By Joseph L. Garcia, Reporter
If it is true that the outcome of desire is oppression, then the fashion industry has a lot to answer for. It gives us tools by which we shape an idealized identity; making desirable selves by reflecting our desires. As our purchases help bring us closer to our dreams, an exhibit in UP Diliman shows how they can take away the dreams of others.
The exhibit is called Fast Fashion: The Dark Sides of Fashion. On view at the University of the Philippines’ Bulwagan ng Dangal until Nov. 25, the exhibit shows the environmental, social, and economic impact that fast fashion — as exemplified for example, by the business models of clothing giants Zara and H&M — have in our world. It was curated by Dr. Claudia Banz of the Design Museum in Hamburg, and brought here via the Goethe Institut.
The exhibit first opened in Hamburg, and after its run in the Philippines, it will then go on to Indonesia, Australia, and Switzerland.
Dr. Banz began the exhibit as a response to the Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh, in which more than a thousand workers died when the building collapsed in 2013. It was then found that many of the garments sewn in the factory were part of the outsourcing chain for Western clothing brands. “I want to make an exhibition which is not celebrating fashion,” said Dr. Banz, since there are already a lot of those, “I want to ask critical questions. Fashion is very close to everybody. We wear it on our bodies,” she said during an interview with BusinessWorld at the exhibit’s opening on Oct. 10.
According to the Global Garment Industry Factsheet put together by Lina Sotz and Gillian Kane, the world’s women’s wear industry in 2014 was worth $621 billion, the men’s wear industry was worth $402 billion while the children’s wear industry was worth $186 billion.
BusinessWorld took a look at the annual reports and financial statements of three big clothing conglomerates. The Inditex group, which owns fast fashion brand Zara, among other brands like Pull and Bear and Bershka, posted €20.9 billion in sales for 2015. Meanwhile, another European company, H&M Hennes & Mauritz AB, the parent of clothing brand H&M, posted sales of 210 billion Swedish kronor for the same year. An Asian player in the fast fashion game, Fast Retailing Co., Ltd., the parent company of Japanese clothing brand Uniqlo, indicated net sales of ¥1.681781 trillion in 2015.
It is, by any measure, a big industry.
Fast Fashion features installations showing the complicated supply chains which dominate fashion, like a diagram showing the long travels a pair of jeans makes in the process of being made. There are also photographs of people modelling clothes, juxtaposed with horror stories of unfair labor practices in garment factories, along with the item’s price.
On the one hand, Dr. Banz argues that one of the good points of the fashion industry is how it democratizes fashion, to translate haute couture confections into normal closet staples. On the other hand, as the exhibit details, it exploits people: not just its producers, but its consumers as well. According to her, clever marketing tricks are used by the fashion industry to make buyers buy more. “We simply buy too much,” she said. Limited edition clothing and celebrity seeding are part of these tricks. “They use neuroscience, saying that, we in fact are all still collectors and hunters, even if we are living in the 21st century.
“If you create a certain scarcity, people think something is really [going away soon],” she said. This is why we buy; this is why we line up outside stores.
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Dr. Banz also has a problem with outsourcing, for the clothing supply chain takes raw materials from one place, has them made in another place, and then brought back to be placed on shelves elsewhere. “If you compare a garment to a car, a garment is not such a complex product. In terms of economical systems, it has the most complicated supply chain.”
She added, “I don’t understand why they’re always outsourcing everything… this is just the logic of capitalism. We have to produce as much as possible, we have to sell as much as possible… in this regard, it needs a new system… but this is a big thing. I think, this thinking not only applies to fashion, but it applies to all production.”
The process also pressures local industry, by encouraging politicians to keep wages low, she said. “They say, ‘if you raise the wages, we just go to the next country where we pay less’,” she said.
More so, fast fashion has the tendency to displace heritage and tradition. “At the end, people are looking all the same, because fast fashion also destroys the local and regional knowledge… in terms of fashion, in terms of garments.
“On one hand, you want to be individual; on the other hand, you buy fast fashion, which is a global thing,” she remarked.
According to the Global Garment Industry Factsheet put together by Lina Sotz and Gillian Kane, the world’s women’s wear industry in 2014 was worth $621 billion, the men’s wear industry was worth $402 billion while the children’s wear industry was worth $186 billion.
As one tours the exhibit, you feel a sort of guilt — especially if you are wearing fast fashion items from a conglomerate. It’s just right, we suppose, because the exhibit might let you rethink your choices.
“Consumption is no longer a question of self-fulfillment, of self representation, but it’s a question of responsibility,”she said.
