A rhetorical analysis of the fashion industry and sustainable brands
The fashion industry is the second most polluter in the world. Ethical Fashion is a practice of the manufacturing of clothes that involves being a conscious consumer. When we arrive at a “fast fashion” store and we see unbelievable prices for the latest trends because the majority of those clothes are made in Bangladesh or China. We do not realize that the price is so low because the price of the production is so minimum, and this means that the employees who made it did not get a fair wage. In those third world countries, these people do not have rights, they are not listened to, and they are exploited with these kinds of jobs where all the profit goes to the big corporations. This also involves the material which the clothes are fabricated with, some animals are killed to do a coat or a pair of shoes. When we mention ethical fashion, we can also talk about sustainability. Besides factors such as fair wages or harming of animals to produce clothes, sustainability is also important. Sustainable fashion is practice by using eco-friendly products. For example, using materials that are green and clean, and materials that can be upcycled and recycled. On top of that, sustainable fashion also has a positive effect on people and the community.
We can appreciate some ethical fashion brand websites that have a list of their factories around the word like Everlane. The website gives you a map with all the factories and how they started; usually these factories are also the providers for the fabric. For example, Everlane has a factory in Lima, Peru, and this country is one of the producers of the best cotton in the world. Reformation is a clothing brand in which their products are sustainable. On their webpage, there is a section alone on sustainability. The company talks about their framework that they have on sustainability for the next five years starting in 2019. Reformation also partners with Arcadia Power, where if customers switch to wind-energy they will receive a hundred dollars Reformation credit. The website also has short videos of the story of the employees and how they built a sustainable factory in Los Angeles. The purpose of including a section on sustainability on Reformation’s website is so that consumers are informed about Reformation and how its sustainable. By including a section on their website on sustainability, consumers can gain knowledge and insight about the company and its efforts to be a hundred percent sustainable and the measures that they take to maintain its sustainability
Beyond sustainability, the fashion industry needs to address their poor working conditions and their deficient safety conditions in their factories. In the article, Why Wont We Learn from the Survivors of the Rana Plaza Disasterpublished in the New York Timesin April of 2018, Dana Thomas mentions the deadliest garment industry accident building in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Thomas uses interviews of the people who were involved in the accident as well as facts about the garment industry in Bangladesh to convince the readers that we need to learn from this accident, and how sweatshops and other factories in third world countries are dangerous. The purpose of the article is to inform readers that even five years later the Rana Plaza garment industry is still going to end up back to its old ways with the harsh conditions and people are still not learning from it. Bangladesh is one of the cheapest places in the world to fabricate clothes. This country has been holding almost three thousand factories that produce what is call “Fast fashion.” The article talks about how the Rana Plaza building collapsed and this incident left more than a thousand people dead, and more than two thousand people injured. “It was the deadliest garment industry accident in modern history” (Thomas). One person who was injured, was a 28-year-old woman named Shila Begum. “Her kidneys were smashed, as was her right hand” (Thomas). Thomas builds her character by interviewing people who were part of the accident. “’And his brains were spilling out. He began to cry. I can’t forget how his head exploded in front of me ‘” (Thomas). Although Thomas talks about how reforms were made five years ago and some working conditions got better, Bangladesh has had many industrial accidents. “Between 2006 and 2012, more than 500 Bangladeshi garment workers died in factory fires. The usual cause: faulty electrical wiring.” (Thomas). Overall, Thomas makes a compelling case on how sweatshops and the garment industry in third world countries, especially Bangladesh, have dangerous working conditions.
In the article Could Antibad Become the Net-a-Porter of Green Style? published in the New York Timesin December of 2018, Elizabeth Paton talks about Antibad, which is a sustainable brand that helps the planet by using free chemicals fabrics in their clothes and by selling vintage clothes. Patton interviews the founder of Antibad to convince readers about how Antibad is trying to be the Net-a-Porter of green style. The purpose of this article is to inform readers on how Agatha Lintott founded her own sustainable company. Paton wrote this article stating her opinion in which Lintott is doing the best that she can.
“Admittedly, a growing e-commerce company, dependent on multiple repeat purchases and fast cross-continental delivers, is not itself exactly environment friendly. So, Ms. Lintott has done her best to offset the worst. She uses only recycled packaging, works with a carbon-offset company to neutralize shipping emissions through donations to emission reduction projects, and uses a carbon-neutral server to host the Antibad website.”
(Paton)
She found out that according to a latest survey at least a quarter of fashion consumers in 2018 wanted to know where their clothes were fabricated. This interest implies to know if the company paid fair wages to their employees, if any animal was harmed, or if its production had any environmental impact. According to Lintott, this is how some of the most famous fast fashion retailers started to come out with conscious lines for those shoppers that are interested on sustainability.
Like Lintott and her interest in the environment, the book The Dirty Side of the Garment Industry Fast Fashion and its Negative Impact on Environment and Society by Nikolay Anguelov, gives an expert overview on the garment history and the reality of the harsh conditions that workers face. Nikolay Anguelov gives an insight to the environmental impact of the garment industry and its policy recommendations; Anguelov also provides research on the social cost of fast fashion and provides case studies that involve high profile clothing brands. The purpose of this book is to inform readers that the working environment of the garment industry is harsh and negatively impacts the workers. As a whole, Anguelov provides a compelling argument backed up with research and case studies that makes the readers dive deeper into the reality of the environments garment industry workers go through. Anguelov, who is a professor of economic development at the University of Massachusetts, is trying to prove that how such a big industry like fashion can contaminate the environment, and with studies he also reveals, the carbon footprints that this industry is generating.
To sum it up, the fashion industry is in a world of itself where there are many issues that need to be talked about. Consumers need to understand the importance of sustainability and of being consumer conscious. The responsibility is not only on consumers. Fashion corporations need to underline all the issues that are not been fixed like the impact on the environment or the effects of a particular working community. Brands like Everlane and Reformation are some of the few that are sustainable and pushing to help its people and its communities. More fashion brands should follow their example to have a healthier, well-dressed environment.
Work Cited
Anguelov, Nikolay. The Dirty Side of the Garment Industry: Fast Fashion and Its Negative Impact on Environment and Society. 2016. Print.
Everlane, www.everlane.com/factories/pima-tees.
Paton, Elizabeth. “Could Antibad Become the Net-a-Porter of Green Style?” The New York Times, The New York Times, 24 Dec. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/12/24/fashion/antibad-sustainable-fashion-independent-designers.html.
Reformation, www.thereformation.com/pages/we-are-reformation
Thomas, Dana. “Why Won’t We Learn from the Survivors of the Rana Plaza Disaster?” The New York Times, The New York Times, 24 Apr. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/04/24/style/survivors-of-rana-plaza-disaster.html.
