but to make them appear larger than they actually were. (Measure, 2009)

This was the first time that a fashion magazine was to confront fashion designers with regards to the size-zero debate; and it was in this same year that London Fashion Week was to team up for the first time with an eating disorder charity, Beat.

This was obviously a major step forward in terms of health and fashion but was it just fashionable; trendy or a passing fad?

For years campaigners have been pushing for legislation banning size-zero models from the catwalk, and for years, no progress. Although guidelines and directives do exist to ward underweight and underage models off the catwalks; these are easily forgotten. 

 Chloe Memisevic for Erdem, 2011

Maybe one day London, Paris, Milan and New York will follow in the footsteps of Israel, who late last month passed a new law stipulating that fashion models must be of a minimum BMI.  

Adi Barkan, one of the country's top model agents, sees a direct link between eating disorders and the fashion industry. He sees that young women 'become skinnier and sicker while struggling to fit the shrinking model of what the industry considered attractive.'

As Israeli law-sponsor Dr. Rachael Adato states, 'Beautiful is not underweight'. (Sieczkowski, 2012)

sustainability and body image pt.1

As destructive as ‘fashion’ is on the environment, and as damaging as it can be to people, there has been a notable shift in the industry. More and more, are ethical companies becoming ‘fashionable’ with sustainable collections and ranges beginning to appear everywhere on the catwalk and highstreet alike. You need look no further than Stella McCartney or H&M, Marks and Spencer or even Tesco. Everybody seems to be having a go (even Nike!).

H&M Conscious Collection

This is great. It really is a huge leap forward in terms of sustainability, particularly with two of the largest retailers in the UK becoming involved. But is it really enough? Is it really enough to design and produce a considered organic-cotton t-shirt, only to stick a super-skinny model in it and take a pretty picture like always? No it is not. In fact, it is a complete contrast of ideas and defeats the point of that organic t-shirt and destroys the meaning. That t-shirt sends a message to the consumer about the values of that company; but so too does a size-zero model. The issue becomes now about sustainability and body image.



behind the swoosh

This post might be thousands of words long examining every issue, every stage and every single damaging aspect of the fashion industry on the planet.

It won’t be. 

The fashion industry is destroying our environment; simple as.

Issues of sustainability though, do not stop at the environment; we must also consider people. This might be the ethical treatment of workers; fair wages and working conditions for example. Unfortunately, the fashion industry does not seem to be to be good at this whole sustainability thing and it is no secret that our industry is responsible for what has been described as ‘slave labour’; poor working conditions in factories, low wages and a general inconsideration for people.

There are many to have been caught out with this kind of inhumane treatment; Nike and GAP for example, and more recently it is Primark and Zara that stand among the accused. It is Nike’s practices, however, that are the best documented example, carrying too, the most damning evidence.

Investigations into the sportswear company began in the 1980’s with issues concerning child labour and dangerous working conditions overseas; but it wasn’t until 1997, after a death in a Nike factory, that the issue was pushed into mainstream and hit the headlines. (Spar, 2002)

The following short film follows Jim Keady, a former American soccer coach and co-founder of Educating for Justice, on his journey into the dark and exploitative world of Nike. Behind the Swoosh is able to give the viewer a real insight into the sweatshop issue and takes us behind the scenes with the lovely people at Nike HQ.

And following in the same vein, The Nike Sweatshop Email;  a genuine conversation between Nike and a rather unsatisfied customer.

say hello to mrs. sew-and-sew

Make-do-and-mend is just a thing of the past; only a war-time memory. Or is it? Mrs. Sew-and-Sew is just a cartoon from old magazines- tutoring housewives of the 1940’s in how to stitch clothes. (Ministry of Information, 2007) Totally irrelevant today. Or is she?

In actual fact, Mrs. Sew-and-Sew and this make-do-and-mend ethos of a by-gone era could be, and should be, just as important today as it was during the Second World War.

No, we are not at war with Germany, and no, our men are not being shipped off to the front-line; but we have declared war on the environment, and it is up to us now to consider making-do-and-mending and reducing, reusing and recycling.

The make-do-and-mend booklets of the forties were designed in response to war-time rationing, but today, they can be redesigned in response to Twenty-first Century fast fashion.

In 2009, John Lewis released this rework of the classic 1943 booklet which allows the reader an insight into life during WW2 as well as modern make-do-and-mend tips, and of course timeless advice from Mrs. Sew-and-Sew. (Wilson, 2009)

Editor of Ideal Home magazine, Isobel McKenzie-Price says of the book, "The ideas inside are as relevant today as they were when our grandmothers had to make do and mend, back in the days of rationing and digging for victory,"

So, join the war on fast fashion…

where did it all begin?

The essence of fashion is change (Wilson, 2008); but maybe not change in the context it should be, or that we would like it to be. As seasons change, trends change, designers change and consumers change. 
This change is problematic; as the new season trends are in, last season’s are out. A shocking 2.35 million tonnes of unwanted clothing are estimated to be sent to landfill each year in the UK alone (Allwood et al, 2008) . Synthetic garments will not decompose here, and the woollen garments which do, produce methane gases that are harmful to the environment. (Waste Online, 2012) The fashion industry, as it stands today, is among the most environmentally-devastating industries in the world; on par, in fact, with that of chemical industry. Many are oblivious to the pollution from the manufacture of their clothing, and most will not consider the consequences when they dispose of last season’s look.

The growth of the internet has meant the growth of fast and disposable fashion. We have easy access now to the hottest looks from around the world, only hours after they hit the catwalk in fashion magazines, and minutes after their debut online. Consumers have become to rely on these magazines and online sites as voices of authority on style.

But this is not a new concept. In fact, we can see magazines as early as the 19^th century telling women what to wear.

 

  Harpers's Bazaar, Novemember 1867

 

Vogue

ASOS

 

Not totally dissimilar to today’s Vogue or ASOS online, Harpar’s Bazaar of 1867 lays out the trends of the day to the female consumer.

Could this have been the beginnings of fast fashion? Or of fashion itself? Could fashion even be fast in the 19^th Century? And if not, was it always destined to become this way?