tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca-fr/topics/clothes-2991/articles
Clothes – La Conversation
2024-02-07T19:17:23Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/221495
2024-02-07T19:17:23Z
2024-02-07T19:17:23Z
How First Nations artists are reclaiming colonial objects and celebrating culture through garments
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570281/original/file-20240119-29-mkg6j4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4019%2C3011&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Treena Clark</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A few years back, I started collecting <a href="https://collection.powerhouse.com.au/object/387828">vintage Australian tourist scarves</a> that portray First Nations people as primitive caricatures and noble savages. Now, I own more than ten scarves with images ranging from Western depictions of First Nations art and objects, to Indigenous people in tokenistic scenes.</p>
<p>Collecting these tourist wares isn’t new. Kitsch items are often <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-politics-of-aboriginal-kitsch-73683">gathered and reclaimed</a> by First Nations peoples, artists, designers and academics.</p>
<p>My fascination with kitsch scarves involves wearing them as outfits, which I recently did at the Darwin <a href="https://www.ifp.org.au/events/country-to-couture/">Country to Couture</a> runway show. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573946/original/file-20240207-32-6mio03.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573946/original/file-20240207-32-6mio03.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573946/original/file-20240207-32-6mio03.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=736&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573946/original/file-20240207-32-6mio03.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=736&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573946/original/file-20240207-32-6mio03.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=736&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573946/original/file-20240207-32-6mio03.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573946/original/file-20240207-32-6mio03.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573946/original/file-20240207-32-6mio03.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">I wore one of my kitsch scarves to a runway show as a creative response to my academic work.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Treena Clark</span></span>
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<p>I did so as a creative response to my academic work on First Nations fashion, art and style and to engage with the practice of First Nations garmenting – the use of clothing and adornment as art.</p>
<h2>Aboriginalia and Koori Kitsch</h2>
<p>Artists such as Destiny Deacon and Tony Albert use several names to describe items with Western depictions of First Nations people, art and objects, including Koori Kitsch and Aboriginalia. </p>
<p>You can find these depictions in souvenirs and bric-a-brac in the form of tea towels, tablecloths, postcards, ashtrays, dolls, scarves, badges and patches.</p>
<p>Destiny Deacon (KuKu/Erub/Mer) has used Koori Kitsch objects for decades. In one work titled <a href="https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/work/146112/">Border Patrol (2006)</a>, Deacon photographs a white doll atop a tea towel featuring Australian landmarks, plants, animals and Aboriginal people hunting. </p>
<p>Tony Albert’s (Girramay/Yidinji/Kuku-Yalanji) art often features <a href="https://theconversation.com/tony-alberts-politically-charged-kitsch-collection-confronts-our-racist-past-97696">vintage souvenir ashtrays and textiles</a>. Albert has been credited with creating the term “<a href="https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/prizes/archibald/2017/29819/">Aboriginalia</a>” to describe the portrayal of Western stereotypes of First Nations peoples and cultures in kitsch items.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/BWwlxA7FPDS/?hl=en","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p><a href="https://kaitjames.com/work.html">Kait James</a> (Wadawurrung) has decolonised vintage souvenir towels through embroidered embellishments to highlight their problematic designs and reclaim them as First Nations art. James recently also disrupted the Barbie doll by creating a custom Aboriginal flag dress and banner saying “Faboriginal Barbie”.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/Cv1R3CyLUID","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>In Kayla Dickens’ (Wiradjuri) 2022 exhibition, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-01-26/karla-dickens-interview-return-to-sender-carriageworks/100780016">Return to Sender</a>, collage backdrops featured enlarged vintage postcards with superimposed images, symbols and text interrogating colonisation and colonial sexual exploitation.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/CYm4JyxNNml/?hl=en","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<h2>First Nations garmenting</h2>
<p>First Nations peoples are also using Aboriginalia within fashion. Paul McCann (Marrithiyel) has embellished couture outfits with vintage textiles depicting First Nations peoples, animals and plants. </p>
<p>One of McCann’s designs at the 2022 Australian Fashion Week, Blinged Out Warrior, disrupted a kitsch item of an Aboriginal man by placing it front and centre on a bedazzled top. This form of work, termed “<a href="https://madmuseum.org/exhibition/garmenting-costume-contemporary-art">garmenting</a>”, emphasises contemporary artists’ use of clothes in their pieces.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/CdkuzayLE7l/?hl=en","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>While Aboriginalia and Koori Kitsch are popular terms, First Nations garmenting is a recent definition yet to reach mainstream use. It’s an emerging trend adopted by many First Nations artists whose work is interested in confronting or reshaping history, highlighting the current world, or imagining a new future. </p>
<p>This could look like creating modern versions of traditional pieces, or critiquing and talking back to colonial clothing forced upon First Nations peoples. Several artists also create works that reflect contemporary protest wear, or futuristic pieces that depict fantasies or predict trends.</p>
<p>Peter Waples-Crowe’s (Ngarigo) <a href="https://citymag.indaily.com.au/culture/partnership-culture/feeling-proud-with-peter-waples-crowe/">Ngarigo Queen – Cloak of queer visibility</a> (2018) features a reworked possum skin cloak with rainbow colours and a train to reference his two identities of Aboriginal and queer.</p>
<p>Kelly Koumalatsos (Wergaia/Wemba Wemba) uses possum fur as a stamp to create cultural fabrics. Significant works use these fabrics to form colonial and Western outfits that speak back to colonisation. </p>
<p>When displaying her garments in galleries, Koumalatsos also includes old family portraits within the works to further contextualise the forced colonial clothes.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/CI2lb9HlkgJ/?img_index=0","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p><a href="https://www.nsmithgallery.com/artists/53-kyra-mancktelow/overview/">Kyra Mancktelow</a> (Quandamooka) specialises in creating garments in sculptural or print form to interrogate colonial histories of forced Western clothing and the removal of cultural wear. The items she recreates range from forced military jackets, to outfits worn in missions, to contemporary forms referencing the history of activism.</p>
<p>Carly Tarkari Dodd’s (Kaurna/Narungga/Ngarrindjeri) exhibition, <a href="https://www.mutualart.com/Exhibition/Carly-Tarkari-Dodd--Royal-Jewels/4CA24E4E9971C35E">Royal Jewels</a> (2022), showcased Indigenised versions of jewellery pieces owned by the English royal family. Using cultural weaving techniques to replicate the English monarch’s jewellery collection, Dodd confronts colonisation by turning the tables and inspiring truth-telling about this country’s history. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/Cexw42ZJPNE/?hl=en","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>The artist <a href="https://www.charlotteallingham.com/">Coffinbirth</a> (Charlotte Allingham, Wiradjuri/Ngiyampaa) illustrates designs featuring First Nations people in unique outfits across time. Coffinbirth notably reimages or recreates First Nations culture or issues through pop-culture graphics and comic-style art.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/By6rlzWFnFC/?hl=en","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>Dennis Golding (Kamilaroi/Gamilaraay) <a href="https://nit.com.au/15-01-2024/9303/dennis-golding-offers-lessons-in-finding-power-and-pride-with-new-the-future-is-here-exhibition">creates hand-painted superhero capes</a> to celebrate the power of First Nations identity. He often works with young First Nations people to develop their own versions.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/C18upPPpB3d/?hl=en","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<h2>Disrupting, reclaiming and Indigenising</h2>
<p>Many First Nations people have an inherent need to expel harmful histories and channel cultural practices creatively.</p>
<p>This can be through artists exhibiting their works, fashion designers telling their stories, or everyday First Nations people who like to practise culture through outfits. When First Nations artists use colonial souvenirs and garments, they can disrupt colonisation and celebrate their culture.</p>
<p>Wearing my kitsch scarves means I join a distinguished group of First Nations artists who use these objects and clothing within their works and creative expressions.</p>
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<p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-brief-look-at-the-long-history-of-first-nations-fashion-design-in-australia-219328">A brief look at the long history of First Nations fashion design in Australia</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221495/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Treena Clark has received funding through the University of Technology Sydney Chancellor’s Indigenous Research Fellowship scheme.</span></em></p>
Colonial settlers made myriad objects with problematic portrayals of First Nations people. Now, a number of artists are using these objects in their work to retell these stories.
Treena Clark, Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Indigenous Research Fellow, Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building, University of Technology Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/215831
2023-12-12T15:55:38Z
2023-12-12T15:55:38Z
Four ways to tell the designer fashion items worth investing in from the ones that aren’t
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558674/original/file-20231109-25-at9skm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5928%2C3925&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/happy-asian-woman-shopping-mall-2230065531">Qtran88/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Whether it’s aspiring to the “quiet luxury” or <a href="https://theconversation.com/new-clean-girl-and-old-money-aesthetics-on-tiktok-make-the-same-old-link-between-hygiene-and-class-208566">“old money” looks</a> taking over TikTok, or cringing at the “<a href="https://theconversation.com/far-from-the-ludicrously-capacious-what-the-fashion-of-succession-tells-us-about-the-show-and-about-society-202744">ludicrously capacious bag</a>” scene in the last season of Succession, designer clothes and accessories have been a hot topic in 2023. But with continued sales growth in <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/retail/our-insights/state-of-fashion">designer fashion</a>, and concerns about shopping more <a href="https://fashionunited.uk/news/retail/consumers-want-to-shop-sustainably-what-are-the-opportunities-for-brands/2022102465829">sustainably</a>, it’s worth considering investing your money in products that will last longer.</p>
<p>Sales in luxury fashion have increased significantly since the pandemic. <a href="https://www.just-style.com/features/covid-two-years-on-expert-analysis-of-top-10-global-apparel-companies/?cf-view">Louis Vuitton</a>, for example, has increased its sales from 2019. And British luxury brand, Burberry, reported sales growth to be <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jul/16/burberry-sales-return-to-pre-pandemic-levels-as-younger-shoppers-splash-out">86% higher</a> in the year following the pandemic (though there has been <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/burberry-shares-take-10-hit-on-warning-of-slump-in-luxury-demand-13009401">another dip in sales</a> more recently). </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.limitlessmanufacturinggroup.com/blog/the-rise-of-athleisure-how-activewear-became-mainstream-fashion">rise of athleisure</a> in fashion and designer collaborations such as <a href="https://www.manoloblahnik.com/gb/the-latest/post/manolo-blahnik-for-birkenstock">Manolo Blahnik for Birkenstock</a>, <a href="https://www.gucci.com/uk/en_gb/st/capsule/adidas-gucci">Gucci x Adidas</a> and <a href="https://uk.burberry.com/c/collaborations-supreme-burberry/">Burberry x Supreme</a> have made luxury more available. But prices are still high, so how can you know whether a purchase will stand the test of time and become an investment piece or a fashion flop? Here are four key factors to consider when making a designer purchase.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Quarter life, a series by The Conversation" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/quarter-life-117947?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">This article is part of Quarter Life</a></strong>, a series about issues affecting those of us in our twenties and thirties. From the challenges of beginning a career and taking care of our mental health, to the excitement of starting a family, adopting a pet or just making friends as an adult. The articles in this series explore the questions and bring answers as we navigate this turbulent period of life.</p>
<p><em>You may be interested in:</em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/four-environmental-red-flags-to-watch-out-for-when-buying-your-new-home-215763utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">Four environmental red flags to watch out for when buying your new home</a></em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-know-if-your-employer-is-serious-about-helping-you-find-purpose-in-your-work-205102utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">How to know if your employer is serious about helping you find purpose in your work</a></em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/why-its-so-hard-to-be-young-in-britain-right-now-213002utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">Why it’s so hard to be young in Britain right now</a></em></p>
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<h2>1. Resale value</h2>
<p>An expensive purchase price may not guarantee that your product will hold its value. A key factor to consider is what the resale value of your purchase will be, as this will indicate the item’s investment potential.</p>
<p>A fashion investment piece tends to be a luxury product with a higher price ticket. Prices of luxury fashion have increased over the last decade. Chanel bags, for example, have <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/walterloeb/2022/02/21/luxury-brand-prices-rise-sharply--will-it-cut-demand/">almost doubled</a> in price. Chanel’s iconic medium flap bag has increased from <a href="https://luxecollectivefashion.com/blogs/communique/your-expert-guide-to-the-chanel-price-increases-2023">£7,550 in 2022 to £8,530 in 2023</a> and is considered to be one of the most covetable designs in the <a href="https://www.whowhatwear.co.uk/best-luxury-handbags-resale-value/slide2">resale market</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Orange Birkin bag." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558676/original/file-20231109-17-olg7k0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558676/original/file-20231109-17-olg7k0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558676/original/file-20231109-17-olg7k0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558676/original/file-20231109-17-olg7k0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558676/original/file-20231109-17-olg7k0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558676/original/file-20231109-17-olg7k0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558676/original/file-20231109-17-olg7k0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The Hermes Ostrich Birkin bag.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birkin_bag#/media/File:Hermes_Ostrich_Birkin_Bag.jpg">Wen-Cheng Liu/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Similarly, Hermès’ famous Birkin and Kelly bag designs, renowned for their quality, are <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/articles/hermes-bag-review-2022-birkin-bag-and-hermes-kelly-bag-remain-most-popular">undoubtedly investment pieces</a>. Despite the high price ticket, <a href="https://www.whowhatwear.co.uk/birkin-bag-prices/slide2">Birkin bags are in demand</a>. They are the most collectable and classic of designer bags, with an average retail price of USD$10,000 (£8,237), <a href="https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/fashion-beauty/article/3211640/why-hermes-birkin-bag-such-good-investment-according-experts-other-luxury-handbags-might-not-be">which can double in the resale market</a>.</p>
<p>Luxury fashion <a href="https://www.pursebop.com/new-app-calculates-the-resale-value-of-designer-handbags/">resaler Vestiaire</a>, along with online marketplaces like eBay, are useful sources for researching and calculating what the value of your purchase will be in the resale market. While designer bags can hold their value post-purchase, <a href="https://www.yourmoney.com/investing/can-clothing-ever-be-considered-an-investment/">clothes can be less straightforward</a> and will depend on the other following factors.</p>
<h2>2. Quality and style</h2>
<p>A <a href="https://www.voguebusiness.com/fashion/marketing-at-scale-explaining-luxurys-new-brand-identifiers">2023 report</a> has stated that the overt use of logos in recent years, from brands such as <a href="https://www.surefront.com/blog/is-logomania-really-over">Balenciaga and Louis Vuitton</a>, has been replaced by an interest in quiet luxury. </p>
<p>Quiet luxury means <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/quiet-luxury-explained-which-brands-will-benefit-2023-4?r=US&IR=T">more simplistic, classic and timeless styling</a>. The focus on exquisite fabrics and design gives a sense of fashion that is not disposable and durable. A cashmere sweater from <a href="https://uk.loropiana.com/en/c/woman/knitwear">Lorna Piana</a> may cost over £1,700 but its quality and classic styling will ensure it’s an investment piece that transcends fashion trend cycle.</p>
<p>Consideration of fabrics, styling and design aesthetic are all key in ensuring your fashion investment has longevity.</p>
<h2>3. Brand authenticity</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303917660_The_Role_of_Heritage_and_Authenticity_in_the_Value_Creation_of_Fashion_Brand">Heritage and authenticity</a> can secure the value of fashion purchases. Brands that have a strong heritage – that have been around and respected for a long time – are better investment pieces, <a href="https://wwd.com/fashion-news/designer-luxury/luxury-fashion-heritage-chanel-dior1234792018-1234792018/">particularly in the categories of watches, jewellery and handbags</a>. Rolex watches are renowned as investment pieces, with models that are most rare commanding the higher appreciation values.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man holding a Rolex watch." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558677/original/file-20231109-17-79jnnu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558677/original/file-20231109-17-79jnnu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558677/original/file-20231109-17-79jnnu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558677/original/file-20231109-17-79jnnu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558677/original/file-20231109-17-79jnnu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558677/original/file-20231109-17-79jnnu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558677/original/file-20231109-17-79jnnu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rolex watches are renowned as investment pieces.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/rolex-wristwatch-model-cosmograph-daytona-oyster-2143137997">Enjoy The Life/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the realm of clothing, Burberry’s iconic trench coat – which has remained largely untouched in design terms for over 100 years – has been reported to be a good wardrobe investment by <a href="https://www.vogue.co.uk/fashion/article/burberry-trench-coats">Vogue</a>. The trench’s timeless design, alongside its long history, has secured its place as an investment product. </p>
<p>However, when it comes to making the purchase it is important to go with <a href="https://www.gentlemansgazette.com/burberry-trench-coat/">Burberry’s original design</a>, rather than the fashion-led versions whose value may diminish as seasonal trends move on.</p>
<h2>4. Product endorsement</h2>
<p>Celebrity endorsement is a popular brand strategy for increasing the value of fashion products. While it may drive sales, it is important to consider what effect it will have on investment quality. </p>
<p>A recent example was when the British pop star <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4089170/">Harry Styles</a> wore the <a href="https://harpersbazaar.com.au/adidas-gucci-collaboration-collection/">luxe Adidas x Gucci Gazelle trainers</a>, during his 2023 tour, resulting in a <a href="https://www.sneakerfreaker.com/news/harry-styles-gucci-adidas-gazelle-samba-statistics?page=0">reported 100%</a> increase in sales of the trainer. </p>
<p>While sneakers have previously had a bouyant <a href="https://www.fashionbeans.com/article/sneaker-reselling-guide/">resale market</a>, that is now <a href="https://www.voguebusiness.com/fashion/has-the-sneaker-bubble-finally-burst">declining</a>, raising questions as to whether they will continue to be positive investment pieces. Celebrities may create hype – but their endorsement does not always ensure the longevity of a product’s value.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1634190779466891265"}"></div></p>
<p>In 1999, <a href="https://hypebae.com/2018/10/dior-saddle-bag-history-john-galliano">Dior’s saddle bag</a> was featured on US TV series <a href="https://www.hbo.com/sex-and-the-city">Sex and the City</a>, securing its place as an <a href="https://garage.vice.com/en_us/article/mbxjmn/dior-saddle-bag-sex-in-the-city">iconic designer bag</a>. While this increased its value and desirability at the time, the bag eventually faded from view, until 2018, when Maria Grazia Chiuri, Dior’s current design director, relaunched it. This resulted in a frenzy of interest <a href="https://www.harpersbazaar.com/uk/fashion/a42118540/dior-saddle-bag/">in the original Galliano designs</a>.</p>
<p>Endorsement creates hype and desirability, but occasionally it can also create a classic too. But this takes time, and it’s best to consider other factors including brand authenticity, quality and style when planning an investment purchase. </p>
<p>Also, value does not always have to have a price attributed to it. In the world of designer fashion, it is important not to overlook the significance of the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2023/oct/13/fashion-thats-begging-for-love-designers-want-to-create-meaningful-stuff">emotional durability</a> of our purchases and how that can ensure an enduring value and longevity.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Naomi Braithwaite does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
An expensive purchase price may not guarantee that your product will hold its value.
Naomi Braithwaite, Associate Professor in Fashion Marketing and Branding, Nottingham Trent University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/216304
2023-11-15T23:14:16Z
2023-11-15T23:14:16Z
What designers can do to make textiles healthier for people and the planet
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555594/original/file-20230927-29-m4ke9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C0%2C994%2C720&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The glamourous aspect of fashion obscures the health and socio-environmental issues of the textile industry.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwp0Bx0awoE">pollution caused by the textile industry</a> is often discussed, but its <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30278363/">impact on health</a> is less emphasized. Nevertheless, the petrochemical compounds used in the manufacturing of our clothes have harmful effects on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onD5UOP5z_c">workers</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxVq_38BoPE">surrounding communities</a>, and <a href="http://www.cec.org/files/documents/publications/11777-furthering-understanding-migration-chemicals-from-consumer-products-en.pdf">consumers</a>. This issue has a <a href="https://www.greenpeace.org/static/planet4-international-stateless/2012/11/317d2d47-toxicthreads01.pdf">global impact</a>, but its assessment is complex due to our low chronic exposure to a <a href="https://www.leslibraires.ca/livres/perturbateurs-endocriniens-la-menace-invisible-marine-jobert-9782283028179.html">“cocktail” of synthetic substances</a> whose cause-and-effect relationships are difficult to identify.</p>
<p>Moreover, most of these substances prove to be toxic through interaction or degradation, as is the case with <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/chemical-substances/substance-groupings-initiative/aromatic-azo-benzidine-based.html">azo dyes</a> that are ubiquitous and persistent in the environment.</p>
<p>Through my research in sustainable textile design, I explore how design can contribute to making the textile industry more environmentally friendly, focusing on raising ecological awareness among designers, decision-makers, and the general public.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551518/original/file-20231002-15-cu6ppt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="textile dyes" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551518/original/file-20231002-15-cu6ppt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551518/original/file-20231002-15-cu6ppt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=221&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551518/original/file-20231002-15-cu6ppt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=221&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551518/original/file-20231002-15-cu6ppt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=221&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551518/original/file-20231002-15-cu6ppt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=277&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551518/original/file-20231002-15-cu6ppt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=277&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551518/original/file-20231002-15-cu6ppt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=277&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dyes made from agri-food waste and inspired by Pantone.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Vanessa Mardirossian)</span>, <span class="license">Fourni par l'auteur</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Design-led solutions</h2>
<p>In the 1960s, designer <a href="https://papanek.org/archivelibrary/victor-papanek/">Victor Papanek</a> was the first to address <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/190560.Design_for_the_Real_World">environmental issues related to industrial product design</a>. Meanwhile, biologist <a href="https://www.rachelcarson.org/silent-spring">Rachel Carson</a> initiated the emergence of ecological consciousness, shedding light on the profound impact of human activity on the environment. </p>
<p>Then in the 1990s, <a href="https://www.epa.gov/greenchemistry/basics-green-chemistry">green chemistry</a> facilitated collaboration between design and biology to develop <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1278402">ecological textiles</a>. Aligned with <a href="https://mcdonough.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Hannover-Principles-1992.pdf">The Hannover Principles</a>, these textiles aimed to enhance waste management and preserve water purity. Intending to harmonize the interdependence between human activity and the natural world by eliminating toxic inputs at their source, these principles also gave rise to the “<a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780865475878/cradletocradle">Cradle to Cradle</a>” ecodesign philosophy that popularized the concept of circular design in the early 2000s.</p>
<h2>An inspired approach from nature</h2>
<p>Humanity has always drawn inspiration from nature to create. </p>
<p>However, in the late 20th century, biologist <a href="https://biomimicry.org/janine-benyus/">Janine Benyus</a> invited us to <a href="https://biomimicry.org">observe the operating mechanisms of living organisms</a>, encouraging a reevaluation of manufacturing processes through <a href="https://biomimicry.org/chapterone/">biomimicry</a> — a concept that draws inspiration from nature’s designs and processes to create more sustainable technologies.</p>
<p>Could we, for example, produce dyes at room temperature and without toxic molecules? This approach leads to a shared reflection between design, science and engineering. This multidisciplinary vision of design, where ecology, medicine, and politics play a role in the design process to better meet the needs of society, was already advocated by Papanek in 1969.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551520/original/file-20231002-30-2h1680.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="diagram" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551520/original/file-20231002-30-2h1680.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551520/original/file-20231002-30-2h1680.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551520/original/file-20231002-30-2h1680.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551520/original/file-20231002-30-2h1680.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551520/original/file-20231002-30-2h1680.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551520/original/file-20231002-30-2h1680.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551520/original/file-20231002-30-2h1680.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Concept of ‘minimal design,’ by Victor Papanek.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Diagram taken from the work of Victor Papanek)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Developing ecological literacy</h2>
<p>In 1990, educator <a href="https://blogs.ubc.ca/lled3662017/files/2017/08/Orr_Environmental-Literacy-Ecoliteracy.pdf">David Orr</a> introduced the concept of ecoliteracy to address a major gap in traditional education, centered on humans and ignoring their interconnectedness with nature. He advocated for environmental education to develop a sense of belonging to one’s living environment and establish production models that promote the resilience of ecosystems. This concept helps to understand the intricate connections between human activities and ecological systems, to foster a sense of responsibility and informed decision-making.</p>
<p>In the 2000s, fashion design researcher <a href="https://katefletcher.com">Kate Fletcher</a> supported the development of this ecological literacy to help stakeholders in the industry (designers, consumers and manufacturers) understand the implicit interconnection of industrial and living systems, showing that fashion maintains a vital relationship with nature. </p>
<p>Then, in 2018, the sustainable design researcher <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/ca/design-ecology-politics-9781350258778/">Joanna Boehnert </a>emphasized that ecological literacy not only promotes the development of new, more sustainable ways of producing, but also broadens our social, political, and economic vision to systemically address transdisciplinary sustainability challenges. </p>
<p>This is also supported by biologist Emmanuel Delannoy who offers a <a href="http://permaeconomie.fr/author/edelannoy">permaeconomy</a> model, blending permaculture and economics to establish a symbiotic relationship between economic systems and the natural environment, fostering resilience and prompting a reevaluation of our connection with living organisms</p>
<h2>A colourful heritage to rediscover</h2>
<p>My <a href="https://hexagram.ca/fr/qu-est-ce-que-la-recherche-creation/">research-creation</a> proposes a critical reflection on textile dyeing. </p>
<p>This field of investigation leads me to explore colouring beyond its aesthetic to raise ecological, economic and pedagogical questions. </p>
<p>While the glamourous aspect of fashion obscures the health and socio-environmental issues of the textile industry, I direct my thinking toward a more global understanding of dyeing, including its origins, manufacturing methods and interactions with living organisms. </p>
<p>I explore the development of non-toxic dyes by studying, on one hand, literature on <a href="https://www.belin-editeur.com/le-monde-des-teintures-naturelles">natural dyes since prehistory</a>, and, on the other hand, by meeting experts in the field such as scientific historian <a href="https://www.cnrs.fr/sites/default/files/download-file/CardonD.pdf">Dominique Cardon</a> or ecoliterate artisan <a href="https://fibershed.org/staff-board/">Rebecca Burgess</a>, founder of the <a href="https://fibershed.org">Fibershed</a> concept, which aims to produce biodegradable clothing in a limited geographical space. </p>
<p>I also study field practices, including those of the Textile Laboratory of <a href="https://www.luma.org/arles/atelierluma.html">Atelier Luma</a>, which works at the intersection of ecology, textiles and regional economic development. </p>
<p>And, I keep an eye on <a href="https://www.arts.ac.uk/subjects/textiles-and-materials/postgraduate?collection=ual-courses-meta-prod&query=!nullquery&start_rank=1&sort=relevance&f.Subject-test%7Csubject=Textiles%20and%20materials&f.Course%20level%7Clevel=Postgraduate">design education programs </a>that offer an art-science approach where deep ecology is integrated into the design process. </p>
<h2>Symbiosis between nature and the textile industry</h2>
<p>Additionally, in the <a href="https://speculativelifebiolab.com/2022/04/03/cooking-and-culturing-colour-part-iv/">research laboratory</a> where I work, I experiment with the intersection of traditional and prospective dyeing recipes.</p>
<p>Inspired by the concept of <a href="https://www.scirp.org/(S(lz5mqp453edsnp55rrgjct55))/reference/ReferencesPapers.aspx?ReferenceID=1999041">industrial ecology</a> (precursor of the <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/services/environment/conservation/sustainability/circular-economy.html">circular economy</a>), that values the waste of one industry as resources for another, I use <a href="https://www.lapresse.ca/societe/mode-et-beaute/2021-03-30/quand-les-dechets-se-melent-de-la-mode.php">agri-food waste</a> as a colouring source, combined with the use of <a href="https://hexagram.ca/en/demo2-vanessa-mardirossian-the-culture-of-color-an-ecoliteracy-of-textile-design/">pigment-producing bacteria</a> to expand the colour palette. </p>
<p>Thus, tannins from various waste materials can be used in dye recipes. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551537/original/file-20231002-25-qtiisx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="bits of coloured fabric" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551537/original/file-20231002-25-qtiisx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551537/original/file-20231002-25-qtiisx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551537/original/file-20231002-25-qtiisx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551537/original/file-20231002-25-qtiisx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551537/original/file-20231002-25-qtiisx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551537/original/file-20231002-25-qtiisx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551537/original/file-20231002-25-qtiisx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fabric dyed from waste and bacteria.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Vanessa Mardirossian)</span>, <span class="license">Fourni par l'auteur</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But colouring a textile is only the visible part of the iceberg, as fibre preparation takes place upstream to ensure the colour’s resistance to light and washing, known as “mordanting.” Whether the fibre is animal or vegetable, different mordants will be used. </p>
<p>This expertise acquired iteratively between theory, prototyping, and results analysis contributes to gaining “textile ecoliteracy.” Coupled with a knowledge of biology, this allows for understanding the deleterious interactions between the material and living worlds. </p>
<p>Ultimately, the synthesis of ecoliteracy and biomimicry concepts has led me to reflect on a macro-vision of the fashion industry ecosystem, and to consider the concept of “textile ecoliteracy” as a means to deploy a network of intersectoral collaborations between design, health, education, and industry. </p>
<p>My research aims to show that <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.2752/175693810X12774625387594">textile materiality must harmonize symbiotically with natural ecosystems</a> so that both parties benefit from their interaction.</p>
<p>In conclusion, the textile industry’s environmental and health impacts necessitate urgent attention and innovative solutions. This article has delved into the historical context, explored interdisciplinary approaches, and proposed the concept of “textile ecoliteracy” as a collaborative means to address these challenges. </p>
<p>By focusing on sustainable design, education, and the utilization of innovative practices, designers can play a pivotal role in reshaping the industry. The synthesis of ecological awareness and biomimicry principles highlights the potential for a harmonious coexistence between textile materiality and natural ecosystems. </p>
<p>As we move forward, fostering a symbiotic relationship between the textile industry and the environment is not just a choice but a collective responsibility — one that promises a healthier future for both people and the planet.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216304/count.gif" alt="La Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vanessa Mardirossian is a member of Acfas, Hexagram and Concordia University's Textiles & Materiality and Critical Practices in Material and Materiality research laboratories. She has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), Concordia University and Université du Québec à Montréal.</span></em></p>
The production, use and end-of-life of clothing all have an impact on our health. But greater ecological awareness could turn the tide.
Vanessa Mardirossian, PhD Candidate and educator in sustainable fashion, Concordia University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/212825
2023-09-14T16:37:02Z
2023-09-14T16:37:02Z
Fashion industry’s environmental impact is largely unknown – here’s why
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547509/original/file-20230911-7318-e5kwf1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C7360%2C4912&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/close-clothes-rack-rail-store-items-1727723350">BAZA Production/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>How do the clothes you buy wear out the natural world? To take stock of the damage you have to account for the materials, water and energy that went into making a garment, and the greenhouse gas emissions, chemical pollutants and other byproducts associated with its disposal. </p>
<p>For example polyester, a kind of plastic widely used in T-shirts, is made from oil – a fossil fuel. If you throw it out it degrades slowly, and chemicals from its dyes and surface treatments leach into the soil. </p>
<p>The UK consistently buys more garments than any other European country, spending more than <a href="https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmenvaud/1952/1952.pdf">£45 billion</a> (US$56 billion) annually. Fast fashion, an industry trend which involves getting cheap reproductions of catwalk designs out to a mass market as quickly as possible, encourages this buying frenzy. </p>
<p>Much of fast fashion is known to depend on <a href="https://www.euronews.com/green/2020/07/10/exploitation-and-sweatshops-are-at-the-core-of-fast-fashion-it-s-time-to-dismantle-the-sys">sweatshop labour</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2020/apr/07/fast-fashion-speeding-toward-environmental-disaster-report-warns">polluting factories</a>. But alongside the demand for ever faster fashion at low prices, there is a <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/uk/en/pages/consumer-business/articles/sustainable-consumer.html">growing awareness</a> among consumers that something has to change. </p>
<p>Some firms have caught on: many brands now report their environmental footprint and have disclosed their intention to shrink it.</p>
<p>But how trustworthy are these assessments? My research uncovers how the fashion industry collates, analyses and assesses environmental impact data. Unfortunately, as a result of inaccurate and unreliable methods, among other issues, the true cost of fast fashion remains largely unknown. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A worker in a cloth factory assembly line turns to look at the camera." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547515/original/file-20230911-15463-l8v8jn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547515/original/file-20230911-15463-l8v8jn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547515/original/file-20230911-15463-l8v8jn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547515/original/file-20230911-15463-l8v8jn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547515/original/file-20230911-15463-l8v8jn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547515/original/file-20230911-15463-l8v8jn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547515/original/file-20230911-15463-l8v8jn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fast fashion adds to the strain on garment workers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/female-labors-work-cloth-factory-which-390471148">Frame China/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The hidden price tag</h2>
<p>A multitude of metrics, certification schemes and labels mark the environmental consequences of making and selling clothing. Brands have been <a href="https://www.edie.net/report-fashion-sustainability-schemes-not-fit-for-purpose-and-allowing-greenwashing/">accused of greenwashing</a> due to the poor quality of information used in some of them.</p>
<p>One common product-labelling tool within the industry was the Higg Materials Sustainability Index. Introduced in 2011, the Higg Index was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/12/climate/vegan-leather-synthetics-fashion-industry.html">a rating system</a> used by several large brands and retailers to determine and report the global warming impact and water consumption of different products, among other environmental measures. </p>
<p>The approach adopted by the index was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2022/jun/28/fashion-brands-pause-use-of-sustainability-index-tool-over-greenwashing-claims">challenged</a> by the Norwegian Consumer Authority for limiting its assessment to only certain phases of a product’s lifecycle, such as the sourcing of materials. It was criticised for overlooking pollutants such as microfibres, which are released from textiles during manufacture, wear and washing. As a result, the index was <a href="https://qz.com/2180322/the-controversial-higg-sustainability-index-is-being-suspended">suspended</a> pending a review in June 2022. </p>
<p>Since then, further issues have come to light. These include:</p>
<ul>
<li>unreliable data – measures often rely on brands self-reporting without their information being verified by an impartial third party</li>
<li>vested interests – many tools and indices are funded, or part funded, by organisations that could benefit from more positive reporting</li>
<li>tunnel vision – existing methods tend to focus on only one environmental impact, such as water use or carbon emissions, while the relationship between these factors is overlooked</li>
<li>paywalls – many tools require brands to pay into them. This can effectively exclude smaller businesses and limit the tool’s coverage</li>
<li>lack of standards – there is no official baseline to determine acceptable thresholds of environmental footprint of any one product.</li>
</ul>
<p>Without reliable and accurate assessments of a product’s environmental impact, consumers are left in the dark. For example, a common misconception is that cotton, being a natural fibre, is better for the environment than synthetic materials such as acrylic and elastane. </p>
<p>But cotton requires vast quantities of water to grow, harvest and process. A standard cotton t-shirt, for example, requires <a href="https://www.commonobjective.co/article/the-issues-water">2,500 litres</a> while a pair of jeans consumes <a href="https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/blink/know/it-takes-7600-litres-of-water-to-make-your-jeans/article30871977.ece">7,600 litres</a>.</p>
<p>One fibre is not necessarily better than the other. Rather, every material and manufacturing process affects the natural world in one form or another. With such misconceptions rife, it’s difficult for consumers to make sound comparisons. That’s why accurate measures are desperately needed. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An aerial view of a machine picking cotton in a field." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547514/original/file-20230911-8175-nz6qqe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547514/original/file-20230911-8175-nz6qqe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547514/original/file-20230911-8175-nz6qqe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547514/original/file-20230911-8175-nz6qqe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547514/original/file-20230911-8175-nz6qqe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547514/original/file-20230911-8175-nz6qqe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547514/original/file-20230911-8175-nz6qqe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cotton farms also use insect-killing chemicals to boost yields.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/aerial-view-large-green-cotton-picker-725189389">StockStudio Aerials/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The true cost of fashion</h2>
<p>The complexity of fashion’s global supply chain, which spans thousands of miles from fields to shop floors, makes accurate measurements exceptionally difficult. Capturing an accurate picture of the industry’s environmental footprint will rely on a certain level of transparency across the industry. It will also require multiple sectors – including production, manufacturing and retail – working collectively towards a common goal. </p>
<p>An acceptable definition for “sustainable”, informed by standards and baselines, could empower consumers to make more informed decisions about their purchases. With Gen-Z labelled the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/gregpetro/2021/04/30/gen-z-is-emerging-as-the-sustainability-generation/?sh=3e08ca258699">sustainable generation</a>, it is time for fashion to reform.</p>
<p><em>An earlier version of this article stated that the Higg Materials Sustainability Index had been suspended. The index is actually paused pending a review.</em></p>
<hr>
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<img alt="Imagine weekly climate newsletter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alana James receives funding from United Kingdom Reseach and Innovation (UKRI).</span></em></p>
Product-labelling tools have been criticised for making partial assessments of a brand’s impact.
Alana James, Assistant Professor in Fashion, Northumbria University, Newcastle
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/207864
2023-06-20T12:23:53Z
2023-06-20T12:23:53Z
Textile queen Maman Creppy has died: the last of West Africa’s legendary wax cloth traders has left her mark
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532901/original/file-20230620-18-mzmx1q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Courtesy Yvette Sivomey</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Dédé Rose Gamélé Creppy, who <a href="https://nouvelangle.tg/index.php/2023/06/07/togo-disparition-de-maman-creppy-la-doyenne-des-nana-benz/">has died</a> aged 89, was one of west Africa’s most influential wax cloth traders. She was the youngest, and the last living, “Nana Benz” – the legendary first generation of women cloth traders from Togo. </p>
<p>Wax cloth was a European adaptation of a classic Indonesian batik hand printing technique which created designs using hot wax. Areas of design were blocked out by applying hot wax over them to resist dye. The cloth was introduced to west Africa by Dutch and English textile manufacturers in the <a href="https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2018/08/cloth-copyright-and-cultural-exchange.pdf">late 19th century</a>. Women traders – who became experts at predicting what the market wanted – started feeding design and colour suggestions back to the manufacturers. They were integral to the cloth’s success. The Nana Benzes were particularly skilled at this. </p>
<p>Wax cloth became popular because its colours stood out, it could be easily tailored into stylish outfits for both men and women, the colours are fast – they wouldn’t fade when washed. Its patterns also had messages and broadcast images, from power and politics to beauty and wealth. They could speak to joyful or complex relations between men and women.</p>
<p>The Nana Benzes, a group of about 15 Togolese women, started trading in the wax print. The word “Nana” is a diminutive form of “mother” or “grandmother” and “Benz” is for the Mercedes-Benz cars some of them liked to drive – and which they were able to buy due to their big success. </p>
<p>As an anthropologist, I encountered Maman Creppy – as she was affectionately known – several times during research for my <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/P/bo25126083.html">book</a> Patterns in Circulation: Cloth, Gender, and Materiality in West Africa.</p>
<p>Rose Creppy’s story is an incredible one. She was one of Togo’s original Nana Benzes, who created a powerful empire founded on a monopoly over patterns – manufacturers distributed specific patterns only to specific women. A successful Nana could be the unique wholesaler for over 60 patterns, sold to traders from all over the continent.</p>
<p>These design ownership rights, combined with her entrepreneurial savvy and a deep knowledge of regional tastes and style, made Maman Creppy, like other Nana Benzes, a legend throughout west Africa. </p>
<p>Their craft however is sadly in decline. Since the early 2000s production of the cloth has shifted to Chinese factories. Today, no wax comes near the process.</p>
<h2>From beads to cloth</h2>
<p>Born in the southern town of Aneho on 22 December 1934, Maman Creppy was determined to become a successful entrepreneur. She started her career trading beads imported from Ghana. But, as she recalled in one of our many conversations, “this was hard manual work”. So, once she had acquired a small trading stock, she switched to cloth. </p>
<p>Maman Creppy initially traded in European-produced fancy-prints. These were less onerous to produce and hence cheaper. Africa’s fancy-print textile industry started in the early 1960s and many newly independent countries were using the textile industry to bolster their economies. </p>
<p>As Maman Creppy accumulated more capital, she switched to English wax-prints from Arnold Brunnschweiler & Company (ABC) and later to Dutch wax cloth from <a href="https://www.vlisco.com">Vlisco</a>.</p>
<p>Maman Creppy became a Nana Benz – one of the super-wholesalers of wax cloth. They originally collected the wax cloth from Ghana’s capital, Accra, in the 1940s but, by the late 1950s, shifted the centre of trade to the Lomé market in Togo’s capital. They transformed the Lomé market into a site of economic power and national prestige. </p>
<h2>Nana Benzes boom</h2>
<p>The heyday of the Nana Benzes was from the 1960s to the early 1980s. Traders flocked to the Lomé market, not only from Abidjan, Accra, Kumasi, Cotonou, Porto-Novo, Onitsha and Lagos, but also from Kinshasa and Libreville.</p>
<p>They benefited from a unique trading position. Trade rules in some post-independence African countries made it hard to trade in the cloth. For instance in Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah’s nationalist-protectionist policies placed high tariffs on imports. This made wax-print imports unprofitable. In Togo, low tariffs made the cloth cheaper. Nana Benzes therefore became a key part of the wax print trade and enabled the Dutch to penetrate other African markets. </p>
<p>The Nana Benzes also had a monopoly over patterns – many of them unique. For instance, they intercepted Yoruba trading networks that operated along the coastal corridor between Lagos and Accra, selling so-called Yoruba and Igbo patterns in specific colourways in Lomé. It was their effective monopoly over pattern rights that garnered the Nana Benzes unparalleled wealth.</p>
<p>The Nana Benzes soon established distribution rights for these classic designs from colonial firms, such as Unilever’s United Africa Company (UAC). In the process, they strengthened ties with European firms. This allowed them to exercise control over an emergent urban cultural economy of taste.</p>
<p>The Nana Benzes had cleverly inserted themselves into the restrictive retailing systems of European trading companies with whom they negotiated exclusive pattern rights to cloth distribution. </p>
<p>Amid changing political regimes, the women consolidated their power and economic interests by creating their own professional organisation in 1965, L’Association Professionelle des Revendeuses de Tissu, a body that negotiated trading policies directly with the state. They agreed on a low-tariff regime that made their Dutch and English cloth imports relatively cheap in comparison to others in the region. In return, they lent their branding power to the state, providing it with a felicitously modern entrepreneurial façade. </p>
<h2>The downfall</h2>
<p>The end of the Cold War and the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/161005">democracy movement</a> that liberalised political and economic spaces had serious consequences for the cloth trade. And for Rose Creppy. </p>
<p>A devaluation of the <a href="https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fabric/backgrnd.htm#:%7E:text=To%20address%20this%20situation%2C%20they,francs%20to%201%20French%20franc.">CFA franc (by 50%) in 1994</a> turned an everyday consumer good, wax cloth, into a near luxury almost overnight. Until then, wax cloth was available to most. When the price doubled, wax cloth became a luxury good. Many turned to cheaper alternatives, including counterfeits from China.</p>
<p>The liberalisation of the economy in post-Cold War Togo further derailed the Nana Benzes’ trade. The main distributor of wax cloth – Unilever’s United Africa Company – pulled out of the market and the Dutch manufacturer, Vlisco, took over its west African distribution points. This dismantled the system of exclusive retail rights that made the women’s trade profitable. </p>
<p>To add to the demise of the Nana Benzes, Chinese counterfeits entered the market in the early 2000s. </p>
<h2>Maman Creppy’s legacy</h2>
<p>Until her passing, Maman Creppy remained intimately connected to the market through her daughter, Yvette Sivomey, whom she initiated into the cloth trade in the early 2000s.</p>
<p>Like many of her older peers, Maman Creppy was married but lived independently with her children, whom she would later send to study in France; she owned a property in Lyon. In addition to her entrepreneurial activities, she held a ministerial position at the Lolan royal palace of her native Aneho. </p>
<p>Today a highly successful cloth entrepreneur herself, Sivomey works closely with Vlisco to rediscover and revive old patterns in new colour combinations. </p>
<p>The legacy of Dédé Rose Gamélé Creppy is preserved in her daughter’s work. It is alive and well, woven into the classic wax cloth patterns she co-designed and traded as one of the remarkable Nana Benzes, the women merchants of Togo.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207864/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nina Sylvanus does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Maman Creppy was one of Togo’s original Nana Benzes who had created a powerful wax cloth empire.
Nina Sylvanus, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Northeastern University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/203122
2023-04-13T13:09:39Z
2023-04-13T13:09:39Z
Fast Fashion: Why garment workers’ lives are still in danger 10 years after Rana Plaza — Podcast
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519920/original/file-20230407-22-j62yrw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">That cheap statement piece comes at a price: the industry has a 'murderous disregard for human life.'</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Clockwise: AP/Mahmud Hossain; AP/Ismail Ferdous; Unsplash/Markus Spiske; Unsplash/Clem Onojeghuo)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe height="200px" width="100%" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" seamless="" src="https://player.simplecast.com/ad814240-69ec-47f4-b6b5-05e21ad97582?dark=true"></iframe>
<p>Fast fashion is that ever-changing need to have the latest beautiful thing at a bargain price — that club-ready piece of clothing, that status symbol shoe or that must-have top you just found at the mall. </p>
<p>But that cheap statement piece comes at a price. <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/03/1035161">The fashion industry is the second most polluting industry in the world, after the oil and gas sector.</a> It’s also famously unfair to its workers, the majority of whom are women. Although there has been a lot of talk about female empowerment, the reality is that most women who toil on the factory floor remain in poverty for most of their lives. </p>
<p>Ten years ago this month, much attention turned to the global garment industry when a group of garment factories collapsed at Rana Plaza near Dhaka, Bangladesh. The accident, called a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/apr/24/bangladeshi-police-target-garment-workers-union-rana-plaza-five-years-on">“mass industrial homicide”</a> by unions in Bangladesh, killed 1,124 people and injured at least 2,500 more. </p>
<p>Most of the people who went to work that day were young women, almost all were supporting families with their wages and all were at the bottom of the global production chain.</p>
<p><a href="https://dont-call-me-resilient.simplecast.com/episodes/fast-fashion-why-garment-workers-lives-are-still-in-danger-10-years-after-rana-plaza">This week on <em>Don’t Call Me Resilient</em></a>, we look back at the Rana Plaza disaster to explore how much — or how little — has changed for garment worker conditions since.</p>
<p>The industry has a “<a href="https://www.brown.edu/academics/race-ethnicity/events/fast-fashion-and-racial-capitalism-power-and-vulnerability-global-supply-chains-gender-and">murderous disregard for human life.</a>” That’s how this episode’s guest, Minh-Ha Pham, puts it. She is an associate professor in media studies at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and the author of <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/why-we-cant-have-nice-things"><em>Why We Can’t Have Nice Things.</em></a></p>
<p>Also joining us is Dina Siddiqi, a feminist anthropologist and an expert on labour in Bangladeshi garment factories. She is an associate professor at New York University.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520620/original/file-20230412-26-awoga.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520620/original/file-20230412-26-awoga.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520620/original/file-20230412-26-awoga.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520620/original/file-20230412-26-awoga.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520620/original/file-20230412-26-awoga.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520620/original/file-20230412-26-awoga.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520620/original/file-20230412-26-awoga.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Social media campaigns like ‘I made your clothes’ can help to raise awareness but don’t necessarily address structural issues.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Fashion Revolution)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘Murderous disregard for life’</h2>
<p>The collapsed buildings at Rana Plaza had shown signs of cracks the day before. While other tenants in the buildings — the banks and shops — sent their workers home, the garment factories’ managers insisted their people come to work to meet the relentless deadlines of clothing manufacturing. </p>
<p>Ten years ago, but also today, Siddiqi says garment workers are left with impossible choices: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“They did not feel they had the right to say no because they were threatened with dismissal. They were owed wages already. Those are everyday conditions in the garment industry…their choice was: risk dismissal and possible starvation…or risk their lives.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Approximately five million people in Bangladesh work to produce clothing for hundreds of major international brands, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/1/11/fashion-brands-paid-less-than-production-cost-to-bangladesh-firms">including Zara, H&M and GAP</a>. It is the second largest global producer of clothing and has the lowest wages. </p>
<p>Garment factories also exist in the Global North. Last week the United States Department of Labor released a report on garment workers in Los Angeles that said <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-04-04/garment-industry-los-angeles-low-wages-violations-us-department-of-labor-report">some were getting paid as little as $1.58 an hour</a>. </p>
<h2>Corporate solutions fall short</h2>
<p>While many corporations have now signed the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/25/business/garment-worker-safety-accord.html">Bangladesh Accord</a> in an attempt to make things safer, Minh-Ha Pham says the accord has a narrow definition of worker safety. The focus is on structural integrity of buildings and corporate liability. But Pham says: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“If you talk to workers, safety means having a workplace free of physical, sexual verbal assault. Safety is getting paid on time. Not having the freedom of association, not having child care, not having maternity leave…create unsafe conditions of labour. [These are things that] initiatives like the Bangladesh accord don’t even begin to imagine.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The focus on corporate-led solutions, such as the accord, allows clothing brands to appear socially responsible in spite of the reality on the ground. Pham says that without oversight and regulation, these types of initiatives “make brands that are signing on to these initiatives…look good. Consumers feel good about these brands. But there’s no follow through.”</p>
<h2>Western saviour complex</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/352893724_The_fashion_scandal_Social_media_identity_and_the_globalization_of_fashion_in_the_twenty-first_century">Social media campaigns</a> to hold brands accountable to their workers have proliferated in the last decade. </p>
<p>However well intended, Pham says these campaigns — primarily led by those in the Global North — don’t address the structural and systemic nature of exploitation inherent to the global garment industry. </p>
<p>She says the campaigns can actually take the attention away from the structural problems. “They make us feel like if we could just tweak this thing, then everything else will be okay. It actually legitimizes the system because (it says) the system is basically okay, but for A, B, and C things that we can fix.” </p>
<p>And Siddiqi says in the last 10 years, brands have actually paid Bangladeshi garment workers increasingly lower prices to make the exact same product. “So brands are squeezing Bangladesh at the same time that they’re telling Bangladesh factory owners that they must be better to their workers.”</p>
<p>Both Siddiqi and Pham also caution against the idea that this is solely a Bangladeshi problem. They say racist assumptions see the Global South as inherently corrupt and “backwards.” But these notions overshadow the <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-04-04/garment-industry-los-angeles-low-wages-violations-us-department-of-labor-report">exploitation of and resistance by</a> racialized and gendered workers in the West, in places like Los Angeles. </p>
<p>Pham says “it’s easy to think of, you know, oh gosh, those people over there…They don’t care about humanity. They don’t care about safety. [But] this happened in California.” </p>
<p>For example, in 2020, Pham says, garment workers were being “held up as heroes because factories shifted to making masks for a while when we were wearing cloth masks. But (workers) oftentimes (were) coming in without health insurance, without safety protocols, oftentimes without masks risking COVID, (working) in California, for piece rate wages.” </p>
<h2>Now what?</h2>
<p>Both scholars say those who want to help to alleviate pervasive exploitation in the global garment factory industry must make efforts to understand an intentionally opaque supply chain system. This includes learning about brand contracts, international trade and labour laws and immigration and border policies. It also involves the necessary but difficult task of explicitly naming capitalism as a structural problem. </p>
<p>Ultimately, Pham and Siddiqi say western advocates must support collective actions initiated by the workers themselves.</p>
<h2>From The Conversation</h2>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/fashion-production-is-modern-slavery-5-things-you-can-do-to-help-now-115889">Fashion production is modern slavery: 5 things you can do to help now</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/heres-what-businesses-and-consumers-can-do-to-tackle-modern-slavery-in-supply-chains-200694">Here's what businesses and consumers can do to tackle modern slavery in supply chains</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-fashion-industry-keeps-failing-to-fix-labour-exploitation-87356">Why the fashion industry keeps failing to fix labour exploitation</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/victorias-secret-does-it-again-cultural-appropriation-87987">Victoria's Secret does it again: Cultural appropriation</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Read more</h2>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0147547915000101">“Starving for Justice”</a> by Dina Siddiqi</p>
<p><a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/153596/fix-fashion-industrys-racism">“How to Fix the Fashion Industry’s Racism”</a> by Minh-Ha Pham</p>
<p><a href="http://www.taslimaakhter.com/garment_workers_life_struggle/">Taslima Akhter: Documentary photographer and activist </a></p>
<p><a href="https://truthout.org/articles/turn-up-the-heat-on-fairness-american-garment-workers-deserve-better/">“Turn Up the Heat on Fairness: American Garment Workers Deserve Better”</a></p>
<p><a href="https://remake.world/stories/news/colonialism-in-fashion-brands-are-todays-colonial-masters/">“Brands are Today’s Colonial Masters”</a></p>
<h2>Listen and Follow</h2>
<p>You can listen to or follow <em>Don’t Call Me Resilient</em> on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/dont-call-me-resilient/id1549798876">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS9qZFg0Ql9DOA">Google Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/37tK4zmjWvq2Sh6jLIpzp7">Spotify</a> or <a href="https://dont-call-me-resilient.simplecast.com">wherever you listen to your favourite podcasts</a>. <a href="mailto:DCMR@theconversation.com">We’d love to hear from you</a>, including any ideas for future episodes. Join The Conversation on <a href="https://twitter.com/ConversationCA">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/TheConversationCanada">Facebook</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/theconversationdotcom/">Instagram</a> and <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@theconversation">TikTok</a> and use #DontCallMeResilient.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203122/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
We look back to the 2013 Rana Plaza garment factory collapse in Bangladesh that killed 1,124 people and discuss how much — or how little — has changed for garment-worker conditions today.
Vinita Srivastava, Host + Producer, Don't Call Me Resilient
Boké Saisi, Associate Producer, Don't Call Me Resilient
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/198180
2023-04-05T12:12:18Z
2023-04-05T12:12:18Z
The man in the monkey nut coat: how a 1940s scientist made ‘vegan wool’ from peanuts
<p><a href="https://www.britishwool.org.uk/blog-britishwool-history">Woollen clothing</a> has been around for as long as humans have been wearing clothes and sheep have been domesticated. Indeed, our distant ancestors used sheep for three things: food, clothing and shelter – wool makes good insulation and helps to keep in the warmth. </p>
<p>The UK is still one of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/unravelling-british-wool-how-the-local-and-global-are-intertwined-in-the-making-of-everyday-products-99114">largest wool producers</a> in the world and has more than <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8103502/">60 different breeds of sheep</a>.</p>
<p>But with the rise of veganism, many people are now questioning whether it’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/animal-welfare-if-you-want-cheap-knitwear-its-the-sheep-that-may-suffer-102370">ethical to use wool</a> in clothing and fabrics. Vegans don’t wear wool as it is often a <a href="https://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-clothing/wool-industry/">by-product of the meat industry</a>.</p>
<p>This is why the charity Peta (The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) has launched a US$1 million (£844,000) <a href="https://www.peta.org.uk/blog/wool-challenge/">vegan wool challenge</a> to find the first individual, group, or company that can create a vegan wool material that is “visually, textually and functionally akin to or better than sheep’s wool.”</p>
<p>But it seems that back in the 1940s, textile physicist <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/sep/17/william-astbury-forgotten-hero-of-dnas-discovery">William Astbury</a> was already on the case and making newspaper headlines for wearing what would today be considered a vegan coat. </p>
<p>For Astbury’s jacket was woven not from wool or other conventional textile materials, but from <a href="https://collection.maas.museum/object/242566">Ardil</a>, a fibre made from monkey nut, or peanut proteins.</p>
<h2>The monkey nut coat</h2>
<p>In <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-man-in-the-monkeynut-coat-9780198704591?cc=gb&lang=en&">my book</a> The Man in the Monkeynut Coat: William Astbury and How Wool Wove a Forgotten Road to the Double-Helix, I tell the story of Astbury (and that famous coat), who with his colleague <a href="https://theconversation.com/florence-bell-the-housewife-who-played-a-key-part-in-our-understanding-of-dna-175220">Florence Bell</a> laid the foundations for the discovery of the structure of DNA. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/florence-bell-the-housewife-who-played-a-key-part-in-our-understanding-of-dna-175220">Florence Bell: the ‘housewife’ who played a key part in our understanding of DNA</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Scientists <a href="https://www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk/achievements/lmb-nobel-prizes/1962-francis-crick-james-watson/">James Watson and Francis Crick</a> are famous for having first worked out the structure of DNA. But their success came 15 years after Astbury and Bell had first shown that X-rays could actually reveal DNA’s structure. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507099/original/file-20230130-16-a8rpb4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Newspaper article on Astbury." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507099/original/file-20230130-16-a8rpb4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507099/original/file-20230130-16-a8rpb4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1168&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507099/original/file-20230130-16-a8rpb4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1168&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507099/original/file-20230130-16-a8rpb4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1168&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507099/original/file-20230130-16-a8rpb4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1468&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507099/original/file-20230130-16-a8rpb4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1468&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507099/original/file-20230130-16-a8rpb4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1468&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Daily Mail article on the coat made of peanuts, published in 1944.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And this work had a surprising origin, for Astbury’s aim was not to answer grand questions about the secrets of life, but to study the humble wool fibre while working as a lecturer in textile physics at the University of Leeds. </p>
<p>Ever since the Middle Ages, wool and textiles were the economic lifeblood of this <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/141036">Yorkshire city</a> – with mills a major source of employment in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. </p>
<p>In 1928 Astbury came to Leeds and used X-rays to reveal the molecular shape of the proteins in wool fibres. He found that they could be compacted or elongated – rather like a slinky toy. This change in their molecular architecture explained the stretchiness of wool – a property that made it so attractive to the textile industry. </p>
<p>And through it, Astbury left another powerful scientific legacy – thanks to his sporting of that rather unusual “peanut” overcoat.</p>
<h2>A future wool?</h2>
<p>From the mid-1930s onwards, Astbury, along with his collaborators Albert Chibnall and Kenneth Bailey, filed patents on a process that used solvents such as urea to unravel the precise 3D shape of proteins found in seeds – like the peanut. Their method then refolded them by a kind of molecular origami into insoluble fibres, creating a cheap and abundant raw material for the textile industry. </p>
<p>Sharing his optimism, the company <a href="https://www.vam.ac.uk/blog/museum-life/peanuts-in-the-archive-imperial-chemical-industries-tibor-reich-and-the-british-industries-fair">Imperial Chemical Industries</a> bought these patents and built a pilot production plant in Scotland to produce a new textile fibre from peanuts, which they called Ardil and gifted Astbury an overcoat made from it.</p>
<p>During the second world war, wool shortages encouraged investment in Ardil and campaigns were launched to persuade the British public of its benefits. This drive to develop new textile fibres at the time may also have inspired a storyline in the 1951 British comedy film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044876/">The Man in the White Suit</a>. </p>
<p>In the film, an altruistic chemist invents a fabric that resists wear and stain, but (spoiler alert) his dreams come crashing down when management realises the fabric must be suppressed for economic reasons as it threatens their livelihoods.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/F9R0xGu5t00?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Unfortunately, much like the fictional fibre, Ardil did not live up to its promise of saving the British textile industry. But Astbury and his overcoat left an important scientific legacy.</p>
<p>His work remains important because it showcased his lifelong belief that <a href="https://elifesciences.org/articles/56354">understanding living systems</a> requires solving their molecular architecture. While Ardil did not succeed, Astbury’s research laid the foundation for future innovations in molecular biology and materials science.</p>
<p>This approach, known as structural biology, has since allowed us to understand how the <a href="https://pdb101.rcsb.org/motm/41">blood protein haemoglobin</a> can carry oxygen around the body, <a href="https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/the-sliding-filament-theory-of-muscle-contraction-14567666/">how muscles contract</a> and more recently how the spike protein on the surface of <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41579-020-0383-2">SARS-CoV2</a> allows the virus to bind and enter human cells.</p>
<p>When Astbury died in 1961, his friend and colleague, the botanist R.D. Preston, fondly remembered him as “a man of many parts – scientist, scholar, musician, bon viveur, humorist, in some ways, a swashbuckler…boisterous to the end with every morning still a Christmas morning.” Maybe to this list of accolades, we should also add a posthumous nomination for the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2022/nov/17/peta-1m-competition-find-vegan-wool-alternative">$1 million vegan wool prize</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198180/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kersten Hall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Vegan wool, peanut coats and the discovery of DNA: the forgotten life of scientist William Astbury
Kersten Hall, Author and Honorary Fellow, School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science, University of Leeds
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/185779
2023-03-26T19:12:15Z
2023-03-26T19:12:15Z
Marguerite Duras called The Lover ‘a load of shit’, but her novel about her affair as a 15-year-old stuns with its emotional force
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516323/original/file-20230320-26-k5gm10.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=59%2C45%2C918%2C598&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tony Ka Fai Leung and Jane March in the 1992 film of The Lover</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">IMDB</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This is part of an occasional series, making the case for or against controversial books.</em></p>
<p>Marguerite Duras, one of the most iconic French writers of the 20th century, didn’t think much of her most commercially successful novel <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com.au/9780007205004/the-lover/">The Lover</a> (1984), a fictionalised account of an affair she had as a 15-year-old with a Chinese man nearly twice her age. </p>
<p>“The Lover is a load of shit,” she said. “It’s an airport novel. I wrote it when I was drunk.” </p>
<p>Most of the world did not agree with Duras’s assessment. As well as becoming an international bestseller, The Lover won one of France’s most prestigious literary prizes, the Prix Goncourt. In 1992, it was made into a major film by celebrated director Jean-Jacques Annaud.</p>
<p><em>L’amant</em>, to use its French title, is a work that stuns with its emotional force and lyrical beauty. Written when Duras was turning 70, The Lover is one of those great literary acts of looking back. In just over 100 pages, it opens a portal through time, conjuring up the long-lost Indochina of her youth. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-case-for-american-psycho-why-this-controversial-book-sold-here-in-shrink-wrap-still-matters-188463">The case for American Psycho: why this controversial book (sold here in shrink wrap) still matters</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>‘Pleasure unto death’</h2>
<p>Set largely in the Saigon of the late 1920s, the novel invokes one of the most formative events in Duras’s life: the first time she gives herself over to physical desire, to what she calls the “pleasure unto death”.</p>
<p>The starting point of this journey takes the form of a very specific, and unexpected, sequence of images – the transformation of her face. In a series of carefully arranged fragments, Duras creates a Baconesque self-portrait distorted by memory, alcohol and regret. It is a brilliant novelistic opening. </p>
<p>The striking, doll-like face of the young Duras is deconstructed, dissolved into that of the septuagenarian in a kind of acceleration of the ageing process. The passage evokes the pathos of senescence, and the presence of all the lost selves we hold within us that fade over time until we reconstruct them in the act of remembrance.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514333/original/file-20230308-18-bv9ujd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514333/original/file-20230308-18-bv9ujd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514333/original/file-20230308-18-bv9ujd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=659&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514333/original/file-20230308-18-bv9ujd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=659&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514333/original/file-20230308-18-bv9ujd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=659&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514333/original/file-20230308-18-bv9ujd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514333/original/file-20230308-18-bv9ujd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514333/original/file-20230308-18-bv9ujd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Marguerite Duras’s The Lover is ‘a great literary act of looking back’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image: IMDB</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The youthful self Duras resurrects is physically slight yet arresting, full of intelligence and curiosity. Constrained by her dysfunctional family and harbouring ambitions to be a writer, she is bursting to experience life. </p>
<p>Her mother is a widowed headmistress, whose lowly social status relegates her to the bottom rung of the conformist, colonial elite. Her precocious daughter knows she is different and, in her naive way, she wants the world to know it. </p>
<p>One way she does this is through her clothes. The description, early in the novel, of the outfit the young woman puts together is a tour de force of confessional narration – a masterclass in capturing one of those moments when we move our lives from one stage to the next, unsure of what we might be getting ourselves into but excited at the prospect. </p>
<p>There is the sleeveless silk dress, a hand-me-down from her mother. There is the leather belt from one of her brothers. There are the gold lamé shoes decorated with diamante flowers. Then the final transforming touch: a man’s fedora, brownish pink with a black ribbon.</p>
<p>Dressed so, the slim white girl falls under the predatory gaze of the handsome 27-year-old son of a rich Chinese businessman. Spying her from the back seat of his chauffeur-driven limousine, he finds her irresistible. He is soon consumed by a melancholic passion he can barely control.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/colette-writer-feminist-performer-and-metoo-trail-blazer-109971">Colette: writer, feminist, performer and #MeToo trail blazer</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Scenes of desire</h2>
<p>Duras does not hesitate to relate what passes physically between the adolescent girl and the man who pursues her: these scenes are a key feature of the book. </p>
<p>But what do we call these scenes? They are not quite literal enough to be called sex scenes, and they are too emotionally fraught to be called love scenes. Their eroticism is subdued, cruelled by the inevitability that the relationship can go nowhere and the knowledge that the girl is simply too young to be doing this. Her lover is well aware it is wrong. </p>
<p>Perhaps these scenes are best called, in true Durassian fashion, scenes of desire, in which two discrete human desires are at cross purposes. Therein lies their essential dissonance: the acts of intimacy serve to separate as much as they bring together; they obliterate the very tenderness they are intended to create.</p>
<p>While the affair is central to the novel, it is not, in my view, the whole point – though the title and subject matter do invite a certain kind of reading. The book’s apparent allure, its broad novelistic appeal, would seem to reside in its promise of illicit adolescent sex in exotic climes – a kind of retelling of Lolita in a retro-<a href="https://theconversation.com/orientalism-edward-saids-groundbreaking-book-explained-197429">Orientalist</a> context. This is the reading that informs Annaud’s widely panned film version.</p>
<p>But it is a reading that fails to do the book justice. Sure, of central importance to the story are elements such as race relations, the injustices of colonial society, the transgression of sexual taboo. And yet, important as they are, they don’t in themselves enable The Lover to leap and soar as a novel. Rather, they are the springboards that help it do so. </p>
<p>Of equal, and perhaps even greater, importance are Duras’s sophisticated treatment of image and time, the mixture of curiosity and ambivalence that allows us to make our own moral judgements, and her ability to show how any given individual’s emotional disequilibrium affects that of others – and how these effects ripple back in a cycle of endless recursion.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514331/original/file-20230308-22-effhbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C1%2C836%2C456&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514331/original/file-20230308-22-effhbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C1%2C836%2C456&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514331/original/file-20230308-22-effhbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514331/original/file-20230308-22-effhbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514331/original/file-20230308-22-effhbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514331/original/file-20230308-22-effhbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514331/original/file-20230308-22-effhbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514331/original/file-20230308-22-effhbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jane March in the film adaptation of The Lover (1992).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image: IMDB</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/reading-french-literature-in-a-time-of-terror-63036">Reading French literature in a time of terror</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Emotional and racial forces clash</h2>
<p>Family is central to The Lover. Its emotional influence is all-pervasive. The girl fashions her life from its detritus. We see this in the way her outfit is a bricolage of her mother’s and her brother’s clothing. </p>
<p>Duras had already written about her mother’s life at length in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sea_Wall_(novel)">The Sea Wall</a>, a novel about a woman’s struggle to raise two sons and daughter without a husband in a far-flung colony that thwarts her every move, and her unflagging commitment to her three fractious, idiosyncratic children, who resist all attempts at being tamed. </p>
<p>Some of that material is reprised in The Lover, but it is reinterpreted from the daughter’s perspective. The mother allows the young Chinese man into their lives, but only in the most restricted ways. </p>
<p>Some of the novel’s most telling scenes are set in a restaurant where the whole family, at the insistence of the daughter, enjoys the occasional banquet at the lover’s expense. In a show of total contempt for him, the brothers silently gorge themselves, order expensive drinks, refuse to acknowledge his existence in any way: it is only the mother who makes stilted small talk. </p>
<p>These scenes beautifully capture the clash of emotional and racial forces that underpin the book. Duras’s acute observations, modulated by a cool detachment, provide nuance to the action.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514094/original/file-20230308-121-qncryy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514094/original/file-20230308-121-qncryy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514094/original/file-20230308-121-qncryy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=939&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514094/original/file-20230308-121-qncryy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=939&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514094/original/file-20230308-121-qncryy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=939&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514094/original/file-20230308-121-qncryy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1180&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514094/original/file-20230308-121-qncryy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1180&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514094/original/file-20230308-121-qncryy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1180&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Threaded throughout the main storyline is a counter-narrative that is both heart-wrenching and utterly compelling: that of the two brothers. The girl loathes her elder brother as much as she loves the younger one. Domineering and cruel, the elder brother so diminishes his gentle younger brother’s life that the girl holds him responsible for their sibling’s death many years later. She never quite explains why. </p>
<p>There is a fascinating tonal quality to this thread of The Lover. The narration is elliptical, curiously anonymised. The prose is often curt and unadorned, as if the pain of bearing direct witness were too great, as if the girl has become afflicted with an emotional stutter.</p>
<p>Soon after the novel’s publication, <a href="https://bookhaven.stanford.edu/2014/05/marguerite-durass-the-lover-but-but-but-did-it-really-happen/">controversies arose</a> concerning the truth of Duras’s account of this period of her life. Was she really so poor? Was she really so secretive about her Chinese lover? Was her mother really so badly done by, so downtrodden by colonial society? How could Duras relate a story so disturbing? Did any of it really happen the way she claimed? </p>
<p>We will never know all the facts. As fictionalised autobiography, The Lover is not so much an account of a real self as an enactment of a speculative self. As a literary artefact, it is one of the great studies in making and unmaking yourself, reinterpreting past selves through the lens of present and future selves. </p>
<p>It is a looking back, a looking inwards, a looking through, a looking askance. It is an abandonment of fixity because there is no single time and no single self: just the struggle to find, if only for a moment, a way to satisfy desire in a world of competing evanescent desires, none which can ever be truly satisfied.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185779/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthony Macris does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Margeurite Duras’s fictionalised account of a teenage affair with a much older Chinese man has been criticised as a kind of retro-Orientalist Lolita. But that does her iconic novel an injustice.
Anthony Macris, Associate Professor of Creative Writing, University of Technology Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/195103
2022-12-18T19:17:19Z
2022-12-18T19:17:19Z
Wool swimsuits used to be standard beachwear – is it time to bring them back?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498590/original/file-20221201-16-2il9nv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C0%2C5964%2C4266&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Library of Queensland</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Woollen swimwear, popular a century ago, might soon make a splash on Australian beaches again. </p>
<p>In the 19th century, when natural fibres were the only option, beach-goers donned costumes made of wool or cotton. Swimsuits worn at the water’s edge or in the crashing waves transformed across the 20th century from natural fibres to sleek, <a href="https://theconversation.com/fast-suits-and-olympic-swimming-a-tale-of-reduced-drag-and-broken-records-7960">high-performance</a> synthetics. </p>
<p>But with concern mounting over <a href="https://theconversation.com/microplastics-are-common-in-homes-across-29-countries-new-research-shows-whos-most-at-risk-189051">microplastics</a> and the search for <a href="https://theconversation.com/brands-are-leaning-on-recycled-clothes-to-meet-sustainability-goals-how-are-they-made-and-why-is-recycling-them-further-so-hard-184406">sustainable options</a>, the woollen swimsuits of the past could be the swimwear of the future.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/brands-are-leaning-on-recycled-clothes-to-meet-sustainability-goals-how-are-they-made-and-why-is-recycling-them-further-so-hard-184406">Brands are leaning on 'recycled' clothes to meet sustainability goals. How are they made? And why is recycling them further so hard?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Shifting (and shrinking) swimsuits</h2>
<p>Plenty who enjoyed a day on the sand in the first decades of the 20th century did so fully clothed. It was not uncommon for men to dress for the beach in three-piece suits or for women to wear gowns that fell to their ankles. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498591/original/file-20221201-16-2ireas.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Postcard of people at the beach in long white dresses and suits." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498591/original/file-20221201-16-2ireas.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498591/original/file-20221201-16-2ireas.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498591/original/file-20221201-16-2ireas.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498591/original/file-20221201-16-2ireas.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498591/original/file-20221201-16-2ireas.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498591/original/file-20221201-16-2ireas.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498591/original/file-20221201-16-2ireas.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">At the beginning of the last century, people often went to the beach fully clothed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Museum of Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But women who ventured into the water donned belted, knee-length bathing gowns that featured bloomers to conceal the legs. Men’s two-piece bathing costumes revealed a little more, with a top extending to the thighs paired with shorts to the knees.</p>
<p>In the space of a couple of decades, however, <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-erotic-theatre-of-the-pool-edge-a-short-history-of-female-swimwear-127902">swimsuits radically changed</a>. Styles altered as attitudes to the exposure of bodies relaxed, shifting ideas around public morality.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498592/original/file-20221201-11-slniix.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A group of friends, covered from neck to knee." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498592/original/file-20221201-11-slniix.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498592/original/file-20221201-11-slniix.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498592/original/file-20221201-11-slniix.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498592/original/file-20221201-11-slniix.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498592/original/file-20221201-11-slniix.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498592/original/file-20221201-11-slniix.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498592/original/file-20221201-11-slniix.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Both men and women were modestly dressed for swimming.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Library of Queensland</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The 1930s witnessed a rise in topless bathing for men as they adopted <a href="https://collection.maas.museum/object/169110">trunks</a>. Some had half skirts at the front, and many sported belts with buckles to keep them firmly on the waist.</p>
<p>Women’s swimwear now <a href="https://collections.sea.museum/objects/39506/womens-navy-blue-one-piece-bathing-costume-made-by-black-la?ctx=53bce8c5-b108-4d98-a890-b43131efd507&idx=0">revealed the arms, legs and back</a> – then even more when bikinis appeared on Australian beaches in 1950. <a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article230471345">Shock</a> rippled across the sand. </p>
<p>Swimwear had reached body-baring new dimensions.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man in shorts and a woman in a bikini." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498594/original/file-20221201-23-xmkv40.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498594/original/file-20221201-23-xmkv40.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498594/original/file-20221201-23-xmkv40.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498594/original/file-20221201-23-xmkv40.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498594/original/file-20221201-23-xmkv40.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498594/original/file-20221201-23-xmkv40.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498594/original/file-20221201-23-xmkv40.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">As the decades passed, bathing suits got smaller.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Strizic/State Library of Victoria</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Wool on the beach</h2>
<p>Knitted wool – rather than woven wool or cotton – fitted swimwear snugly to the body, helping it shrink in size. </p>
<p>For wearers of Foy & Gibson’s <a href="https://find.slv.vic.gov.au/permalink/61SLV_INST/s6pvau/alma9939751966707636">evocatively named</a> wool suits in the late 1920s and early 1930s – “Sunnybeach”, “Sunbath”, “Seafit” and “Siren” among them – this knit offered comfort and freedom. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498595/original/file-20221201-26-2il9nv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman in a one-piece bathing suit." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498595/original/file-20221201-26-2il9nv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498595/original/file-20221201-26-2il9nv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498595/original/file-20221201-26-2il9nv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498595/original/file-20221201-26-2il9nv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498595/original/file-20221201-26-2il9nv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498595/original/file-20221201-26-2il9nv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498595/original/file-20221201-26-2il9nv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Australian Women’s Weekly provided instructions to knit these bathers in 1938.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Trove</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Speedo’s knitted wool trucks in the late 1930s were made to streamline men’s figures, sparking the enticing slogan: “Next to your figure Speedo looks best!”</p>
<p>Those with knitting skills could make their own swimsuits that decade, using <a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article51593147">instructions</a> like those given in the Australian Women’s Weekly. </p>
<p>With the introduction of “<a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article205512328">Lastex</a>” – a rubber yarn – to woollen swimsuits in the 1930s, they transitioned to even more body-hugging fits. These exuded a new kind of glamorous appeal that elevated swimwear to a “<a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article191299290">sea-ductive</a>” (as one newspaper columnist quipped) new height.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-erotic-theatre-of-the-pool-edge-a-short-history-of-female-swimwear-127902">The erotic theatre of the pool edge: a short history of female swimwear</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The synthetic swimsuit revolution</h2>
<p>When synthetics burst onto the market, Australians embraced the new “modern” fibres. Wool was also in short supply, prioritised for <a href="https://research-repository.griffith.edu.au/bitstream/handle/10072/390930/FitzSimons347083-Published.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y">uniforms</a> and blankets for second world war troops.</p>
<p>Swimwear started to be made in the so-called “miracle” fibres: <a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article230446990">nylon</a> in the 1940s, then <a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article47409978">polyester</a> (known as “Terylene” in Australia) in the 1950s. From the 1960s, “<a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article47473235">Lycra</a>” (also called elastane and spandex) was blended into swimsuits. These made sleeker, slimmer, more satin-like suits.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498596/original/file-20221201-11-xmkv40.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498596/original/file-20221201-11-xmkv40.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498596/original/file-20221201-11-xmkv40.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498596/original/file-20221201-11-xmkv40.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498596/original/file-20221201-11-xmkv40.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498596/original/file-20221201-11-xmkv40.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=738&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498596/original/file-20221201-11-xmkv40.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=738&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498596/original/file-20221201-11-xmkv40.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=738&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">By the 1960s, bathing suits were more streamlined and made with synthetic fibres.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">H. Dacre Stubbs/State Library of Victoria</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Neoprene, a foam fabric, first appeared in wetsuits on Australia’s beaches in the late 1950s – increasing the possibilities for <a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-751401602">winter surfing</a>. Wetsuits <a href="https://collections.sea.museum/en/objects/152873/mens-neoprene-wetsuit;jsessionid=A23CBF0B508F6F156B535201D34F95B6">improved</a> significantly in decades to follow, keeping their wearer warm by trapping a thin layer of water heated by the body. </p>
<p>In the pool, our Olympic swimmers tested more advanced fabrics. Those at the Sydney Games in 2000 wore the Speedo “<a href="https://collection.maas.museum/object/10057">fastskin</a>”, with its compression fabric and replication of shark skin scales that streamlined the body in the water.</p>
<p>More recently, swimsuits made from recycled plastic – bottles, bags and other plastic waste – have emerged as an eco-friendly option. Some question, however, just how <a href="https://www.vogue.com/article/recycled-plastic-swimsuits-arent-as-green-as-you-think">green</a> these recycled swimmers truly are when reducing all plastic consumption is needed to make a difference. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/fast-suits-and-olympic-swimming-a-tale-of-reduced-drag-and-broken-records-7960">'Fast suits' and Olympic swimming: a tale of reduced drag and broken records</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Why wool, again?</h2>
<p>We might dismiss woollen swimsuits from the 20th century’s first decades as unpleasant or uncomfortable to wear. Or we might see them as unflattering for the way they sagged <a href="https://costumesociety.org.uk/blog/post/wool-the-unexpected-material-used-in-historical-swimwear">when wet</a>. </p>
<p>But new processes for working with wool suggest it is ideal to wear in the water. New <a href="https://www.woolmark.com/performance/vilebrequin-merino-boardshort/">merino boardshorts</a> have been designed to dry in less than seven minutes. Wool is also thermo-regulating, helping the body maintain an even temperature.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/B5145ojHjGJ","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>It’s not just that wool options are increasingly available. As we <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KjX6pRsPI9WPjFW1ANJXz0o4XNyigoCB/view">buy and throw away</a> clothing at alarming rates, some have embraced the natural fibre as a sustainable, renewable alternative to synthetics. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498598/original/file-20221201-12-f5aus4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A happy crowd of people on the beach." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498598/original/file-20221201-12-f5aus4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498598/original/file-20221201-12-f5aus4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498598/original/file-20221201-12-f5aus4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498598/original/file-20221201-12-f5aus4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498598/original/file-20221201-12-f5aus4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498598/original/file-20221201-12-f5aus4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498598/original/file-20221201-12-f5aus4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Today’s knitted bathers look quite different to these.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Museums Victoria</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Wool is biodegradable, naturally returning to and nourishing the earth, unlike synthetics that can take <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-11-03/fast-fashion-greenwashing-claims-sustainability-environment/101602678">centuries</a> to break down. Clothes in artificial fibres linger in landfill, with <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-12/fast-fashion-turning-parts-ghana-into-toxic-landfill/100358702">devastating consequences</a>.</p>
<p>Our growing awareness of microplastics – tiny fibres <a href="https://read.aupress.ca/read/plastic-legacies/section/d1ffa415-40ce-4c2c-b553-276f634e469e">released with washing</a> that pollute <a href="https://www.csiro.au/en/news/news-releases/2020/14-million-tonnes-of-microplastics-on-seafloor">marine</a> (and other) environments – is also driving this shift. </p>
<p>So is it time to rethink wearing wool as you head to the beach this summer?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195103/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lorinda Cramer receives funding from the Australian Research Council, and as Redmond Barry Fellow for the State Library of Victoria's Fellowships Program 2022. </span></em></p>
With concern mounting over microplastics and the search for sustainable options, the woollen swimsuits of the past could be the swimwear of the future.
Lorinda Cramer, Research Fellow, Australian Catholic University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/184406
2022-06-22T04:02:39Z
2022-06-22T04:02:39Z
Brands are leaning on ‘recycled’ clothes to meet sustainability goals. How are they made? And why is recycling them further so hard?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469703/original/file-20220620-26-dhw8r8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2259%2C1801&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Today we make more clothing than ever before. And the driver for this is primarily economic, rather than human need. Over the past decade, the term “circular economy” has entered the fashion industry lexicon, wherein materials are made to be reused and recycled by design. </p>
<p>Yet we haven’t seen the same level of recycling in fashion as we have in other spaces – such as with plastic recycling, for instance. And this is mainly because clothing-to-clothing recycling is much more difficult. </p>
<p>The use of recycled polyester and cotton by brands such as H&M and Cotton On are key aspects of these companies’ sustainability initiatives – but the source of these recycled fibres usually isn’t clothing. Recycled polyester tends to <a href="https://artsandculture.google.com/story/zwUxmcq5wIZqLA">come from plastic bottles</a>, and recycled cotton is usually made from manufacturing waste.</p>
<p>The fact is most clothing is simply not designed to be recycled. Even when it is, the fashion industry lacks the kind of infrastructure needed to really embrace a circular economy model.</p>
<h2>Why is recycling clothes difficult?</h2>
<p>Recycling clothing isn’t like recycling paper, glass or metal. Clothes are endlessly variable and unpredictable. So they’re not ideal for recycling technologies, which require a steady and consistent source material. </p>
<p>Even a seemingly simple garment may contain multiple materials, with fibre blends such as cotton/polyester and cotton/elastane being common. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469705/original/file-20220620-24-w9gmlu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469705/original/file-20220620-24-w9gmlu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469705/original/file-20220620-24-w9gmlu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=292&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469705/original/file-20220620-24-w9gmlu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=292&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469705/original/file-20220620-24-w9gmlu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=292&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469705/original/file-20220620-24-w9gmlu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469705/original/file-20220620-24-w9gmlu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469705/original/file-20220620-24-w9gmlu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Despite seeming simple, clothes are complex products containing many components and materials. This means recycling them is very difficult.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Different fibres have different capacities for recycling. Natural fibres such as wool or cotton can be recycled mechanically. In this process the fabric is shredded and re-spun into yarn, from which new fabric can be woven or knitted. </p>
<p>However, the fibres become shorter through the shredding process, resulting in a lower quality yarn and cloth. Recycled cotton is often mixed with virgin cotton to ensure a better quality yarn. </p>
<p>Most fabrics are also dyed with chemicals, which can have implications for recycling. If the original fabric is a mixture of many colours, the new yarn or fabric will likely need bleaching to be dyed a new colour.</p>
<p>A complex garment such as a lined jacket easily contains more than five different materials, as well as trims including buttons and zippers. If the goal of recycling is to arrive at a material as close to the original as possible, all the garment’s components and fibres would first need to be separated. </p>
<p>This requires labour and can be expensive. It’s often easier to shred the garment and turn it into a low-quality product, such as <a href="https://www.cjr.org/language_corner/shoddy.php">shoddy</a> which is used for insulation. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469714/original/file-20220620-20-6cxi7m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Massive amounts of clothing scraps are stacked on top of each other, loosely sorted by colour." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469714/original/file-20220620-20-6cxi7m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469714/original/file-20220620-20-6cxi7m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469714/original/file-20220620-20-6cxi7m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469714/original/file-20220620-20-6cxi7m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469714/original/file-20220620-20-6cxi7m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469714/original/file-20220620-20-6cxi7m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469714/original/file-20220620-20-6cxi7m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Even if a garment is designed to be recyclable, if the infrastructure needed is missing, it will likely still end up in landfill. </span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/to-make-our-wardrobes-sustainable-we-must-cut-how-many-new-clothes-we-buy-by-75-179569">To make our wardrobes sustainable, we must cut how many new clothes we buy by 75%</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Industry progress and challenges</h2>
<p>Companies such as <a href="https://www.blocktexx.com/">BlockTexx</a> and <a href="https://www.evrnu.com/">Evrnu</a> have developed processes to recycle fibres from blended fabrics, though such recycled fibres aren’t yet widely available. </p>
<p>Through a proprietary technology, BlockTexx separates cellulose (present in both cotton and linen) and polyester from textile and clothing waste for new uses, including in new clothing. And Evrnu has developed <a href="https://www.evrnu.com/nucycl">a type of lyocell</a> made entirely from textile and clothing waste.</p>
<p>Spain-based company <a href="https://recoverfiber.com/products/rcotton">Recover</a> meticulously sorts through different kinds of cotton textile waste to produce high quality, mechanically recycled, cotton fibre.</p>
<p>There’s also biological recycling. Fibre waste from the <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-04/cotton-compost-turns-trash-to-treasured-fertiliser/12410248">Rivcott cotton “gin”</a> (or cotton engine) is composted to become fertiliser for a new cotton crop. The same is possible with natural fibres from worn-out clothing, after potentially toxic dyes and chemicals have been eliminated. </p>
<p>Synthetic fibres such as polyester and polyamide (nylon) can also be recycled mechanically and chemically. Chemical recycling through re-polymerisation (where the plastic fibre is melted) is an attractive option, since the quality of the original fibre can be maintained. </p>
<p>In theory it’s possible to use polyester clothing as the source for this. But in practice the source is usually bottles. This is because clothing is usually “contaminated” with other materials such as buttons and zippers, and separating these is too labour intensive. </p>
<h2>The plastic problem</h2>
<p>Almost all recycled polyester in clothing today comes from recycled plastic bottles, rather than previous polyester clothing. This is significant when you consider polyester accounts for more than 60% of all fibre use.</p>
<p>Given the rapid increase in the production of <a href="http://changingmarkets.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/FOSSIL-FASHION_Web-compressed.pdf">synthetic fibres</a>, and the as-yet-unknown impact of microplastics (which were <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412020322297">documented in human placentas</a> last year) – the question remains whether clothing should be made from biologically incompatible materials at all.</p>
<p>Polyester clothes, regardless of fibre sources, contribute to microplastic pollution by shedding fibres when worn and laundered. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469721/original/file-20220620-26-z0f5f8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Plastic bottles are ready to be used for recycling" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469721/original/file-20220620-26-z0f5f8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469721/original/file-20220620-26-z0f5f8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469721/original/file-20220620-26-z0f5f8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469721/original/file-20220620-26-z0f5f8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469721/original/file-20220620-26-z0f5f8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469721/original/file-20220620-26-z0f5f8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469721/original/file-20220620-26-z0f5f8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Although plastic bottles can be recycled into clothing, that clothing is very difficult to further recycle.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A new generation of synthetic fibres from renewable sources (recyclable and also biodegradable) offers a path forward. For instance, the <a href="https://www.kintrafibers.com/">Kintra</a> fibre is made from corn. </p>
<h2>Reduce and reuse before you recycle</h2>
<p>There’s plenty of evidence that reducing the consumption of clothing by wearing items longer and buying second-hand is preferable to purchasing recycled fibre clothes.</p>
<p>But even second-hand fashion isn’t without problems when you consider the scale and pace of clothing production today. </p>
<p>Liz Ricketts of the US-based OR Foundation, a charity focused on sustainable fashion, <a href="https://atmos.earth/fashion-clothing-waste-letter-ghana/">paints a gruesome picture</a> of the Kantamanto market in Ghana, where much of the world’s secondhand clothing ends up (including from Australia). </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1470991517292630022"}"></div></p>
<p>One path forward is for companies to take responsibility for products at their end of life. US fashion brand Eileen Fisher is a pioneer on this front. </p>
<p>The company has purchased garments back from customers since 2009. These are cleaned and sorted, and mostly resold under the <a href="https://www.eileenfisherrenew.com/">Eileen Fisher Renew</a> brand. </p>
<p>Garments too damaged for resale are given to a dedicated design team, which redesigns them to be sold under the <a href="https://www.eileenfisherrenew.com/shop/resewn-collection">Eileen Fisher Resewn</a> collection. Off-cuts from this process are captured and turned into textiles for further use.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/time-to-make-fast-fashion-a-problem-for-its-makers-not-charities-117977">Time to make fast fashion a problem for its makers, not charities</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184406/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Timo Rissanen is a founding board member of the Union of Concerned Researchers in Fashion. </span></em></p>
Increasing recycled-fibre clothing offerings should not absolve the fashion industry from the urgent need to reduce production overall.
Timo Rissanen, Associate professor, University of Technology Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/177936
2022-03-01T12:30:51Z
2022-03-01T12:30:51Z
Sustainable fashion expert: why I’m cutting my wardrobe down to ten items this month
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449006/original/file-20220228-19-18f9qs4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=38%2C66%2C1705%2C1306&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Amber Martin-Woodhead</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The rise of fast fashion has led to <a href="https://cleanclothes.org/fashions-problems/waste-and-pollution">huge increases</a> in the amount of clothes made, bought and thrown away. Between 80 and 100 billion items of clothing are made globally <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/environment/2019/06/the-huge-toll-fast-fashion-the-planet-and-why-the-answer-could-be-circular">each year</a>. Greenhouse gas emissions from textile production <a href="https://emf.thirdlight.com/link/kccf8o3ldtmd-y7i1fx/@/preview/1?o">are greater</a> than those from international flights and the shipping industry combined, making the fashion industry a significant contributor to climate change.</p>
<p>Yet a <a href="https://comresglobal.com/polls/tearfund-great-fashion-fast-poll/">survey</a> of UK adults found that 57% of respondents owned new clothes they’d never worn. Meanwhile, <a href="https://comresglobal.com/polls/tearfund-great-fashion-fast-poll/">less than one in four</a> UK adults cite concerns about the environment as the main reason they would buy fewer clothes.</p>
<p>In a bid to raise funds and highlight the link between the fashion industry and the climate crisis, UK charity Tearfund is launching <a href="https://www.tearfund.org/campaigns/join-the-great-fashion-fast">The Great Fashion Fast</a> this March. To take part you choose ten main items of clothing (with some exceptions such as sportswear, underwear and uniforms) and wear only these ten items for the whole month.</p>
<p>I’m going to be taking part because research has shown that fashion fasts and challenges, where you stop shopping for clothes or only wear a set number of items over a certain period – or both – can have a variety of benefits.</p>
<p>For example, these initiatives can help people develop their personal style and <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0887302X15579990">enhance their creativity</a> with fashion. They can also be associated with improvements in self-confidence and stop people feeling pressure to constantly <a href="http://gfc-conference.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/KIDD-ET-AL_The-Fashion-Detox-Challenge-An-experiment-in-reduced-clothing-consumption.pdf">buy new clothes</a>. Studies have shown these challenges can help participants realise that they might not need <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15487733.2021.1891673">as many clothes</a> as they once thought they did, move away from previous <a href="http://gfc-conference.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/KIDD-ET-AL_The-Fashion-Detox-Challenge-An-experiment-in-reduced-clothing-consumption.pdf">impulse shopping habits</a>, and encourage more considered fashion purchases in the future.</p>
<p>I’ve previously taken part in UK campaign group Labour Behind the Label’s <a href="https://labourbehindthelabel.org/get-involved/fundraise-for-us/the-six-items-challenge/">Six Items Challenge</a>, where you only wear six items over six weeks. As the research suggests, I found it really helped me realise just how few clothes I need. It made picking an outfit each morning incredibly simple, while creating lots of different outfits from only a few items of clothing showed me how versatile just a few pieces can be.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/read-this-before-you-go-sales-shopping-the-environmental-costs-of-fast-fashion-88373">Read this before you go sales shopping: the environmental costs of fast fashion</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Tips for choosing the best items</h2>
<p>Along the way, I also picked up some practical tips, which are good to keep in mind if you fancy taking part in a fashion challenge yourself.</p>
<ul>
<li><p>When choosing your items, it’s best to try to pick a few matching colours so that everything goes together. For this year’s Great Fashion Fast I’ve picked neutrals – black, grey and white, plus pink (you can see my choices in the photo at the top of the article).</p></li>
<li><p>Try to pick different items that can make lots of different outfits. I’ve chosen one coat, two pairs of jeans, one skirt, three tops and three cardigans. The Great Fashion Fast website offers some <a href="https://www.tearfund.org/campaigns/join-the-great-fashion-fast/the-great-fashion-fast-guide">helpful examples</a> of what sorts of items to pick.</p></li>
<li><p>Versatile items that can be layered and worn in different ways are helpful. For example, I’ve got a jumper that can also be worn as a cardigan.</p></li>
<li><p>Think about the weather. It’s quite chilly in the UK in March, so I’ve picked a few cardigans that I can layer up if needed.</p></li>
<li><p>When doing a fashion fast, it can be helpful to handwash the odd item in the sink so you don’t run out of clothes. </p></li>
</ul>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman looks at clothes on a rack." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449013/original/file-20220228-13-2sbfm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449013/original/file-20220228-13-2sbfm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449013/original/file-20220228-13-2sbfm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449013/original/file-20220228-13-2sbfm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449013/original/file-20220228-13-2sbfm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449013/original/file-20220228-13-2sbfm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449013/original/file-20220228-13-2sbfm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The fast fashion industry takes a heavy toll on the environment.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/woman-choosing-dress-during-shopping-garments-266841506">Dmitry Kalinovsky/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Everyone can make their wardrobe more sustainable</h2>
<p>While a fashion fast is great for raising funds and starting conversations about sustainable fashion, if it’s not your cup of tea, there are still plenty of things you can do to support it.</p>
<ul>
<li><p>First, try to keep your clothes for as long as possible by washing them carefully and repairing them. For example, bobbles on knitwear can be removed with a razor or fabric shaver, and a small sewing kit can be all you need to <a href="https://youtu.be/MmcEF2GR584">sew back on buttons</a> and sew up any <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkrc-V8sRlk">holes or tears</a>.</p></li>
<li><p>Try to buy second-hand clothes where possible (I prefer the term “pre-loved”). Charity shops, vintage stores, and websites like Facebook marketplace, eBay, Vinted and HardlyEverWornIt are great places to start. Swapping clothes with friends and family can be a good option too.</p></li>
<li><p>Have you thought about <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/extras/indybest/fashion-beauty/womens-clothing/best-fashion-rental-service-womens-wardrobe-online-subscription-dress-designer-a9586991.html">renting clothes</a>? There are now lots of companies that offer fashion rental based on a subscription service or pay per hire. Renting clothes can be a more sustainable approach for people who like to wear lots of different outfits.</p></li>
<li><p>If you do need to buy something new, try to adopt a “quality over quantity” approach so you reduce the overall amount of clothes you own and keep them for longer. Buying higher-quality clothes can be tricky if you’re on a tight budget, so renting or trying to buy good quality secondhand items can be a good way around this.</p></li>
</ul>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/four-clothing-businesses-that-could-lead-us-away-from-the-horrors-of-fast-fashion-165578">Four clothing businesses that could lead us away from the horrors of fast fashion</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/177936/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amber Martin-Woodhead has received funding from the Royal Geographical Society for research on minimalism. </span></em></p>
‘Fashion fasts’ are a great way of challenging fast fashion by helping us question how many clothes we really need and reducing fashion consumption.
Amber Martin-Woodhead, Assistant Professor in Human Geography, Coventry University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/165578
2021-08-04T13:18:28Z
2021-08-04T13:18:28Z
Four clothing businesses that could lead us away from the horrors of fast fashion
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414544/original/file-20210804-13-9fy7so.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">She's not gotta have it. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/TDOQPhq631s">The Blowup/Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It makes no sense to keep exploiting natural resources to feed an ever-consuming market, but this remains the nature of high-street fashion. Resources are finite – as is the space for landfill – but too often clothes shopping is about buying cheap soulless garments that end up being thrown away and not recycled. </p>
<p>The modern fashion business is frequently about forgettable commodities that exist solely for the sake of consumption. And in 2020, <a href="https://www.imrg.org/media-and-comment/press-releases/strong-december-caps-standout-2020-as-online-sales-growth-hits-13-year-high/">online sales grew</a> at their fastest rate since 2007. Given that online shopping returns <a href="https://www.bbcearth.com/news/your-brand-new-returns-end-up-in-landfill">often end up</a> in landfill without even making it to anyone’s wardrobe, this looks like a step in the wrong direction. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/assets/downloads/The-circular-economy-a-transformative-Covid19-recovery-strategy.pdf">Many argue</a> that, after the pandemic, we need to shift towards a circular economy in which waste and pollution are removed from the system. Here, then, are four examples of clothing businesses that have been using lockdown to put this ideal into practice.</p>
<h2>Making children sustainable</h2>
<p>Marketers view the early years of childhood as a golden opportunity for getting mums and dads to buy more stuff – not least because young children grow so fast. New parents <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1362/026725706778935619">are targeted</a> with endless cute clothes and commodities for child-rearing, being constantly told that such purchases are essential to good parenting. </p>
<p>Many parents do turn to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0267257X.2019.1602555">sharing networks</a> to get some of the things they need secondhand – but one designer has come up with a different answer. London-based <a href="http://ryanmarioyasin.com/index.html">Ryan Mario Yasin</a>, who won the <a href="https://www.jamesdysonaward.org/news/petit-pli-named-2017-uk-winner/">James Dyson Award</a> in 2017 for innovative problem solving, designs clothes that grow with the child. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.bigissue.com/latest/changemakers-ryan-yasins-smart-clothing-is-revolutionising-baby-clothes/">Inspired by</a> the Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake, who developed flexible pleating initially for ballet dancers, this revolutionary concept applies engineering principles to material. </p>
<p>Yasin’s children’s garments, which are branded <a href="https://shop.petitpli.com">Petit Pli</a>, stretch to fit kids aged three months to three years – offering parents a sustainable alternative to disposable clothing. More recently he <a href="https://www.dezeen.com/2021/07/01/petit-pli-launches-collection-of-unisex-clothes-that-expand-to-fit-the-wearer/">has also added</a> unisex adult clothing to his collection, marketing this new range as clothes that are built to last.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hQ4czgXyPC4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://we-economy.net/case-stories/vigga.html">Vigga</a> is another operator that is trying to make children’s clothing more sustainable, but in a different way. The Danish company offers a subscription-based rented clothing line for infants and small children. </p>
<p>Parents who subscribe to this service receive clothing every three months in the early years as their baby grows, and less frequently thereafter. When the clothes are returned to Vigga, they are washed and repaired for further use. This reflects a circular system where every garment is used several times, ensuring a lower environmental impact.</p>
<h2>A different kind of mall</h2>
<p>In the small Swedish city of Eskiltuna, a few kilometres west of Stockholm, is the world’s first recycling mall. Known as <a href="https://www.retuna.se/english/about-us/">ReTuna Återbruksgalleria</a>, all the clothes sold are recycled, while other products, including foods, are organically sourced or sustainably produced. The mall opened in 2015 and is deliberately located next to the town’s recycling centre, which makes it a convenient destination for the shops in the mall to pick up materials for their businesses. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/P-SVQTxQcrg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>The idea was driven by local politicians with the ambition for Eskilstuna to be a good example of addressing the challenges of sustainability. Store owners and employees go through all the donated goods to see what can be repaired, fixed and converted for selling. </p>
<p>With close links to the local school, the mall also provides workshops, lectures and themed days to educate wider society on sustainability practice. And note that this encourages people into the physical space – a strategy that could be useful to draw shoppers back to UK high streets after the pandemic. </p>
<h2>The ‘For Days’ model</h2>
<p>US clothing firm <a href="https://fordays.com/">For Days</a> was inspired by the volume of clothing hoarded in consumer wardrobes. In acknowledging that we need to buy less, For Days encourages customers to send their old clothes in the post. It doesn’t matter whether they were made by For Days in the first place, and people receive money-off vouchers for new items in return. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://fordays.com/how-it-works">whole approach</a> is that nothing ends up in landfill. For Days sorts the donated clothes into colours and then mechanical recyclers convert them into new materials to be used to make new clothes. Clothes can be donated in any condition – which is important, considering the low quality of many fast-fashion garments. For Days is also carbon neutral, minimising waste with reusable packaging and carbon offsetting. </p>
<p>If the circular economy is to succeed, of course, consumers have to embrace it. The inevitable problem is that each of these four models is slightly more expensive than the mass market, and the rock-bottom prices of fast-fashion clothes <a href="https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/IJRDM-04-2014-0042/full/html">have reduced</a> the threshold that the average consumer would see as the maximum they would pay for something. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414546/original/file-20210804-13-eeqt4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Woman looking at blouses on a clothing rack" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414546/original/file-20210804-13-eeqt4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414546/original/file-20210804-13-eeqt4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414546/original/file-20210804-13-eeqt4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414546/original/file-20210804-13-eeqt4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414546/original/file-20210804-13-eeqt4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414546/original/file-20210804-13-eeqt4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414546/original/file-20210804-13-eeqt4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Enough already.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/Fzde_6ITjkw">Becca McHaffie/Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The trouble is that these higher prices reflect the true cost of resources, production and so on. So while such enterprises will attract consumers who are particularly concerned about sustainability and their carbon footprints, there will be limits to what they can achieve. </p>
<p>To get the majority of consumers onboard and truly move towards a circular economy, mass-market brands need to start pushing in the same direction. As the pandemic hopefully begins to move into the past, that is the big challenge for the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/165578/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elaine L Ritch does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Many argue that the end of the pandemic is an opportunity to move towards a circular economy in clothing.
Elaine L Ritch, Senior Lecturer in Marketing, Glasgow Caledonian University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/127363
2020-11-30T16:13:03Z
2020-11-30T16:13:03Z
Following a t-shirt from cotton field to landfill shows the true cost of fast fashion
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371985/original/file-20201130-13-xieqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4014%2C3552&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/blank-white-tshirt-on-grunge-background-516111310">Africa Studio/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>With many shops closed due to pandemic restrictions, Black Friday 2020 might have looked <a href="https://theconversation.com/five-ways-black-friday-shopping-will-be-different-in-2020-150694">different</a> from the frantic buying sprees of years past. But one thing remained the same: the relentless pace of fast fashion. Environmentalists criticised one UK retailer for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/nov/27/critics-slam-pretty-little-things-8p-black-friday-dress-deal">selling a dress for 8p</a> online.</p>
<p>What are the costs of making garments so cheap? Well, consider an item of clothing we’re all likely to wear at some point – the t-shirt. Like the 8p dress, t-shirts belong to an industry responsible for <a href="https://mycourses.aalto.fi/pluginfile.php/1240329/mod_resource/content/2/Niinima%CC%88ki%20et%20al%20%282020%29%20Environmental%20price%20of%20Fashion%20%5BNatRev%5D.pdf">10% of global CO₂ emissions</a>.</p>
<p>Depending on the brand of t-shirt you’re wearing, you could be contributing to these emissions and a long list of other environmental and social harms. But to really understand these impacts, we need to explore the supply chain that creates them.</p>
<h2>Spinning a yarn</h2>
<p>Most t-shirts are made from cotton, which is grown in 80 countries by 25 million farmers who produced a total of <a href="https://uk.fashionnetwork.com/news/Cotton-consumption-to-reach-all-time-high-in-2018-19,1003809.html">25.9 million tonnes of fibre</a> between 2018 and 2019. Conventional cotton farming consumes <a href="https://www.pan-uk.org/cotton/#:%7E:text=Pesticide%20Concerns%20in%20Cotton&text=Globally%2C%20this%20crop%20covers%20just,any%20other%20single%20major%20crop.&text=Smallholder%20cotton%20farmers%20spend%20up,their%20annual%20income%20on%20pesticides.">6% of the world’s pesticides</a>, even though it only uses 2.4% of the world’s land. These chemicals control pests like the pink boll worm, but they can also poison other wildlife and people. Farmers tend to use large amounts of <a href="https://jcottonres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s42397-018-0015-9">synthetic fertiliser</a> to maximise the amount of cotton they grow, which can degrade soil and pollute rivers.</p>
<p>More than 70% of global cotton production comes from <a href="http://awsassets.panda.org/downloads/cotton_for_printing_long_report.pdf">irrigated farms</a> and it takes one-and-a-half Olympic swimming pools of water to grow one tonne of cotton. Your t-shirt could have used <a href="https://www.mclnews.com/images/samples/Cotton-Guide_sampler.pdf">7,000 litres of water</a> just to grow the cotton it’s made from. That’s a lot of water for one t-shirt, especially when you consider that cotton is a crop that tends to be grown in regions <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5316925/">plagued by drought</a>. The farmer may have only 10l to 20l of water a day for washing, cleaning and cooking.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A close-up image of a cotton boll within a large cotton field." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371975/original/file-20201130-23-1d2z0f6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371975/original/file-20201130-23-1d2z0f6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371975/original/file-20201130-23-1d2z0f6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371975/original/file-20201130-23-1d2z0f6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371975/original/file-20201130-23-1d2z0f6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371975/original/file-20201130-23-1d2z0f6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371975/original/file-20201130-23-1d2z0f6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cotton is often grown in parts of the world where water is scarce.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/cotton-fields-ready-harvesting-738008380">Muratart/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But the negative impacts only begin with growing the fibres. The cotton has to be spun into yarn, which uses lots of energy and is the <a href="http://www.wrap.org.uk/sites/files/wrap/Appendix%20IV%20%20Carbon%20footprint%20report.pdf">second-highest source</a> of carbon pollution across the t-shirt’s lifecyle, after the dyeing process.</p>
<p>The cotton yarn is then knitted into the fabric that makes the t-shirt. Globally, this process generates an estimated <a href="https://quantis-intl.com/report/measuring-fashion-report/">394 million tonnes</a> of CO₂ per year.</p>
<h2>Finishing touches</h2>
<p>Next, colour is added to the fabric. This can be done in many different ways, but all rely on fresh water, which may become contaminated with tiny fibres or chemicals harmful to animals and plants. In some cases, this water is discharged directly into the environment without treatment. In Cambodia for example, where clothing comprises 88% of industrial manufacturing, the fashion industry is responsible for <a href="https://mycourses.aalto.fi/pluginfile.php/1240329/mod_resource/content/2/Niinima%CC%88ki%20et%20al%20%282020%29%20Environmental%20price%20of%20Fashion%20%5BNatRev%5D.pdf#page=11&zoom=100,286,562">60% of water pollution</a>.</p>
<p>The dyeing process uses lots of energy to heat the water, as most dye reactions occur at 60°C or higher. The coloured fabric then has to be washed and dried to prepare it for the final stage: garment making. Overall, it takes about <a href="https://mycourses.aalto.fi/pluginfile.php/1240329/mod_resource/content/2/Niinima%CC%88ki%20et%20al%20%282020%29%20Environmental%20price%20of%20Fashion%20%5BNatRev%5D.pdf">2.6kg of CO₂</a> to produce a t-shirt – the equivalent of driving 14km in a standard passenger car.</p>
<p>Transporting the t-shirt to your house accounts for <a href="http://www.wrap.org.uk/sites/files/wrap/valuing-our-clothes-the-cost-of-uk-fashion_WRAP.pdf?_ga=2.238949442.317432740.1524558504-953986839.1524558504">less than 1%</a> of the garment’s total emissions. But once there, it consumes energy, water and chemicals. Washing, ironing and drying clothes represents <a href="https://wrap.org.uk/sustainable-textiles/valuing-our-clothes%20">one-third</a> of the overall climate impact of clothing. Synthetic clothes, made of materials like polyester, generate tiny plastic fibres when washed, which eventually flow into rivers and the sea. Research suggests that synthetic fabrics are responsible for up to <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-43023-x">35%</a> of all the microplastics polluting the ocean.</p>
<p>Sadly, the average number of times a garment is worn before being thrown away is <a href="https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/assets/downloads/publications/A-New-Textiles-Economy_Full-Report.pdf">falling</a>. In the UK, more than £40 billion (US$53 billion) worth of clothing sits at the back of wardrobes. When emptied, <a href="https://www.wcmt.org.uk/sites/default/files/report-documents/LynnWilson_CEW_Postcards_Web.pdf">350,000 tonnes</a> of clothing ends up in landfill each year. Often these garments still have plenty of life in them if they are given the chance – 90% of donated clothes are <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-30227025">suitable for racks</a> in UK charity shops. But this relies on consumers saving old clothes from the bin. </p>
<h2>Changing clothing</h2>
<p>It’s a myth that fast fashion clothing is necessarily poor quality. Many brands <a href="https://www.itv.com/news/2018-12-02/fast-fashion-can-be-just-as-durable-as-designer-brands-says-academic">do create durable products</a>, some lasting twice as long as designer label equivalents that are up to ten times more expensive.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Colourful coats and hooded jackets on a rail." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371979/original/file-20201130-15-8bn0hf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371979/original/file-20201130-15-8bn0hf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371979/original/file-20201130-15-8bn0hf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371979/original/file-20201130-15-8bn0hf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371979/original/file-20201130-15-8bn0hf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371979/original/file-20201130-15-8bn0hf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371979/original/file-20201130-15-8bn0hf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Donating clothes is a far greener alternative to throwing them out.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/rack-colourful-coats-charity-second-hand-757144510">Omiksovsky/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A growing number of businesses are trying to minimise the environmental impact of their clothes. Some UK brands have begun sourcing cotton which is less reliant on pesticides, synthetic fertilisers and consumes less water. Enough high-quality cotton can be grown to meet current demand with <a href="https://www.sustainablecottonranking.org/check-the-scores">much less water and pesticides</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.wateractionplan.com/documents/177327/558131/Best+Technology_Cold+Pad+Batch.pdf/8199fe76-b05a-89eb-cffe-12e921d6fed0">Cold pad batch dyeing</a> uses up to 50% less water, energy and chemicals than standard processes and produces much less waste. Voluntary initiatives, such as the <a href="https://www.wrap.org.uk/sustainable-textiles/scap">Sustainable Clothing Action Plan</a>, are trying to set minimum standards for quality across the industry.</p>
<p>You can make a difference too. Buying from responsible brands is a good start, and only washing the garment when it really needs it. Once you’re done with your clothes, giving them to clothing charities offers them a second life and makes fashion overall much greener.</p>
<p>Hopefully knowing more about the vast effort and resources that go into making our clothes can help people make better choices as well. Before throwing old clothes out, remember the long and costly journey your t-shirt took from cotton to wardrobe, and think again.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/127363/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Sumner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Black Friday sales reveal fast fashion extremes. But how does it affect the planet?
Mark Sumner, Lecturer in Sustainablity, Fashion and Retail, University of Leeds
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/143321
2020-09-24T12:40:24Z
2020-09-24T12:40:24Z
The clothes make the candidate: The sartorial politics of this year’s key Senate races
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359610/original/file-20200923-14-19oecf6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C29%2C3928%2C2586&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Conservative suit? Check. Rep tie? Check. Mitch McConnell looks every inch a senator.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/SupremeCourtVacancy/9750975f6e91461ea286b20a867dbdd1/photo?Query=McConnell&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=9734&currentItemNo=5">Scott Applewhite/Getty</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/senator-richard-m-nixon-poses-here-with-his-wife-and-two-news-photo/514950272?adppopup=true">When Richard Nixon praised his wife</a>’s “respectable Republican cloth coat” <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/eisenhower-checkers/">in his 1952 Checkers speech</a>, her clothes were not the point. </p>
<p>Rather, Nixon drew a direct line from a coat to the values he proclaimed – frugality, integrity, public service – to counter accusations of financial impropriety. </p>
<p>Nixon understood that clothes are the story we tell about ourselves. Psychologist Dan McAdams’ work on <a href="https://www.guilford.com/books/Handbook-of-Personality/John-Robins/9781462544950">narrative identity</a> highlights the importance of the stories we tell about ourselves to our ability to make sense of our place in the world. </p>
<p>For many – particularly public figures – clothing is a more intentional, outward manifestation of their story, or narrative identity: It reveals who they want to be, the version of themselves they want the world to see. </p>
<p>For politicians, clothing is a way to project authenticity, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191308509000070">or consistency with an ideal type</a>. Perceptions of authenticity give voters confidence in candidates’ <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10551-011-1036-1">integrity</a>, persuading them that candidates <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11109-019-09589-y">will fulfill campaign promises</a> once elected.</p>
<p>It is worthwhile considering the message candidates send through their dress. Against what ideal will voters measure them? The fashion choices displayed in three of this year’s high-profile U.S. Senate races provide some illustrative contrasts.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354932/original/file-20200826-7297-6ejnhx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3660%2C2865&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354932/original/file-20200826-7297-6ejnhx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354932/original/file-20200826-7297-6ejnhx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354932/original/file-20200826-7297-6ejnhx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354932/original/file-20200826-7297-6ejnhx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354932/original/file-20200826-7297-6ejnhx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354932/original/file-20200826-7297-6ejnhx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The family of Richard and Pat Nixon, after he got the GOP nomination for president in 1960.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/senator-richard-m-nixon-poses-here-with-his-wife-and-two-news-photo/514950272?adppopup=true">Bettmann/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Choices different for incumbents, challengers</h2>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/jo-ellen-pozner-1126680">As an organizational theorist</a> who researches authenticity and social evaluation, I find that we judge others – imperfectly – based on how closely we feel their image matches their message. </p>
<p>Most political challengers find it easy to project authenticity through dress. They can tailor their wardrobe to highlight themes from their campaigns and personal histories. This guides voters’ understanding of who the candidate is and what they stand for.</p>
<p>The wrinkle: Sending a message with clothing is inherently trickier for incumbents because their office constrains the image they can project. A gubernatorial candidate can wear jeans and boots to the state fair, but once installed in the Capitol, they will more often be seen in a suit. A quick Google Image search for a current candidate and the incumbent they are challenging reveals a near-universal truth: Once elected, the candidate’s most visible public image is that of the office they hold. </p>
<p>This suggests that while a candidate can be authentic to their unique campaign message, the incumbent is more likely to be authentic to their office, instead.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359614/original/file-20200923-14-m6vnhv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Democratic Senate candidate Mark Kelly in a bomber jacket." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359614/original/file-20200923-14-m6vnhv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359614/original/file-20200923-14-m6vnhv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=626&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359614/original/file-20200923-14-m6vnhv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=626&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359614/original/file-20200923-14-m6vnhv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=626&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359614/original/file-20200923-14-m6vnhv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=787&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359614/original/file-20200923-14-m6vnhv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=787&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359614/original/file-20200923-14-m6vnhv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=787&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Democratic Senate candidate Mark Kelly is sometimes seen in bomber jackets.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://secure.actblue.com/donate/ads-mek-evergreensearch-dtd?refcode=ads-200901-gs-evergreensearch-dtd-natl-mix-11004350823-107572717186-460809536128-mark%20kelley&gclid=CjwKCAjw5Kv7BRBSEiwAXGDElew35yccpj0zHderFD-LgUb07F2oeJ1mngeoNA1hUOMJo-nT5r2c1hoCJXQQAvD_BwE">ActBlue</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Clothing as a campaign message</h2>
<p>In Arizona, Democratic Senate candidate <a href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/former-u-s-rep-gabrielle-giffords-and-her-husband-retired-news-photo/937004742?adppopup=true">Mark Kelly – astronaut, husband of former Representative Gabby Giffords – goes tieless</a> <a href="https://markkelly.com/">in sports jackets or a bomber jacket</a>. </p>
<p>His casual look telegraphs that he is not a Washington insider. By referencing his military and NASA background, he projects the expertise needed to take an informed stance on national security and the authority to take a strong position on climate change, a <a href="https://climate.nasa.gov/">major area of research at NASA</a>. </p>
<p>Kelly is challenging incumbent Republican Sen. Martha McSally, a former Air Force pilot and Afghanistan veteran. <a href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/senate-candidate-u-s-rep-martha-mcsally-speaks-during-her-news-photo/1024921794?adppopup=true">She favors streamlined suits and sheaths</a>, <a href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/senate-candidate-u-s-rep-martha-mcsally-speaks-during-her-news-photo/1024921794?adppopup=true">often in bold reds</a>, her hair much sleeker than in earlier campaigns. Because McSally’s dress shows no hint of her background, she may be sending the message that her military experience does not define her. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359579/original/file-20200923-23-12v66fd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="GOP Sen. Martha McSally in one of her streamlined suits." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359579/original/file-20200923-23-12v66fd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359579/original/file-20200923-23-12v66fd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359579/original/file-20200923-23-12v66fd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359579/original/file-20200923-23-12v66fd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359579/original/file-20200923-23-12v66fd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359579/original/file-20200923-23-12v66fd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359579/original/file-20200923-23-12v66fd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">GOP Sen. Martha McSally in one of her streamlined suits.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ArizonaElectionCongress/9543d55fbb5a4a808dd61d0496d95e2d/photo?Query=McSally&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:asc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=383&currentItemNo=21">Ross D. Franklin/AP</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Maine, Democratic Speaker of the Maine House of Representatives <a href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/speaker-of-the-house-sara-gideon-talks-to-a-reporter-at-her-news-photo/630961482?adppopup=true">Sara Gideon is often seen at work in double-stranded pearls</a> with a dress <a href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/speaker-of-the-house-sara-gideon-news-photo/630961476?adppopup=true">or a modern, tailored jacket</a>. Her campaign materials show her <a href="https://saragideon.com/meet-sara/">with her young family in casual jackets</a> – once in a Patagonia version, a gaffe in the home state of L.L. Bean. <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/sara-gideon-senate-democratic-candidate-from-l-l-bean-home-town-erases-logo-from-her-patagonia-jacket-in-campaign-video">She later removed the Patagonia logo from the photo</a>. Gideon’s relatable, chic-mom vibe suggests to voters that health care and education may be topics of actual conversation at her kitchen table rather than abstract policy issues. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359581/original/file-20200923-20-1tdeg0m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Photo of Sara Gideon in a casual jacket." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359581/original/file-20200923-20-1tdeg0m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359581/original/file-20200923-20-1tdeg0m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359581/original/file-20200923-20-1tdeg0m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359581/original/file-20200923-20-1tdeg0m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359581/original/file-20200923-20-1tdeg0m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359581/original/file-20200923-20-1tdeg0m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359581/original/file-20200923-20-1tdeg0m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Maine Democrat Sara Gideon, who’s challenging GOP Sen. Susan Collins, in a photo from her campaign website.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://saragideon.com/meet-sara/">Gideon campaign site</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Gideon faces incumbent Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican, who hails from Caribou, Maine, a city of 7,600, where her family founded a lumber business in 1844. <a href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/sen-joseph-lieberman-speaks-as-sen-susan-collins-listens-news-photo/108695788?adppopup=true">Collins wears suits in deep</a>, <a href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/sen-susan-collins-answers-questions-from-reporters-on-news-photo/1035060968?adppopup=true">saturated</a> <a href="https://www.susancollins.com/">colors</a>, <a href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/kara-dioguardi-and-honoree-senator-susan-collins-at-the-news-photo/665036582?adppopup=true">occasionally with a pop of pink</a>, and expensive coats of the sort not often seen in rural areas. Her style is that of a Washington insider, belying nothing of her background or Down East values. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359583/original/file-20200923-24-wvm0li.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Sen. Susan Collins in a marine blue suit." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359583/original/file-20200923-24-wvm0li.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359583/original/file-20200923-24-wvm0li.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359583/original/file-20200923-24-wvm0li.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359583/original/file-20200923-24-wvm0li.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359583/original/file-20200923-24-wvm0li.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359583/original/file-20200923-24-wvm0li.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359583/original/file-20200923-24-wvm0li.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sen. Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, in one of her strongly colored suits.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/sen-susan-collins-answers-questions-from-reporters-on-news-photo/1035060968?adppopup=true">Win McNamee/Getty</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Finally, contrast Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, with Democratic challenger Amy McGrath, battling for this Kentucky Senate seat. <a href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/senate-majority-leader-sen-mitch-mcconnell-arrives-at-the-u-news-photo/1199686075?adppopup=true">McConnell, on Capitol Hill since 1984, prefers dark, well-cut suits</a> and <a href="https://www.teammitch.com/">classic, jewel-toned</a> ties, <a href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/senate-majority-leader-sen-mitch-mcconnell-listens-during-a-news-photo/812747556?adppopup=true">often with a varsity stripe</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359584/original/file-20200923-24-5gos3n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, walking into a meeting." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359584/original/file-20200923-24-5gos3n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359584/original/file-20200923-24-5gos3n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359584/original/file-20200923-24-5gos3n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359584/original/file-20200923-24-5gos3n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359584/original/file-20200923-24-5gos3n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359584/original/file-20200923-24-5gos3n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359584/original/file-20200923-24-5gos3n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, looking like a senator in a well-tailored suit.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/senate-majority-leader-sen-mitch-mcconnell-arrives-at-the-u-news-photo/1199686075?adppopup=true">Alex Wong/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>McConnell’s expensive clothes make it clear how far he has come from his childhood in Alabama and Georgia, when his family “<a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wjqwe5/mitch-mcconnell-1990-campaign-ad-supported-affordable-healthcare-for-all">almost went broke</a>” dealing with the effects of his bout with polio. </p>
<p>McGrath is a former Marine fighter pilot and Afghanistan veteran. She favors <a href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/democratic-u-s-house-of-representatives-candidate-for-news-photo/1062322484?adppopup=true">open-collared shirts and flight jackets</a> and is <a href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/democratic-u-s-house-of-representatives-candidate-for-news-photo/1063039756?adppopup=true">often seen with her three young children</a>. <a href="https://amymcgrath.com/">Campaign images often feature her in military gear</a>, giving voters the impression that she has credibility to speak on foreign policy and veterans’ issues. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359587/original/file-20200923-16-9bie61.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Amy McGrath in a flight jacket and open-collared shirt." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359587/original/file-20200923-16-9bie61.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359587/original/file-20200923-16-9bie61.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359587/original/file-20200923-16-9bie61.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359587/original/file-20200923-16-9bie61.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359587/original/file-20200923-16-9bie61.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=613&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359587/original/file-20200923-16-9bie61.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=613&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359587/original/file-20200923-16-9bie61.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=613&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Amy McGrath, who’s challenging Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, is a veteran who often wears open-collared shirts and flight jackets.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://amymcgrath.com/latest-updates/">McGrath campaign website</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The straitjacket of incumbency</h2>
<p>Each challenger is able to present an image consistent with both their campaign platforms and their personal histories. Their clothing presents a fully elaborated identity statement – without saying a word. </p>
<p>In contrast, the incumbents’ almost uniform-like clothing gives voters little insight into either their personas or policy positions. Their tailored silhouettes indicate their membership in the political class, making individuation difficult. </p>
<p>Note <a href="https://www.teammitch.com/kentucky-tough/">that each</a> <a href="https://www.susancollins.com/meet_susan">incumbent’s</a> <a href="http://www.mcsallyforsenate.com/about/">campaign website</a> also focuses much more on their incumbency than discrete policy issues. </p>
<p>Incumbency creates an authenticity bind: Incumbents cannot project both their offices and themselves simultaneously. </p>
<p>This is perhaps most constraining in the U.S. Senate, where the rules of decorum are particularly strong. Most senators, <a href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/reps-kyrsten-sinema-d-ariz-and-trey-hollingsworth-r-ind-news-photo/980482484?adppopup=true">with the notable exception of Kyrsten Sinema</a>, stick to dark, serious suits and ties. Members of the House are allowed more idiosyncrasies – <a href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/rep-jim-jordan-arrives-for-an-impeachment-hearing-following-news-photo/1189177521?adppopup=true">think Jim Jordan’s</a> rejection of jackets <a href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-shoes-of-rep-matt-gaetz-r-fla-are-pictured-during-a-news-photo/1192554403?adppopup=true">or Matt Gaetz’s</a> colorful wing tips. </p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>But senators tend toward what sociologists call homophily, or flocking with similar others. The consequence: <a href="https://www.vogue.com/article/office-twinning-explained-by-science">They dress more alike over time</a>.</p>
<p>Incumbents’ sartorial constraints may appeal to voters who prefer a candidate with a demonstrable track record, but it gives precious little insight into the incumbent’s personal history or governing priorities. The ideal type to which these incumbents are authentic, therefore, is that of senator. </p>
<p>Clothes may not determine this year’s winners, but the authenticity concerns that made Pat Nixon’s coat a powerful image still play a critical role in politicians’ lives. To a large extent, the clothing makes the candidate – if not the incumbent.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/143321/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jo-Ellen Pozner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Clothing is a way for politicians to convey authenticity and to tell their story.
Jo-Ellen Pozner, Assistant Professor, Management and Entrepreneurship, Santa Clara University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/140210
2020-06-09T13:52:04Z
2020-06-09T13:52:04Z
Ethical clothes: shoppers are open to making the switch – retailers must seize the moment
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340587/original/file-20200609-21196-l7bkdv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/trash-that-piece-cloth-old-thrown-1671461014">Neenawat Khenyothaa</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Even before the pandemic, the UK fashion retail industry <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43240996">was struggling</a>. John Lewis, M&S and Debenhams had all announced losses, job cuts and store closures, while House of Fraser was taken over. Since lockdown, Oasis and Warehouse <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52285231">have entered administration</a>, and John Lewis <a href="https://www.theweek.co.uk/106801/will-john-lewis-close-some-stores-permanently">has said</a> that not all its stores will reopen. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43240996">One of the challenges</a> for these retailers is cut throat price competition from international rivals like Primark and H&M, and online retailers like Pretty Little Thing and Misguided. <a href="https://researchonline.gcu.ac.uk/en/publications/doing-it-for-the-kids-the-role-of-sustainability-in-family-consum">Low-price garments</a> became all the more attractive to consumers after their spending power was weakened by the financial crisis of 2007-09.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340591/original/file-20200609-21208-qvevi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340591/original/file-20200609-21208-qvevi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340591/original/file-20200609-21208-qvevi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340591/original/file-20200609-21208-qvevi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340591/original/file-20200609-21208-qvevi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340591/original/file-20200609-21208-qvevi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340591/original/file-20200609-21208-qvevi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340591/original/file-20200609-21208-qvevi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Look familiar?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/young-beautiful-women-weekly-cloth-market-204877840">View Apart</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This brought about the era of fast fashion – low quality clothes needing replaced more quickly, and consumers who see them as disposable. The price of these garments doesn’t reflect their true cost. It ignores both the workers who make them and the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2020/apr/07/fast-fashion-speeding-toward-environmental-disaster-report-warns">carbon footprint</a> from more production, more transportation and more landfill. </p>
<h2>Rays of hope</h2>
<p>At the turn of the year, there <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2020/jan/01/fashion-climate-sustainability-greta-thunberg-i-d-gucci-zero-emissions-carbon-neutral">was a feeling</a> that sustainability might be moving back up the agenda. A surge of consumer protests, led by Extinction Rebellion and Greta Thunberg, seemed to herald a public desire for change. To <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/fast-fashion-is-the-second-dirtiest-industry-in-the-world-next-to-big--1882083445.html">raise awareness</a> that fashion is the second-worst polluter after oil, Extinction Rebellion <a href="https://www.vogue.com/slideshow/extinction-rebellion-london-fashion-week-climate-change-protests">held a funeral</a> during London Fashion Week 2019. </p>
<p>It seemed possible that consumers might be galvanised to shop more sustainably – especially given the extreme weather conditions of 2019, and fears that there are <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change-un-report-greenhouse-gases-carbon-dioxide-methane-sea-level-rise-global-warming-a8646426.html">just ten years left</a> to halt the irreversible consequences of climate change. </p>
<p>Then came the pandemic. With many high street shops forced to suspend trading, the whole industry has been in flux. Brands like Primark and Matalan have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2020/mar/27/put-earth-first-can-a-greener-fairer-fashion-industry-emerge-from-crisis">cancelled or suspended</a> orders in places like Bangladesh, causing some factories <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/apr/02/fashion-brands-cancellations-of-24bn-orders-catastrophic-for-bangladesh">to close</a>. There may have been <a href="https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200422-how-has-coronavirus-helped-the-environment">big environmental benefits</a> from the world at a standstill, but it will be little consolation to garment workers who are furloughed or jobless. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340594/original/file-20200609-21238-1on56vl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340594/original/file-20200609-21238-1on56vl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340594/original/file-20200609-21238-1on56vl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340594/original/file-20200609-21238-1on56vl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340594/original/file-20200609-21238-1on56vl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340594/original/file-20200609-21238-1on56vl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340594/original/file-20200609-21238-1on56vl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340594/original/file-20200609-21238-1on56vl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Not at work: Bangladeshi garment workers in 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/young-beautiful-women-weekly-cloth-market-204877840">Zabed Hasnain Chowdhury</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yet amidst <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/healthcare-systems-and-services/our-insights/beyond-coronavirus-the-path-to-the-next-normal">all this upheaval</a>, there is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2020/mar/27/put-earth-first-can-a-greener-fairer-fashion-industry-emerge-from-crisis">an opportunity</a> for the fashion industry – both to help these workers and more broadly to put sustainability at the heart of their business. </p>
<p>The decisions by fashion retailers like <a href="https://www.theindustry.fashion/burberry-retools-factory-to-make-non-surgical-gowns-and-masks-and-funds-vaccine-research/">Burberry</a> and <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/fashion-industry-masks-protective-equipment-covid-19/index.html">Prada</a> to divert into making medical gowns and masks for healthcare workers are a good starting point. If companies can make positive changes to help manage coronavirus, they can also address fast fashion. </p>
<p>If, for example, companies paid garment workers the <a href="https://labourbehindthelabel.org/our-work/faqs/#1441884831979-53ad6cf0-86251441886042060">living wage</a> for their part of the world, they could use it in their marketing to garner a competitive advantage. Paying a living wage <a href="https://thefableists.wordpress.com/2014/04/03/tailored-wages-new-report-investigates-clothing-brands-work-on-living-wages/">doesn’t significantly increase</a> the cost of garments. </p>
<p>Take the example of a T-shirt with a retail price of £29, for which the worker receives 0.6% or 18p. If that was doubled to 36p, it would not increase the overall price by very much. Paying a living wage <a href="https://labourbehindthelabel.org/our-work/faqs/#1441884831979-53ad6cf0-86251441886042060">should enable workers</a> in developing countries to afford nutritious food, clean water, shelter, clothes, education, healthcare and transport, while leaving some left over. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340150/original/file-20200605-176595-iqf8so.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340150/original/file-20200605-176595-iqf8so.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340150/original/file-20200605-176595-iqf8so.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=310&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340150/original/file-20200605-176595-iqf8so.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=310&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340150/original/file-20200605-176595-iqf8so.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=310&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340150/original/file-20200605-176595-iqf8so.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340150/original/file-20200605-176595-iqf8so.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340150/original/file-20200605-176595-iqf8so.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One fashion entrepreneur that has developed a different way of helping garment workers during the pandemic is Edinburgh-based Cally Russell. He set up the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2020/may/30/lost-stock-its-like-buying-your-future-self-a-present">Lost Stock initiative</a>, which sells the garments from orders cancelled by UK fashion retailers by purchasing garments directly from manufacturers in Bangladesh. </p>
<p><a href="https://loststock.com/pages/costs">A Lost Stock box</a> of clothes costs £39. Almost a third is donated to the Sajida Foundation, which is giving food and hygiene parcels to Bangladeshis struggling during the pandemic. For maximum transparency, Lost Stock also provides a price breakdown that outlines the costs to the manufacturer, the charity and the initiative itself. </p>
<h2>Cool to care</h2>
<p>Another tactic that fashion marketers could use is to encourage in consumers a similar cool-to-care ethos to that brought out by the pandemic – as seen with the UK’s weekly clapping for key workers, for example. Business in numerous sectors are already focusing their marketing message on supporting NHS workers to capitalise on this spirit of collective solidarity. </p>
<p>Fashion marketers could channel people’s desire for self-gratification towards buying clothes that contribute to the social good. My <a href="https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/QMR-09-2019-0113/full/html">research illustrates</a> the discomfort consumers experience when aware of allegations of both garment-worker and environmental exploitation, so it should be possible for marketers to benefit from doing the reverse. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.toms.com/">TOMS (Tomorrow’s Shoes)</a> is an example of a fashion business with giving at the core of its strategy: for every pair of shoes sold, a pair is donated to a child in need. Since 2006, 100 million pairs of shoes have been donated, and TOMS <a href="https://www.toms.com/about-toms">has since branched</a> into areas like eyewear. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340597/original/file-20200609-21219-113nxm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340597/original/file-20200609-21219-113nxm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340597/original/file-20200609-21219-113nxm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340597/original/file-20200609-21219-113nxm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340597/original/file-20200609-21219-113nxm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340597/original/file-20200609-21219-113nxm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340597/original/file-20200609-21219-113nxm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340597/original/file-20200609-21219-113nxm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The TOMS example.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/delcambre-l-usa-may-08-2019-1396800245">ccpixx photography</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Another example is <a href="https://snagtights.com/pages/our-philosophy#:%7E:text=Sustainable,first%20fully%20bio%2Ddegradable%20tights.">Snag Tights</a>, which is supporting NHS frontline workers with a free pair of tights for every order placed. The company markets its tights as vegan friendly and free of plastic packaging, and is trying to develop the world’s first fully bio-degradable tights. </p>
<h2>Swaps and seconds</h2>
<p>One other trend that should definitely be encouraged is initiatives that expand the lifecycle of fashion and textiles. <a href="https://www.stylus.com/hmzhcg">London Fashion Week hosted</a> a fashion swap shop in February for the first time. Similarly, the flagship Selfridges store on London’s Oxford Street <a href="https://www.retail-week.com/fashion/selfridges-opens-second-hand-clothing-boutique/7033360.article?authent=1">began selling</a> second-hand luxury fashion and high-end brands with resale site <a href="https://www.vestiairecollective.com/">Vestiaire Collective</a> in 2019. </p>
<p>There has also <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2018/dec/22/fashion-libraries-ethical-clothing-borrowing">been a rise</a> in fashion libraries that rent fashion garments and accessories, allowing consumers affordable access to higher quality and luxury items. Fashion retailers could move in this direction, while also supporting customers by hosting workshops for upcycling garments into something new. </p>
<p>In sum, the fashion industry should take advantage of the pandemic pause and the current mood to show constructive leadership to the global economy. It should use its power to help change our relationship with clothing into something more equal and sustainable for the long term.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140210/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elaine L Ritch does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Coronavirus has shifted the mood in society, and the fashion industry should strike while the iron is hot.
Elaine L Ritch, Senior Lecturer in Marketing, Glasgow Caledonian University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/130573
2020-03-06T13:02:26Z
2020-03-06T13:02:26Z
How women dress for other women
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318740/original/file-20200304-66060-1ldl3ss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C337%2C4671%2C3349&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Wardrobe choices can be part of a delicate social dance.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/two-women-dancing-outside-100085954">Everett Collection/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“If you can’t be better than your competition,” Vogue editor <a href="https://www.biography.com/media-figure/anna-wintour">Anna Wintour</a> <a href="https://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/anna-wintour-job-interview-fashion-advice.html">once said</a>, “just dress better.” </p>
<p>Indeed, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1948550619882028">our research</a> suggests that women don’t just dress to be fashionable, or to outdo one another when it comes to enticing men. They also dress for other women. </p>
<p>But Wintour’s quote misses some of the nuances that go into the outfits women choose with female friends, co-workers and acquaintances in mind. It’s not just about dressing better. In fact, my colleagues and I found that women can be motivated by another factor: avoiding the slings and arrows of other women.</p>
<h2>The psychology of women’s wardrobes</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.kremslab.com/">My social psychology lab</a> explores how women navigate their social relationships with other women. With my co-authors, Oklahoma State graduate student Ashley M. Rankin and Arizona State University graduate student Stefanie Northover, I recently studied what goes into women’s fashion choices.</p>
<p>Of course, both men and women consider a variety of concerns when selecting their outfits: cost, fit, occasion. </p>
<p>Existing psychological research on women’s clothing choices tends to center on how women dress for men – the <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2012-13781-001">makeup</a>, <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01875/full">shoes</a> and <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002210311200203X">colors</a> they select <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jcr/article/37/6/921/1868588">to impress the opposite sex</a>. </p>
<p>But we posed a different question: How might women dress for other women?</p>
<p>For over a century, psychologists have been interested in competition between men. Only over the past few decades have researchers started to seriously look into how women <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199376377.001.0001">actively compete with one another</a>.</p>
<p>The competition isn’t necessarily nice. Like men who compete with one another, <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.2013.0079">women can be aggressive</a> toward other women they’re competing with. But it’s rarely the physical kind. Instead, social scientists like <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0956797611402511">Joyce Benenson</a>, <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/1098-2337%281994%2920%3A1%3C27%3A%3AAID-AB2480200105%3E3.0.CO%3B2-Q">Kaj Bjorkqvist</a> and <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1090513805000942">Nicole Hess</a> have shown that women are more prone to rely on social exclusion and reputation-damaging gossip. </p>
<p>So we wondered: Do women ever dress defensively – to mitigate the chance that other women might go after them?</p>
<p>We know that women who are <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ab.20252">physically attractive</a> and who wear revealing clothing are more likely to be targets of same-sex aggression. For example, psychologists Tracy Vaillancourt and Aanchal Sharma <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ab.20413">found</a> that women behaved more aggressively toward an attractive woman when she was dressed in a short skirt and low-cut shirt than when that exact same woman wore khakis and a crewneck. </p>
<p>We reasoned that women would be aware of this dynamic – and some would try to avoid it. So we tested this theory <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1948550619882028">in a series of experiments</a>.</p>
<h2>Dressing defensively</h2>
<p>First, we studied whether people would expect women to be aggressive toward attractive, scantily clad women. </p>
<p>We asked 142 people to read a scenario about two women, Carol and Sara, who met for coffee after connecting on a friend-finder app that was like Tinder, but for platonic relationships. We asked the participants how they thought Carol would treat Sara during an otherwise uneventful coffee date. Although the scenarios were the same, some people saw a photo of Sara that depicted her as an attractive woman wearing khakis and a crewneck; others saw a photo of her wearing a low-cut shirt and short-skirt; and a third group saw her in the more revealing outfit, but the image had been photoshopped to make her look less physically attractive. </p>
<p>We found that when Sara was attractive and revealingly dressed, people expected Carol would be meaner to Sara. </p>
<p>We then wanted to see whether women would also act on the awareness of this dynamic, so we ran a series of experiments with college-aged and adult women from the U.S.</p>
<p>For a set of two studies, we instructed female participants to imagine that they were going to meet new people in a professional setting, like a networking event, or at a social gathering, such as a birthday party. They were also told to imagine the event as either single-sex or mixed-sex. </p>
<p>In the first, we asked women to draw their ideal outfits for those events, and we later had undergraduate research assistants measure how much skin was revealed. In the second, we asked women to choose outfits from a menu of options – akin to shopping for clothes online. Each of the possible outfits had been rated for modesty by a separate set of participants. </p>
<p>In both studies, women chose more revealing outfits for social events than professional ones. This wasn’t surprising. But interestingly, women chose less revealing outfits to meet up with an all-female group – regardless of whether it was a professional or social setting. </p>
<p>But wouldn’t the more revealing clothing in mixed-group settings simply reflect their desire to attract men?</p>
<p>Not exactly. Not all women dressed the same for other women. The women who rated themselves as more physically attractive were the ones who chose more modest outfits when meeting up with a group of women. This supports the idea that they were dressing defensively – to avoid bringing attention to themselves and being targeted by the other women. </p>
<p>Because same-sex aggression is more likely to come from <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/behavioral-and-brain-sciences/article/dominating-versus-eliminating-the-competition-sex-differences-in-human-intrasexual-aggression/620855F9C921ABDB13F463277AA5ADCB">strangers than friends</a>, in our final experiment we asked 293 young women, aged 18 to 40, what they would wear to meet up with a prospective female friend. Again, we found that more physically attractive women indicated that they would dress with more discretion.</p>
<p>Together, these findings show that women don’t always dress to impress. Nor do they dress to aggress. Instead, there’s a more subtle social dance taking place – one that involves humility, hesitance and heightened awareness.</p>
<p>[<em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130573/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jaimie Arona Krems does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Recent research explores how women ‘dress defensively’ to avoid the aggression of other women.
Jaimie Arona Krems, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Oklahoma State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/109854
2019-03-21T15:58:47Z
2019-03-21T15:58:47Z
Six simple ways to fill your wardrobe with sustainable clothing
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255615/original/file-20190125-108342-1arvkem.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/young-multiracial-couple-having-fun-clothing-1017455884?src=Vj3q1EHVdGv2l6pdKiOniQ-1-2">View Apart/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The environmental impact of fashion waste is overwhelming. Every year the UK alone sends <a href="http://www.wrap.org.uk/sites/files/wrap/VoC%20FINAL%20online%202012%2007%2011.pdf">350,000 tonnes of clothing to landfill</a>. And as the majority of garments are made from <a href="https://goodonyou.eco/material-guide-polyester-2/">oil-based materials like polyester</a> – 22.67 billion tonnes of polyester clothing is produced every year worldwide – they aren’t going anywhere fast. Oil doesn’t decompose, and if burned the material will release harmful chemicals into the atmosphere. There are also problems associated with trimmings such as buttons, zips, studs and interfacing or lining. When buried with other waste in landfill, the combination of metal components, moisture and heat causes <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/2016/09/09/old-clothes-fashion-waste-crisis-494824.html">gases such as methane</a> to be emitted. </p>
<p>In response to this, and other elements of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLfNUD0-8ts">fast fashion crisis</a>, the industry is changing.
Some brands have <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47282136">introduced recycling schemes</a> to address what happens to their products post-purchase. And the UK’s Environmental Audit Committee <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/throwaway-fashion-charge-recycling-environment-sustainability-mary-creagh-a8784666.html">recently recommended a penny charge</a> on each garment sold to fund more and better clothing collection and recycling schemes.</p>
<p>But while the push for a more sustainable fashion market is in its early days, we as individuals can still make easy choices right now to have a more environmentally-friendly style. Here are six simple ways to create a wardrobe filled with more sustainable clothing.</p>
<h2>1. Reeducate yourself</h2>
<p>Don’t bury your head in the sand. Buying cheaply-made fast fashion can only mean that prices have been driven down hard. The smallest cost paid will be <a href="https://qz.com/1186813/top-fashion-ceos-earn-a-garment-workers-lifetime-pay-in-just-four-days-oxfam-says/">to the factory worker who stitched your clothes</a>. Seek out your favourite stores’ websites for their corporate social responsibility statements. This explains what are they doing for sustainability, and will help you decide whether it is a business you want to support. If their aims are unclear, take action – write to the head office and ask for change. It might be that you’re adding another voice to a group of concerns, or it could help them see something that they have missed.</p>
<h2>2. Buy for longevity</h2>
<p>Even if you’re a firm follower of the latest trends, you can still implement this advice. When looking at new pieces, be confident in your own style and ask yourself whether you will want to wear the piece again in six months’ time. If you believe it will last for quite some time in your fashion forward wardrobe then go ahead and buy it. Similarly, consider whether you can mix it with things you already have – there’s no use buying a new top if you don’t think it will go with anything else you own already.</p>
<h2>3. Restyle your wardrobe</h2>
<p>You might feel like you have nothing to wear but a fresh look at what you already own can help you see things in a new light. Try asking friends how they’d pair your garments in different ways, or use magazines and social media for inspiration. You don’t have to buy exactly the same outfit as you see modelled elsewhere. Figure out what you like best from that style – perhaps it’s the combination of colour or prints – and see how you can imitate it using what you own.</p>
<h2>4. Repair any damage</h2>
<p>You don’t need to be a professional tailor to fix any damage to clothes. An unattached seam or button that has fallen off can be easily sorted out. If you don’t know where to start, there are plenty of YouTube tutorials for beginners which will tell you exactly what you need to do. It’s not expensive to buy a needle and thread either. If it’s something more complicated, find a seamstress or ask someone you know for help. The cost likely won’t be as great as it would be if you were to throw the piece away and buy a new one.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/oHDDhUzIXPY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>5. Shop vintage or charity</h2>
<p>Buying secondhand returns some value to the first owner, or provides a charity retailer with revenue. So long as you’re purchasing a secondhand garment instead of a new item, significant environmental savings will also be made, as no extra production or processing has been done for you to have a new item. Value is also retained within the economy rather than lost to landfill through this circular way of doing business. You don’t even need to venture out to the shops to buy secondhand. Apps and websites like <a href="https://www.depop.com/">Depop</a> and <a href="https://www.ebay.co.uk/">eBay</a> are popular with individual sellers while charities including <a href="https://www.oxfam.org.uk/shop/womens-clothing/designer-boutique">Oxfam boutique</a> and <a href="https://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/cancerresearchukshop">Cancer Research UK</a> also sell clothes and accessories online.</p>
<h2>6. Buy locally</h2>
<p>Buying locally means that the manufacture and supply chain is drastically cut down. Quite often the maker or seller will be able to tell you how the item has been made and where the materials have been sourced from. Added to that is the fact that you are supporting the local economy, and a business owner who wants to make just as much of a change in the fashion world as you do.</p>
<p>Clothing manufacture and sale is the <a href="http://www.wrap.org.uk/sites/files/wrap/valuing-our-clothes-the-cost-of-uk-fashion_WRAP.pdf">fourth largest pressure on natural resources</a> after housing, transport and food in the UK. Whatever your budget, it’s not too difficult to consider new ways of changing the way you value clothes, leading to a more sustainable fashion lifestyle.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/109854/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Lees is affiliated with Greenpeace.</span></em></p>
Making more sustainable fashion choices doesn’t require a massive lifestyle change.
Sarah Lees, Lecturer in Fashion Marketing and Retail Design, University of South Wales
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/112137
2019-03-07T19:05:27Z
2019-03-07T19:05:27Z
New home, new clothes: the old ones no longer fit once you move to the country
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262089/original/file-20190305-48426-124nxz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">City clothes mark the wearer as being out of place in the country.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/business-woman-walk-on-green-grass-645908878?src=tkw6wz5XcwKCnMiM1kuEmw-1-26">S_oleg/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>What happens if you decide to jump in, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006vb2f">Escape to the Country</a>-style, and flee the city rat race?</p>
<p>Well, for a start, <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-moving-house-changes-you-109225">your identity begins to change</a> in response to the new place around you. This change happens inside you, but is also reflected in the objects you surround and clothe yourself with. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-moving-house-changes-you-109225">How moving house changes you</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>My recent research looked at the stories of two women who moved from the city to the country and published books about their experiences. Hilary Burden moved from London to rural Tasmania and wrote about it in <a href="https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/books/general-books/biography-autobiography/A-Story-of-Seven-Summers-Hilary-Burden-9781742376844">A Story of Seven Summers</a>. Margaret Roach, author of <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8218719-and-i-shall-have-some-peace-there">And I Shall Have Some Peace There</a>, moved from New York City to rural upstate New York. The two women tell the story of their moves, but at the same time, they narrate a journey of changing identity that is shared with others through the clothes they wear.</p>
<p>In memoirs such as these, the authors interpret the events they write about, but so does the reader, who brings their own understandings to their imagined experience. This allows readers to imagine a new way of living too, through the pages of the book. Through this, they might <a href="https://theconversation.com/imagining-your-own-seachange-how-media-inspire-our-great-escapes-105207">imagine their own SeaChange</a>. </p>
<h2>Clothes are part of our identity</h2>
<p>When people get dressed each day, they let others know who they are, or who they think they are, in an identity-sharing performance. The clothes the authors discuss in the pages of their memoirs effectively map how their identity changed and how they shared this change with the people around them by wearing different styles of clothes from the ones they wore before. These items combine to produce a narrative that lets others understand those around them more clearly.</p>
<p>Most of the time people are not even aware that they are doing this. They just pick and choose the things they like from the vast array of options open to them. </p>
<p>Sometimes, however, it becomes clear that the clothes that once worked for a person just do not “fit” any more. This can happen in the process of life transformation, including moving from the city to the country the way these women did.</p>
<p>Roach had experienced a long and successful career at Martha Stewart Omnimedia. She knew how to dress for her professional role and had confidence in sharing her wealth and status through the expensive suits she bought. When she moved to the country, however, she could not dress in the same way. With her career behind her, she asked herself: “Who am I if I am not mroach@marthastewart dot com any longer?” </p>
<h2>Unsure, and in pyjamas</h2>
<p>This lack of clarity about her evolving identity is shown in the pyjamas she starts to wear during the day. Far from familiar terrain, and experiencing a state of flux and transition, Roach finds it simpler just to remain in her nightclothes and not have to figure out her new identity via the clothes she wears. Understanding this dilemma, Roach describes how her old way of living no longer fits her new self:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>…like the wardrobe hanging in my closet, a vestige of a life left behind, it just doesn’t resemble me any longer.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>She talks about how her clothes no longer fit, mentally or visually, with her new life in the country. With real insight, she writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The outside packaging … has to match what’s going on inside of me.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This understanding enables her to finally reconcile who she is to where she now lives. Once she negotiates this process, she is able to manage the transition of her clothing and visual identity to what works in her new country home. </p>
<p>Burden’s move across oceans starts a similar journey. She writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I knew I wanted to shed the stuff I associated with cities: suits … dressing up, being very important or busy or loud. </p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262093/original/file-20190305-48444-1o84fep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262093/original/file-20190305-48444-1o84fep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262093/original/file-20190305-48444-1o84fep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=613&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262093/original/file-20190305-48444-1o84fep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=613&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262093/original/file-20190305-48444-1o84fep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=613&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262093/original/file-20190305-48444-1o84fep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=770&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262093/original/file-20190305-48444-1o84fep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=770&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262093/original/file-20190305-48444-1o84fep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=770&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Country clothing is both more practical and an expression of identity.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/modern-female-farmer-working-chicken-687840004?src=BL5qV6Ld8oDnAtW71P9OpQ-2-96">bernatets photo/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These had once enabled her to present and perform her class identity and status to others, but they no longer suited her work outside at a farmers’ market in rural Tasmania. Her clothes needed to fit the time and place she lived in, but she found they did not. These old clothes end up in garbage bags on a journey to the op shop, and Burden adapts to share her new identity through her clothes.</p>
<p>These memoirs offer a glimpse into lives and identities within the imaginative space they create, permitting identity to be shared through language and text. They show how moving to the country impacts identity, and how these people need to work through this process of change to adapt to their new life and feel comfortable in their new location. </p>
<p>Next time you contemplate moving to the country, just be sure to factor in the cost of a whole new wardrobe!</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112137/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachael Wallis received funding for this project from the Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship </span></em></p>
Your identity changes when you move house and, if that’s to a different community, your clothes change along with you.
Rachael Wallis, Lecturer and Research Fellow, University of Southern Queensland
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/96532
2018-05-20T19:49:57Z
2018-05-20T19:49:57Z
Why women keep turning to the Middle Ages for liberation from stifling fashions
<p>The Middle Ages might seem the last place feminists would go to seek inspiration. But from around the 1850s advocates for dress reform in the English-speaking world and Germany called for a return to the silhouettes of the classical and medieval world.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219316/original/file-20180517-155569-142y1m6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219316/original/file-20180517-155569-142y1m6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219316/original/file-20180517-155569-142y1m6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=839&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219316/original/file-20180517-155569-142y1m6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=839&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219316/original/file-20180517-155569-142y1m6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=839&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219316/original/file-20180517-155569-142y1m6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1055&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219316/original/file-20180517-155569-142y1m6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1055&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219316/original/file-20180517-155569-142y1m6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1055&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A dress made circa 1984 by designer
Liberty & Co. Ltd.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Victoria and Albert Museum</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In doing so they began a feminist tradition that continues today. We saw this most recently at the Met Gala where stars donned fashion inspired by the Roman Catholic Church’s long heyday from the year 500 to 1550, including Rihanna’s glittering papal mitre and cloak. It was hard to miss the pointed irreverence of Rihanna assuming (and sexing up) the supreme mantle of an institution in which women can’t hold office. Coming at a time when campaigns against sexual harassment are sweeping the entertainment industry, the theme was surprisingly pertinent. </p>
<p>Aesthete and feminist Mary Eliza Haweis’s admired treatise <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_Art_of_Dress.html?id=HmrCQAAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">The Art of Dress</a> (1880) and Anna Muthesius’s <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=Xri_QwAACAAJ&redir_esc=y"><em>Das Eigenkleid der Frau</em></a> (Women’s Own Dress, 1903) were among those manifestos urging women to shed their restrictive corsets and embrace the more natural “antique waist” of pre-Elizabethan times. These free-waisted shifts, produced by firms like Liberty of London, shared with garments such as bloomers and divided skirts the practical aim of increasing women’s physical emancipation and social mobility. Their recourse to old styles was firmly in the name of New Womanhood.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219315/original/file-20180517-155569-k1f1un.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219315/original/file-20180517-155569-k1f1un.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219315/original/file-20180517-155569-k1f1un.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=872&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219315/original/file-20180517-155569-k1f1un.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=872&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219315/original/file-20180517-155569-k1f1un.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=872&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219315/original/file-20180517-155569-k1f1un.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1096&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219315/original/file-20180517-155569-k1f1un.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1096&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219315/original/file-20180517-155569-k1f1un.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1096&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A tea dress made around 1900.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Victoria and Albert Museum</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Women who adopted this dress were, predictably, ridiculed in conservative quarters. The cartoons in <a href="http://www.artnet.com/artists/george-du-maurier/frustrated-social-ambition-collapse-of-dUBtSDkx0WCskmdsUa9M5w2">Punch magazine by George du Maurier</a> depict “Aesthetic” women as decadent jut-jawed poseurs in their juliet sleeves (a long sleeve with a puff at the top), grotesque parodies of the painter William Morris’s wife and muse Jane, who epitomised this style. Despite the criticism, the Aesthetic style of first-wave dress reform returned in the years associated with the sexual revolution and the rise of second-wave feminism. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219337/original/file-20180517-155573-16wz7c0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219337/original/file-20180517-155573-16wz7c0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219337/original/file-20180517-155573-16wz7c0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219337/original/file-20180517-155573-16wz7c0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219337/original/file-20180517-155573-16wz7c0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219337/original/file-20180517-155573-16wz7c0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219337/original/file-20180517-155573-16wz7c0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219337/original/file-20180517-155573-16wz7c0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 1970 gown designed by Biba.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Victoria and Albert Museum, London</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the <a href="http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O365709/evening-coat-and-biba/">1960s and ’70s, fashion labels</a> such as Biba created maxi-dresses that reworked the flowing skirts and trumpet sleeves of the medieval bliaut (a gown with sleeves hanging to the floor) as it had been interpreted by 19th-century dress reformers. While Biba’s Swinging London aesthetic and commercialism didn’t win favour among radical and Marxist feminists, its sexually libertarian ethos grants it a place in this feminist story.</p>
<h2>From battlefield to runway</h2>
<p>Joan of Arc has offered an alternative medieval style since the earliest days of modern feminism. Lauded in literature, art and theatre as the apex of female heroism, her enduring legacy in women’s fashion comes from her <a href="https://www.thecut.com/2013/03/29-of-the-best-bob-haircuts-in-history/slideshow/2013/03/12/best_bobs/">iconic cropped hair</a>, which inspired the bobbed haircut that freed women of their encumbering Edwardian coiffures in the early 20th century. First introduced in France in 1909, the year of Joan’s beatification, and called the <em>coupe à la Jeanne d’Arc</em>, this haircut later became synonymous with the emancipated flappers of the Jazz Age.</p>
<p>Unlike the flowing gowns that influenced the Dress Reformers, Joan’s armour has not inspired everyday fashions for women. But her distinctive style of martial gamine has led <a href="https://agnautacouture.com/2016/01/31/joan-of-arc-inspires-because-shes-a-symbol-of-heroism-and-strength/">haute couture designers</a>, including Paco Rabanne, Christian Dior and Alexander McQueen, to create Joan of Arc-inspired lines and runway shows.</p>
<p>Photographer Annie Liebovitz channelled centuries of Joan iconography when she <a href="http://www.famousfix.com/topic/vanity-fair-magazine-united-states-february-1996">photographed actress Emma Thompson</a>, an avowed feminist, in mailshirt and armour for the February 1996 cover of Vanity Fair. The ranks of Joans on the red carpet at the recent Met Gala might, however, have had had a more immediate source in Game of Thrones’s conspicuously Joan-like <a href="https://www.google.com.au/search?q=brienne+of+tarth&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ve%20d=0ahUKEwj14Mbm84PbAhVC6LwKHcY_BqYQ_AUICigB&biw=1024&bih=506#imgrc=Twom7%20vY812RJvM">Brienne of Tarth</a> or even <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/game-of-thrones-season-7-episode-6-cersei-hair-short-fan-theory-spoilers-leak-how-to-watch-a7901866.html">Cersei Lannister</a>, whose look has morphed from flowing-tressed sylph to crop-haired general. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219339/original/file-20180517-155594-ddaa1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219339/original/file-20180517-155594-ddaa1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219339/original/file-20180517-155594-ddaa1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219339/original/file-20180517-155594-ddaa1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219339/original/file-20180517-155594-ddaa1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219339/original/file-20180517-155594-ddaa1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219339/original/file-20180517-155594-ddaa1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219339/original/file-20180517-155594-ddaa1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In later seasons of Game of Thrones, Cersei Lannister’s look has owed more to Joan of Arc.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">IMDB</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One particularly welcome development at the Met Gala was seeing the mail coif associated with Joan adopted by women of colour such as <a href="http://www.bollywoodlife.com/news-gossip/video-heres-why-priyanka-chopra-will-not-wear-her-met-gala-2018-outfit-to-meghan-markles-royal-wedding/">Priyanka Chopra</a> and <a href="https://mic.com/articles/189264/zendaya-serves-major-joan-of-arc-vibes-at-the-2018-met-gala#.mjqf3V6gz">Zendaya</a>. This move distanced the saint from her recent nationalist and racist recruitment by <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/the-600-year-struggle-for-the-soul-of-%20joan-of-arc-6284992.html">Marine Le Pen of France’s Front National </a> and reclaimed her as an icon of ferocity for all women.</p>
<p>In many ways Joan was an exceptional figure, a warrior among wives. Yet she is also inseparable from the Catholic Middle Ages, the culture that both enabled her remarkable ascent and ensured her violent demise. </p>
<p>She is symbolic of a woman who fights, but also warns us that a woman standing alone can founder at the impenetrable walls of masculine power. That’s why an army of Joans is needed, to expose and defeat the misogyny that has persisted for too many centuries.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96532/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Louise D'Arcens receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>
In the 1850s, the women’s dress reform movement advocated for a return to medieval design. The practice continues today.
Louise D'Arcens, Professor of English, Macquarie University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/96023
2018-05-07T20:13:20Z
2018-05-07T20:13:20Z
From ‘macaronis’ to mohawks, men’s fashion has always been political
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217901/original/file-20180507-166881-1yd2ba8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Despite the myth that men don't care about clothes, men's fashion has been surprisingly political over the past 300 years. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ryan Hernandez.</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Is men’s fashion political? The answer is a resounding yes. Despite the often repeated myth that men don’t care much about their appearances, men’s fashion has for centuries responded to politics and also been part of dynamic social change.</p>
<p>Let’s consider the past 300 years, the subject of a new exhibition at the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, <a href="https://maas.museum/event/reigning-men-fashion-in-menswear-1715-2015/">Reigning Men: Fashion in Menswear 1715-2015</a>. Originating from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the show is the largest ever assembled. But it’s more than a matter of size.</p>
<p>The title of the exhibition nods to both hierarchical order in the period before industrialisation as well as the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqXUpe3jlkA">popular culture and music</a> that defines fashion today. Three hundred years ago the suit began to be worn by well to do gentlemen in polite company and the professions. It had knee breeches and a waistcoat of silk or satin. But the suit could also be worn with a twist. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-story-of-the-top-hat-26215">The story of ... the top hat</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217903/original/file-20180507-166910-vne1fh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217903/original/file-20180507-166910-vne1fh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217903/original/file-20180507-166910-vne1fh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217903/original/file-20180507-166910-vne1fh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217903/original/file-20180507-166910-vne1fh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217903/original/file-20180507-166910-vne1fh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1098&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217903/original/file-20180507-166910-vne1fh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1098&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217903/original/file-20180507-166910-vne1fh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1098&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An ensemble typical of a ‘macaroni’, including suit (Venice, circa 1770), waistcoat (Venice, circa 1770), and sword (France, late-18th century)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Museum associates/LACMA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The “macaronis” – cosmopolitan men of the 1760s-80s, some of who had been on the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Tour">Grand Tour</a> to Italy via France (the traditional 18th century “gap year” for young men), wore very short suits in clashing colours such as pink and green, as well as high heels and tiny hats. They peered through spy glasses and took snuff from a box. Their style was deliberately expensive and wasteful and thumbed its nose at conservative Whig authority. The famous botanist Sir Joseph Banks, who travelled to Australia with Cook, was called “the Fly Catching Macaroni”. His voracious collecting and youthful fashion affiliation came back to haunt him when enemies in the Royal Society questioned his scientific credentials.</p>
<p>Fabric itself had a political charge. Silk had been the most sought after cloth since the Middle Ages. The Italians had made it since the 11th century and the French from the 16th. The British and later the Americans relied largely on imports. This meant that woollens and fine worsteds dominated the English speaking world while silk was synonymous with luxury from abroad. Imported cotton was banned in England until 1774 to protect local linen and silk industries. Wearing cloth and fashionable clothes from overseas was a political statement, and they were often smuggled. Some men had their clothes burned at customs.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217906/original/file-20180507-166897-mfv4rp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217906/original/file-20180507-166897-mfv4rp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217906/original/file-20180507-166897-mfv4rp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=796&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217906/original/file-20180507-166897-mfv4rp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=796&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217906/original/file-20180507-166897-mfv4rp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=796&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217906/original/file-20180507-166897-mfv4rp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1001&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217906/original/file-20180507-166897-mfv4rp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1001&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217906/original/file-20180507-166897-mfv4rp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1001&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Detail from a coat (France, circa 1800).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Museum associates/LACMA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Militarism and colonialism from the 16th century also spread the look of the uniform. Military dress was made of woollens and it had to be suitable for riding a horse. British suiting was considered the best due to its fine cuts. Wool can be steamed and heated to make a very fitted shape. Hence tailoring in wool rather than working with embroidery and other decoration became the most desired thing in men’s clothes. </p>
<p>The prestige of military dress meant that when Japan literally opened up to the West in the 1860s, the state mandated that all the ruling class and elites, including school boys, wear “modern” western dress. Like wearing leather shoes, it was a sign of civilisation and the women and girls were left with “traditional” dress.</p>
<h2>The fashions of France</h2>
<p>Men’s fashion was steeped in politics through and through during the French Revolution. Wearing the silk and satin of the old order was downright dangerous. Before the Revolution only sailors, river men and a few workers wore trousers – hence the famous expression “sans culotte” – without knee breeches. To protect themselves from the mob the elites wore short cut-off jackets, some denim (a cotton originally from Nîmes – “<em>de Nîmes</em>”) and the broad cotton stripes associated with working people and cheap textile weaves.</p>
<p>Wigs also fell out of fashion virtually overnight as did hair powder. Young men called the “Incroyables” roamed the street pronouncing “<em>Incroyable!</em>” (incredible) in exaggerated speech. Their chamois leather leggings were so tight it was claimed they had to be lowered into them. They wore boots or laced shoes, the latter being a new fashion that once was considered for women only (men’s shoes had buckles before).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217905/original/file-20180507-166877-14xwtkw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217905/original/file-20180507-166877-14xwtkw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217905/original/file-20180507-166877-14xwtkw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=779&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217905/original/file-20180507-166877-14xwtkw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=779&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217905/original/file-20180507-166877-14xwtkw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=779&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217905/original/file-20180507-166877-14xwtkw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=979&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217905/original/file-20180507-166877-14xwtkw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=979&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217905/original/file-20180507-166877-14xwtkw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=979&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A typical ‘Incroyable’ ensemble (France, 1790s)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Museum associates/LACMA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>They cut the hair at the nape of the neck and pulled it up like the Iriquois Nations (often called “Mohawks” at the time), who supported the British in the American Revolutionary wars, as a way of signalling they supported the French revolutionary cause. The hairstyle also reminded people that they might end up any time on the block under the knife of the guillotine. Iroquois-style hair turned up again in the 1970s when it was appropriated to great effect by British punks.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/visible-mending-punks-not-dead-just-patching-itself-up-91226">Visible mending: punk's not dead, just patching itself up</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217907/original/file-20180507-166893-jbye7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217907/original/file-20180507-166893-jbye7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217907/original/file-20180507-166893-jbye7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=794&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217907/original/file-20180507-166893-jbye7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=794&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217907/original/file-20180507-166893-jbye7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=794&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217907/original/file-20180507-166893-jbye7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=997&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217907/original/file-20180507-166893-jbye7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=997&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217907/original/file-20180507-166893-jbye7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=997&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Naval uniform (England, circa 1820)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Museum associates/LACMA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>With Napoleon, there was a return to silken splendour, as the French leader wanted the economy to revive. He was also a sartorial megalomaniac. By the time he made his coup in 1799 the whole male body shape had changed. Neoclassical tastes, which first emerged in the 1760s, led to men wanting to look like a classical Greek statue rather than a pear. Suiting pulled back the shoulder and accentuated a tiny waist. Some men even wore false calves in their stockings.</p>
<p>Ageing military men wore corsets built into their jackets to achieve the effect. Napoleon wore a great deal of military dress in his portraits and the look spread across the world. The embroidery created wide borders along the edge of the jacket extending up to the shoulders and up the tails to the small of the back. It made men look taller and slimmer as well as important. Apart from custom, this is why diplomats wore suits encrusted with gold decoration until the second world war and why the military continues to do so today for parade.</p>
<h2>Here come the suits</h2>
<p>By the 19th century, the fashions set for men at European courts were replaced with something new, the woollen suit. They were needed for the new world of business, long distance travel and blending in. Even in poorer families the men’s clothes for public life often cost more than the women’s. Suits were never uniformly black in the 19th century and trousers did not match coats until the 1880s.</p>
<p>Men also wore fashion to irritate. The dandies or “bucks” of the 1810s-30s wore finely tailored clothes to reject the vulgar materialism of the industrial era. The deliberate aim was to annoy or shock – <em>épater</em> – the bourgeoisie. Having the time to cultivate the perfect cravat was presented as the counterpoint of the hard-working businessman. Their look became associated with artists, writers and thinkers.</p>
<p>It was sport that transformed men’s fashion, something that can be traced back to the horse riding and jockeys of the 18th century and forward to the youth revolutions associated with the introduction of the weekend and dedicated leisure time, firstly in the US in the 1890s.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217908/original/file-20180507-166900-y4rzdl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217908/original/file-20180507-166900-y4rzdl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217908/original/file-20180507-166900-y4rzdl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=856&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217908/original/file-20180507-166900-y4rzdl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=856&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217908/original/file-20180507-166900-y4rzdl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=856&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217908/original/file-20180507-166900-y4rzdl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1076&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217908/original/file-20180507-166900-y4rzdl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1076&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217908/original/file-20180507-166900-y4rzdl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1076&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Zoot suit (United States, 1940-42)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Museum associates/LACMA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Active leisure and even smoking demanded new types of clothes. We might abhor smoking today, but it was one of the favoured activities for men. Cigarettes were picked up as a fashion during the Crimean War (1853-56) from the Russian and Turkish troops who rolled their own with left over cigar tobacco. Wealthy men wore bright coloured jackets and Turkish smoking caps in private. The returned fashion for beards was a hyper masculine statement at a time when women were making demands for education, suffrage and participation in public life.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217910/original/file-20180507-46332-18ynz23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217910/original/file-20180507-46332-18ynz23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217910/original/file-20180507-46332-18ynz23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217910/original/file-20180507-46332-18ynz23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217910/original/file-20180507-46332-18ynz23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217910/original/file-20180507-46332-18ynz23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217910/original/file-20180507-46332-18ynz23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217910/original/file-20180507-46332-18ynz23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ensemble, Jeremy Scott with Adidas (Fall/Winter 2013-14)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Museum associates/LACMA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>How did fashion for men become associated with homosexuality? Some macaronis were considered to be “sodomitical”, which was the term used in the 18th century. Men who worked in stores or hairdressers were called the “she-he gentry” and blamed for taking away the work of women. Oscar Wilde advocated dress reform for men; a return to colour; velvets and had his hair curled like a Roman Emperor. One consequence of his infamous 1895 trial for sodomy was that men expressly interested in fashion often became accused of homosexuality.</p>
<p>Yet fashion for men was about so much more than any single definition of (homo)sexuality. From the enormous zoot suits worn by Latino, black and Jewish men in the US in the 1940s (often leading to them being arrested or attacked), to the peacock males of the 1960s, punks of the 1970s and gay clubbers of the 1980s and 90s, fashion for men was often risky, even downright dangerous. Reading about attacks on gay and queer men around the world today, from Russia to Iran, we should remember that looking and appearing a certain way can be deadly even today.</p>
<hr>
<p><em><a href="https://maas.museum/event/reigning-men-fashion-in-menswear-1715-2015/">Reigning Men: Fashion in Menswear 1715-2015</a> is published by Delmonico Books/Prestel 2015. The exhibit is at the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences (Powerhouse) until October 2018. Peter McNeil’s Pretty Gentlemen: Macaroni Men and the Eighteenth-Century Fashion World is published by Yale University Press, April 2018.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96023/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter McNeil receives funding from the Academy of Finland under the FiDiPro Distinguished Professor scheme. In 2015 he was a writer and consultant for LACMA's 'Reigning Men'.</span></em></p>
For centuries, men’s fashion has been part of dynamic social change. Hairstyles, fabrics and suit styles have carried a political charge.
Peter McNeil, Distinguished Professor of Design History, UTS and Aalto University Finland, University of Technology Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/96020
2018-05-06T20:13:56Z
2018-05-06T20:13:56Z
‘Not your prom dress’: why a Chinese dress set off a cultural debate about identity and history
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217726/original/file-20180504-166887-olc2l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Women modelling qipao. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Yet again a dress has sparked a furious debate over cultural appropriation in the US, this time after a high school graduate wore a <em>qipao</em>, a Chinese-style dress, to her prom. Twitter-user Jeremy Lam set off the current debate with a tweeted comment after seeing a photo taken at the prom: “My culture is NOT your goddamn prom dress.” Last year it was Karlie Kloss <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/15/vogue-fire-racist-photoshoot-karlie-kloss-poses-geisha-issue/">wearing a kimono</a> for a Vogue cover. Only in America.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"989981023076208640"}"></div></p>
<p>The responses to Lam’s tweet have included ethnic slurring, calls for tolerance, sympathy for Lam as the oppressed minority, sympathy for the girl in the prom dress, and claims and counter-claims about the status and meaning of the dress in question, the <em>qipao</em> (pronounced “chee-pow”). Is it “a sacred garment” as some have claimed, or, as the <a href="https://twitter.com/daumkeziah/status/990255923598786560">girl in the photo responded</a>, is it just “a f***ing dress”?</p>
<p>With thousands of young Chinese-Americans attending high school proms each year, this is unlikely to have been the first time a <em>qipao</em> has served as a prom dress. The problem for Lam and his many “likers” is that in the tweeted photo of a prom in Utah last week, the girl wearing the red embroidered <em>qipao</em> is “white”. Her name is Keziah Daum and she joins venerable company. Among famous <em>qipao</em>-wearers of the Western world are Grace Kelly, Elizabeth Taylor, Nicole Kidman and Anne Hathaway.</p>
<p>In the course of this brouhaha, some odd statements have been made about the <em>qipao</em>. Lam himself bizarrely describes its origins as lying in a shapeless garment made for Chinese women to wear when they were doing housework. In its more shapely final form, <a href="https://twitter.com/jere_bare/status/990064472168349696">he advises</a>, it was a “symbol of activism” and an expression of “gender equality”. </p>
<p>Amy Qin was not much closer to the mark when she wrote <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/02/world/asia/chinese-prom-dress.html">in The New York Times</a>: “In its original form, the dress was worn in a baggy style, mostly by upper-class women in the Qing dynasty, which ruled China for more than 250 years, until 1912.” </p>
<p>There is indeed a view that the <em>qipao</em> (literally “banner gown”) directly evolved from the clothing worn by women of the Qing ruling class, the Manchus, or Banner people. But the relationship is tenuous.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217734/original/file-20180504-166897-16z0asx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217734/original/file-20180504-166897-16z0asx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217734/original/file-20180504-166897-16z0asx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217734/original/file-20180504-166897-16z0asx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217734/original/file-20180504-166897-16z0asx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217734/original/file-20180504-166897-16z0asx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217734/original/file-20180504-166897-16z0asx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217734/original/file-20180504-166897-16z0asx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Early stages in the rise of the qipao as a fashion garment in Shanghai. From Vogue (Shanghai) 1926.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The origins of the dress</h2>
<p>The word <em>qipao</em> did not make an appearance until the 20th century and was one of a number of words used to refer to the garment. Among those, the most familiar in the English-speaking world is the Cantonese <em>cheongsam</em> (literally “long garment”). Like many other signs of Cantonese culture in the greater Chinese diaspora, this one is gradually being buried under the weight of Mandarin usage, but it is a reminder that there is more than one way of talking about things in Chinese, and more than one set of attitudes.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217840/original/file-20180506-166897-1xb08pw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217840/original/file-20180506-166897-1xb08pw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217840/original/file-20180506-166897-1xb08pw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=804&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217840/original/file-20180506-166897-1xb08pw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=804&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217840/original/file-20180506-166897-1xb08pw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=804&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217840/original/file-20180506-166897-1xb08pw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1010&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217840/original/file-20180506-166897-1xb08pw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1010&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217840/original/file-20180506-166897-1xb08pw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1010&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">1935 cartoon by Zhang E showing a woman wearing qipao.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It was in Shanghai that the <em>qipao</em> took definitive shape. A browse through fashion features in the Chinese press in the 1920s reveals a mix of elements in various novel designs before the familiar dress appeared. The familiar, figure-hugging dress with its mandarin collar and long side splits finally emerges in the late 1920s. Its status was cemented when the newly established Nationalist government recognised it as formal dress in 1928.</p>
<p>In the longer term, the dress has proved to have an ambivalent position in the Chinese cultural landscape. Historically it was more likely to be worn by a call girl than by an activist. During the Mao years it faded from popularity before disappearing altogether, having become a symbol of bourgeois decadence. In China today it is often worn by the bride to her wedding banquet, but is perhaps most commonly used as a uniform for female staff in stores and big hotels.</p>
<p>As long as champions of the <em>qipao</em> are calling for the importance of understanding its history before putting it on (and Lam does just this), its complex design origins and historical social status are relevant to the debate. </p>
<h2>Questions of identity</h2>
<p>New and revised values can certainly be attached to cultural objects and from this perspective the debate itself is more interesting than its subject. The twittering started in America, but soon enough embroiled mainland Chinese, Hong Kongers, Taiwanese and Singaporeans. Faultlines emerged between people in these various categories. One <a href="https://twitter.com/chinagoth/status/990702530953822208">mainland Chinese person tweeted</a>, “qipao is not a Chinese ‘traditional’ dress at all. I can’t stand these Americans calling it ‘sacred’ to the Chinese culture. What are you talking about lol.” </p>
<p>The Chinese-Americans have proved themselves not all daunted. They have all studied Identity 101: “It’s an asian-american thing,” <a href="https://twitter.com/eudicot/status/991387724375576577">tweeted Roses-are-red</a>, “… because we’re specifically taught that we gotta hide our chinese identity and assimilate to white culture and then some white chick with a shallow appreciation of chinese culture gets to wear a qipao and suddenly it’s ~cool and quirky~”</p>
<p>Such visceral reactions from both sides suggest that Chinese-white relations constitute only one of many factors shaping attitudes to Chinese culture in the USA. Chinese migration from the mainland is remaking what it means to be Chinese-American. This latest debate is a sure sign that the process is creating anxieties for many.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96020/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Antonia Finnane receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>
The cultural appropriation debate has flared after an American teenager wore a qipao, a Chinese-style dress, to her prom. But the meanings around the dress are complicated.
Antonia Finnane, Professor of Chinese History, The University of Melbourne
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/94454
2018-04-09T11:42:39Z
2018-04-09T11:42:39Z
Naked Utopia: how England’s first nudists imagined the future
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213856/original/file-20180409-114128-rzlw77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/naked-men-beach-new-zealand-517287238?src=lw1OXlhQc6Bdu-husNhqwQ-1-2">Thomas Wong/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The naked body is as old as humanity. But nudism as a social form, organised into clubs and societies, only <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/686648/pdf">came of age in England in the 1920s</a>. Its practitioners were from a range of backgrounds and included those with interests in “physical culture” (today we would refer to this as body building and beauty contests). Many were interested in natural health, including vegetarian and raw food diets, and new exercise regimes from hiking to yoga. </p>
<p>Nudism was particularly embraced by artists and intellectuals as part of a wider set of progressive practices associated with free thought. Many were internationalists inspired by longer standing German nudist traditions, which were far more popular and organised on a larger scale than English efforts. They understood disrobing to be part of a wider ideal of physical, mental and spiritual liberation.</p>
<p>For nudists in this mould, taking one’s clothes off in organised groups promised nothing less than heaven on earth. As one 1933 enthusiast claimed in the magazine Gymnos (“For Nudists Who Think”): </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It stands for all-round regeneration, in that it changes the false for the true; bondage for freedom; hypocrisy and cant for truth of purpose and resolve, and, above all, elevates the mind, and prompts the soul to strive for heights far above the petty and mean things which are attached to civilisation, as we know it today. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Civilisation – here indicating the modern, mechanised and industrialised world – was seen as corrupt. Its manifold problems were made material in everything that was wrong with contemporary clothing.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213807/original/file-20180409-114084-899kl7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213807/original/file-20180409-114084-899kl7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213807/original/file-20180409-114084-899kl7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213807/original/file-20180409-114084-899kl7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213807/original/file-20180409-114084-899kl7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213807/original/file-20180409-114084-899kl7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213807/original/file-20180409-114084-899kl7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213807/original/file-20180409-114084-899kl7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Advertisement for Spielplatz nudist camp, Health and Efficiency magazine, 1935.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© H&E naturist magazine/Hawk Editorial Ltd.</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The death of fashion</h2>
<p>If nudism was Utopian and escapist, dress was necessarily its inverse: dystopian and imprisoning. Garments were described by impassioned early nudists in their publications as “dirty cloth jails” and “the iron chains which civilisation and custom have riveted on suffering humanity”. Illness was seen as “largely an inevitable result of the enslavement of the body within the dark walls of its own clothing”. Rather than suffer this fate, interwar nudists proposed an alternative way of life, declaring in magazines from Sun Bathing Review to Health and Efficiency: “Clothes are dead.”</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213808/original/file-20180409-114105-xk12oh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213808/original/file-20180409-114105-xk12oh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213808/original/file-20180409-114105-xk12oh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213808/original/file-20180409-114105-xk12oh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213808/original/file-20180409-114105-xk12oh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1138&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213808/original/file-20180409-114105-xk12oh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1138&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213808/original/file-20180409-114105-xk12oh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1138&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Sun worship’. Health and Efficiency magazine, 1935.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© H&E naturist magazine/Hawk Editorial Ltd.</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For some of its most ardent supporters, nudity was proposed as a complete cure to modern ills. If its physical and mental benefits were to be felt, nothing at all should be worn at any time. These enthusiasts looked forward to a time when nudism would become the norm on the streets of London, when “all normal-minded civilised people … live as nudists” and “permanently discard clothes”. Some nudists predicted that bodies would evolve to have no need of garments for warmth or protection; the healthy and vigorous bodies produced by total exposure would be impervious to changes of climate. Some of nudism’s most ardent early practitioners climbed mountains and even skied in the buff. </p>
<p>But others saw these kinds of practices as a bridge too far from the conventional world. More moderate voices argued that “clothing has an important place to fill and no one but a crank would propose its total abolition”. </p>
<p>It is worth remembering that nudity in public was (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clothing_laws_by_country">and is</a>) a prosecutable offence. The establishment of private “sun clubs” and “sunbathing societies” in the interwar years, with strict membership procedures, ensured that nudists avoided arrest, and they also helped maintain respectability. Popular conceptions of nudism ranged from the amused to the frankly appalled; nudist magazines regularly summarised articles from the mainstream press that claimed nudism to be immoral, even “evil”. Even if viewed benignly, nudism was popularly seen as eccentric, so a “sane” or rational approach was promoted by those who wished to avoid accusations of cultishness.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213809/original/file-20180409-114128-j1fyx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213809/original/file-20180409-114128-j1fyx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=952&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213809/original/file-20180409-114128-j1fyx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=952&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213809/original/file-20180409-114128-j1fyx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=952&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213809/original/file-20180409-114128-j1fyx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1196&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213809/original/file-20180409-114128-j1fyx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1196&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213809/original/file-20180409-114128-j1fyx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1196&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Sunbathing in Sussex.’ Health and Efficiency magazine, 1935.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© H&E naturist magazine/Hawk Editorial Ltd.</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Those who followed a more moderate line of nudism acknowledged that shifting practices of dress and undress as circumstances allowed were needed. This more pragmatic approach promoted occasional sunbathing, under appropriate conditions, in the minimum of attire for the purposes of improved health and well-being. It also led some to invent clothing for nudists as a concession to the country’s many sunless days. Design ambitions ranged from the rational to the fantastic.</p>
<h2>The nudist’s wardrobe</h2>
<p>The most complete scheme was proposed in 1933 by Maurice Parmalee, author of <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Nudism_in_Modern_Life.html?id=zRd-CgAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y">Nudism in Modern Life</a>. He proposed that articles of dress, to be worn when some form of protection was required, should be open, airy and cover no more of the body than was absolutely necessary.</p>
<p>In addition to these practical suggestions, he offered more visionary ideals, including the elimination of sartorial differences between the sexes. He promoted specific garments to resolve issues of warmth, protection for the feet, and the practicalities of menstruation at a time before internal sanitary products were widely used. Inspiration was freely drawn from across history and geography, with the net result forming an outlandish ensemble of doublet, cummerbund, Bavarian braces, Scottish kilt, socks and Japanese sandals, a hooded South American poncho, and a clutch bag for daily necessities. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213810/original/file-20180409-114098-1q4f18l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213810/original/file-20180409-114098-1q4f18l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=810&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213810/original/file-20180409-114098-1q4f18l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=810&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213810/original/file-20180409-114098-1q4f18l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=810&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213810/original/file-20180409-114098-1q4f18l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1018&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213810/original/file-20180409-114098-1q4f18l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1018&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213810/original/file-20180409-114098-1q4f18l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1018&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Health and Efficiency magazine, 1933.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© H&E naturist magazine/Hawk Editorial Ltd.</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The individual items were designed to address specific practical shortcomings of nudity, but they also reflected the changed nature of the coming nudist world. Parmalee argued that in his nudist future: “There will be less temptation to dishonesty, so that the lack of pockets will not be a serious drawback.”</p>
<h2>The nude future</h2>
<p>For all the claims of nudism’s inevitability, nearly 100 years on it’s no more common to find naked people on the high street than it ever was. The nudist Utopia of the 1920s remains an impossible dream. Even by the mid-1930s the fantasy had begun to tarnish; the dramatic political shifts in Germany showed that undressing alone could not bring a new democratic, pacifist, egalitarian world. Nonetheless, the visions of the English moderates, with their ambition for lightweight clothes and sunbathing in a minimum of attire, gained steady traction during the 1930s as part of a general relaxation of dress and manners. Post-war, it was only English social nudism, organised through clubs and societies, which waned. Nudism for leisure, especially on continental holidays, continued in the pink of health.</p>
<p>These days, contemporary practitioners of what is now more usually called naturism tend not to link their undressing to the socialism, vegetarianism or anti-materialism of nudism’s interwar pioneers; it is merely perceived as a pleasant pastime. As such, the campaigns of the first social nudists in England might seem to be a closed case. </p>
<p>Yet at their most radical, philosophers of nudism recommended the deconstruction of all social propriety in search of a new future. The world they foresaw would unite all in one brotherhood, re-establish a union with nature and make the world a safer, fairer, and more beautiful place. These ambitions remain today, although modern subscribers might differ in their approach to how they should be delivered. It may take centuries to come, as Parmalee expected, but the hope of a new world springs eternal.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94454/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Annebella Pollen's research into historical dress reform has received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council UK.</span></em></p>
A century ago, utopian thinkers and practitioners predicted the coming of a nude world of liberated bodies.
Annebella Pollen, Principal Lecturer in the History of Art and Design, University of Brighton
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/90783
2018-02-08T10:53:30Z
2018-02-08T10:53:30Z
What did Jesus wear?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204871/original/file-20180205-19952-vby2eg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mosaic_of_the_vault_of_the_chapel_of_San_Zeno_(IX_century).jpg#/media/File:Mosaic_of_the_vault_of_the_chapel_of_San_Zeno_(IX_century).jpg">Livioandronico2013 / Wikimedia Commons </a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Over the past few decades, the question of what Jesus looked like has cropped up again and again. <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-did-jesus-really-look-like-52529">Much has been made</a> of a digital <a href="http://ntweblog.blogspot.co.uk/2004/02/what-jesus-really-looked-like-updated.html">reconstruction</a> of a Judaean man created for a BBC documentary, <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/1243954.stm">Son of God</a>, in 2001. This was based on an ancient skull and, using the latest technology (as it was), shows the head of a stocky fellow with a somewhat worried expression. </p>
<p>Rightly, the skin tone is olive, and the hair and beard black and shortish, but the nose, lips, neck, eyes, eyelids, eyebrows, fat cover and expression are all totally conjectural. Putting flesh on ancient skulls is not an exact science, because the soft tissue and cartilage are unknown.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, for me as a historian, trying to visualise Jesus accurately is a way to understand Jesus more accurately, too. </p>
<p>The Jesus we’ve inherited from centuries of Christian art is not accurate, but it is a powerful brand. A man with long hair parted in the middle and a long beard – often with fair skin, light brown hair and blue eyes – has become the widely accepted likeness. We imagine Jesus in long robes with baggy sleeves, as he is most often depicted in artworks over the centuries. In contemporary films, from Zefirelli’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075520/">Jesus of Nazareth</a> (1977) onwards, this styling prevails, even when Jesus’ clothing is considered poorly made.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-Hsl5UG9O_c?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>There were many reasons why Jesus was portrayed in what has become the worldwide standard, and none of them were to do with preserving historical accuracy. I explore these in my new book <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/what-did-jesus-look-like-9780567671509/">What did Jesus look like?</a>, but ultimately I look to clues in early texts and archaeology for the real Jesus. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204903/original/file-20180205-14104-1d92he8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204903/original/file-20180205-14104-1d92he8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=878&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204903/original/file-20180205-14104-1d92he8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=878&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204903/original/file-20180205-14104-1d92he8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=878&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204903/original/file-20180205-14104-1d92he8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1103&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204903/original/file-20180205-14104-1d92he8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1103&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204903/original/file-20180205-14104-1d92he8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1103&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Some depictions of Jesus over the ages.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CompositeJesus.JPG#/media/File:CompositeJesus.JPG">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For me, Jesus’ appearance is not all about flesh and bones. After all, our bodies are not just bodies. As the sociologist Chris Shilling <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=w9zWAgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false">argues</a>, they are “both personal resources and social symbols that ‘give off’ messages about identity”. We can be old, young, tall, short, weighty, thin, dark-skinned, light-skinned, frizzy-haired, straight-haired, and so on, but our appearance does not begin and end with our physical bodies. In a crowd, we may look for a friend’s scarf rather than their hair or nose. What we do with our bodies creates an appearance.</p>
<p>And so Jesus’ appearance would have had much to do with what he was wearing. Once we’ve got the palette for his colouring right, given he was a Jewish man of the Middle East, how do we dress him? How did he seem to people of the time?</p>
<h2>Dressed in basics</h2>
<p>There is no neat physical description of Jesus in the Gospels or in ancient Christian literature. But there are incidental details. From the Bible (for example, Mark 6:56) you can discover that he wore a mantle – a large shawl (“himation” in Greek) – which had tassels, described as “edges”; a distinctively Jewish <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tallit">tallith</a> in a form it was in antiquity. Usually made of wool, a mantle could be large or small, thick or fine, coloured or natural, but for men there was a preference for undyed types.</p>
<p>He walked in sandals, as implied in multiple Biblical passages (see Matthew 3:11; Mark 1:7, 6:9; John 1:27), and we now know what ancient Judaean <a href="https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4037/4587888706_abd62dbb53_b.jpg">sandals</a> were like as they have been preserved in dry caves by the Dead Sea.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204905/original/file-20180205-14083-k1msxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204905/original/file-20180205-14083-k1msxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204905/original/file-20180205-14083-k1msxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204905/original/file-20180205-14083-k1msxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204905/original/file-20180205-14083-k1msxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204905/original/file-20180205-14083-k1msxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204905/original/file-20180205-14083-k1msxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204905/original/file-20180205-14083-k1msxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jesus’ garb would have been a far cry from the depiction in da Vinci’s The Last Supper.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Supper#/media/File:%C3%9Altima_Cena_-_Da_Vinci_5.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>He wore a tunic (chitōn), which for men normally finished slightly below the knees, not at the ankles. Among men, only the very rich wore long tunics. Indeed, Jesus specifically identifies men who dress in long tunics (“stolai”, Mark 12:38) as wrongly receiving honour from people who are impressed by their fine attire, when in fact they unjustly devour widows’ houses. </p>
<p>Jesus’s tunic was also made of one piece of cloth only (John 19:23-24). That’s strange, because mostly tunics were made of two pieces sewn at the shoulders and sides. One-piece tunics in first-century Judaea were normally thin undergarments or <a href="http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details/collection_image_gallery.aspx?partid=1&assetid=1613052847&objectid=3291052">children’s wear</a>. We shouldn’t think of contemporary underwear, but wearing a one-piece on its own was probably not good form. It was extremely basic.</p>
<h2>‘Shamefully’ shabby?</h2>
<p>Perhaps it is unsurprising, then, that Jesus was remembered as looking shabby by a scholar named Celsus, writing in the mid second century, in a treatise against the Christians. Celsus did his homework. He interviewed people, and he – like us – was quite interested in what Jesus looked like. From Jews and others he questioned, <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/religion/church-history/origen-contra-celsum?format=PB&isbn=9780521295765">he heard</a> that Jesus “wandered about most shamefully in the sight of all”. He “obtained his means of livelihood in a disgraceful and importunate way” – by begging or receiving donations. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204866/original/file-20180205-19937-1kc98g3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204866/original/file-20180205-19937-1kc98g3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=819&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204866/original/file-20180205-19937-1kc98g3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=819&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204866/original/file-20180205-19937-1kc98g3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=819&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204866/original/file-20180205-19937-1kc98g3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1029&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204866/original/file-20180205-19937-1kc98g3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1029&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/204866/original/file-20180205-19937-1kc98g3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1029&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">How Jesus may have dressed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Joan Taylor</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>From the perspective of respectable people, we can surmise then that Jesus looked relatively rough. When the Christian writer Origen argued against Celsus, he rejected many of his assertions, but he did not dispute this.</p>
<p>And so while Jesus wore similar clothes to other Jewish men in many respects, his “look” was scruffy. I doubt his hair was particularly long as depicted in most artwork, given <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fayum_mummy_portraits#/media/File:Egyptian_-_Mummy_Portrait_of_a_Man_-_Walters_323.jpg">male norms of the time</a>, but it was surely not well-tended. Wearing a basic tunic that other people wore as an undergarment would fit with Jesus’ detachment regarding material things (Matthew 6:19-21, 28–29; Luke 6:34-35, 12:22-28) and concern for the poor (Luke 6:20-23). </p>
<p>This, to me, is the beginning of a different way of seeing Jesus, and one very relevant for our times of massive inequality between rich and poor, as in the Roman Empire. Jesus aligned himself with the poor and this would have been obvious from how he looked. </p>
<p>The appearance of Jesus matters because it cuts to the heart of his message. However he is depicted in film and art today, he needs to be shown as one of the have-nots; his teaching can only be truly understood from this perspective.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90783/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joan Taylor receives funding from the Leverhulme Trust but not for this research. </span></em></p>
We may imagine Jesus in long robes with baggy sleeves, but this is far from how he would have dressed.
Joan Taylor, Professor of Christian Origins and Second Temple Judaism, King's College London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/88373
2017-12-27T16:57:30Z
2017-12-27T16:57:30Z
Read this before you go sales shopping: the environmental costs of fast fashion
<p>It’s tough to love our clothes and <a href="http://www.catexel.com/news/market-experts-explore-ways-lighten-textiles-environmental-load/">keep wearing them for longer</a> when we are faced with a tempting array of newness on offer in the shops. But before you head out into the January sales for those irresistible deals, spare a thought for the impact of fast fashion on the environment.</p>
<p>Fast fashion focuses on speed and low cost in order to deliver frequent new collections inspired by catwalk looks or celebrity styles. But it is <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/makingwaves/fast-fashion-drowning-world-fashion-revolution/blog/56222/">particularly bad</a> for the environment as pressure to reduce cost and the time it takes to get a product from design to shop floor means that environmental corners are more likely <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jun/13/hm-zara-marks-spencer-linked-polluting-viscose-factories-asia-fashion">to be cut</a>. Criticisms of fast fashion <a href="http://www.thefashionlaw.com/learn/fast-fashions-green-initiatives-dont-believe-the-hype">include</a> its negative environmental impact, water pollution, the use of toxic chemicals and increasing levels of textile waste.</p>
<p>Vibrant colours, prints and fabric finishes are appealing features of fashion garments, but many of these are achieved with <a href="http://source.ethicalfashionforum.com/article/10-toxic-chemicals-to-avoid-in-your-products">toxic chemicals</a>. Textile dyeing is the <a href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/4-8301582_17027.htm">second largest</a> polluter of clean water globally, after agriculture. Greenpeace’s recent Detox campaign has been instrumental in pressuring fashion brands to take action to remove toxic chemicals from their supply chains, after it tested a number of brands’ products and confirmed the presence of <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/eastasia/press/releases/toxics/2012/toxic-chemicals-detox-zara/">hazardous chemicals</a>. Many of these are <a href="http://e360.yale.edu/features/can_waterless_dyeing_processes_clean_up_clothing_industry_pollution">banned or strictly regulated</a> in various countries because they are toxic, bio-accumulative (meaning the substance builds up in an organism faster than the organism can excrete or metabolise it), disruptive to hormones and carcinogenic.</p>
<p>Polyester is <a href="http://textileexchange.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/TE-Preferred-Fiber-Market-Report-Oct2016-1.pdf">the most popular</a> fibre used for fashion. But when <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jun/20/microfibers-plastic-pollution-oceans-patagonia-synthetic-clothes-microbeads">polyester garments</a> are washed in domestic washing machines they shed microfibers that add to the increasing levels of plastic in our oceans. These microfibers are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/feb/12/seafood-microfiber-pollution-patagonia-guppy-friend">minute</a> and can easily pass through sewage and wastewater treatment plants into our waterways, but because they do not biodegrade, they represent a serious threat to aquatic life. Small creatures such as plankton eat the microfibres, which then make their way up the food chain to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/feb/12/seafood-microfiber-pollution-patagonia-guppy-friend">fish and shellfish</a> eaten by humans.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-your-pile-of-laundry-fills-the-sea-with-plastic-pollution-80109">How your pile of laundry fills the sea with plastic pollution</a>
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<p>The devastating impact of toxic chemical use in agriculture for growing cotton was shown in a documentary called <a href="https://truecostmovie.com/">The True Cost</a>, including the death of a US cotton farmer from a brain tumour and serious birth defects in Indian cotton farmers’ children. Cotton growing requires high levels of <a href="https://ejfoundation.org/what-we-do/cotton/the-true-costs-of-cotton">water and pesticides</a> to prevent crop failure, which can be problematic in <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/263055/cotton-production-worldwide-by-top-countries/">developing countries</a> that may lack sufficient investment and be at risk of drought. </p>
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<p>Most cotton grown worldwide is <a href="https://truecostmovie.com/learn-more/environmental-impact/">genetically modified</a> to be resistant to the bollworm pest, thereby improving yield and reducing pesticide use. But this can also lead to <a href="http://livebettermagazine.com/article/the-dark-side-of-genetically-modified-foods/">problems</a> further down the line, such as the emergence of “superweeds” which are resistant to standard pesticides. They often need to be treated with more toxic pesticides that are harmful to livestock and humans. </p>
<p>There is growing interest in organic cotton, with H&M and Inditex, the parent company of Zara, featuring among the world’s <a href="https://textileexchange.org/downloads/2017-organic-cotton-market-report/">top five</a> users of organic cotton by volume in 2016. But overall use of organic cotton represents <a href="https://www.c-and-a.com/uk/en/corporate/company/newsroom/featured-stories/2016/for-the-love-of-fashion/">less than 1%</a> of the world’s total annual cotton crop.</p>
<h2>Hunger for newness</h2>
<p>Textile waste is an unintended consequence of fast fashion, as more people buy more clothes and don’t keep them as long as they used to. The international expansion of fast fashion retailers exacerbates the problem on a global scale. Wardrobes in developed nations are saturated, so in order to sell more products, retailers must tempt shoppers with constant newness and convince them the items they already have are no longer fashionable. </p>
<p>Increasing disposable income levels over <a href="https://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21730674-gap-closing-millennials-are-doing-better-baby-boomers-did">recent generations</a> means there is less need to “make do and mend”, as it’s often cheaper and more convenient to buy new <a href="https://theconversation.com/community-repair-a-pop-up-alternative-to-the-throwaway-society-75821">than have an item repaired</a>. Busy lifestyles make many people more time-poor than previous generations, and with the loss of sewing and mending skills over time, there is less impetus to repair our garments. The rise of supermarket fashion that can be purchased alongside the weekly shop and the regular occurrence of seasonal sales make clothing seem “disposable”, in a way it didn’t used to be.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/community-repair-a-pop-up-alternative-to-the-throwaway-society-75821">Community repair: a pop-up alternative to the throwaway society</a>
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<p>There is interest in moving towards a more circular model of textile production which <a href="https://daily.jstor.org/fashion-forward-three-revolutionary-fabrics-greening-industry/">reuses</a> materials wherever possible, yet current recycling rates for textiles are <a href="https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/publications/a-new-textiles-economy-redesigning-fashions-future">very low</a>. Despite a long-established national network of charity shops and increasing numbers of in-store recycling points in UK high street stores, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/apr/06/britons-expected-to-send-235m-items-of-clothing-to-landfill-this-spring">three-quarters of Britons</a> throw away unwanted clothing, rather than donating or recycling it.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199931/original/file-20171219-4995-wr6a6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199931/original/file-20171219-4995-wr6a6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199931/original/file-20171219-4995-wr6a6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199931/original/file-20171219-4995-wr6a6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199931/original/file-20171219-4995-wr6a6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199931/original/file-20171219-4995-wr6a6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199931/original/file-20171219-4995-wr6a6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">No more make do and mend.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/home">wwww.shutterstock.com</a></span>
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<h2>What shoppers can do</h2>
<p>So, can consumers reduce the environmental cost of fast fashion when out shopping? Choosing an eco-friendly fabric is complex as there are <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/CBD-Fiber-Selection-FS.pdf">pros and cons</a> to all fibre types. Garments which are labelled as being made from natural fibres are not necessarily better than synthetic, as fibre choice is only one part of a complex picture. Fibres still have to be spun, knitted or woven, dyed, finished, sewn, and transported – all of which have different environmental impacts. </p>
<p>For example, choosing organic fabrics is better than choosing non-organic fabrics in terms of the chemicals used to grow the fibres, but organic cotton still requires high amounts of water and the impacts of dyeing it are <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/CBD-Fiber-Selection-FS.pdf">higher</a> than the impacts of dyeing polyester. </p>
<p>Recycled content is often best of all, as it reduces the pressure on virgin resources and tackles the growing problem of waste management. For example, <a href="http://www.patagonia.com/recycled-polyester.html">Patagonia</a> was the first outdoor clothing brand to make polyester fleece out of plastic bottles. In 2017, it decided to rationalise its T-shirt ranges and from spring 2018, will offer only two fabric options of either 100% organic cotton or a blend of recycled cotton and recycled polyester, recognising that even organic cotton has a negative environmental impact. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://loveyourclothes.org.uk/">Love Your Clothes</a> initiative from the charity WRAP gives information for consumers on each stage of the purchase process, from buying smarter, to caring for and repairing items, to upcycling or customisation, and finally responsible disposal. Ultimately, the best thing we can do is to keep our clothing in use for longer – and buy less new stuff.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88373/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Patsy Perry does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Water pollution, toxic chemical use and textile waste: fast fashion comes at a huge cost to the environment.
Patsy Perry, Senior Lecturer in Fashion Marketing, University of Manchester
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/75781
2017-05-29T04:24:43Z
2017-05-29T04:24:43Z
Sustainable shopping: for eco-friendly jeans, stop washing them so often
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170676/original/file-20170523-5786-1dnc5ea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There is a pair of jeans for every occasion. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/denim-jeans-white-flower-on-wooden-613391087?src=OkKVVOhEB2FA-YhtTwu5LQ-1-25">Krisana Antharith/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Shopping can be confusing at the best of times, and trying to find environmentally friendly options makes it even more difficult. Welcome to our <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/sustainable-shopping-38407">Sustainable Shopping</a> series, in which we ask experts to provide easy eco-friendly guides to purchases big and small.</em></p>
<p>Denim jeans – whether ripped, straight, flared, vintage or raw – are one of the world’s most-loved garments. But from fibre to wardrobe, they have a considerable ecological footprint. </p>
<p>Given the diversity of cotton growing enterprises and clothing producers around the world, tracking the environmental impact of a pair of cotton jeans is no simple feat. </p>
<p>But as a denim-wearer you can make more sustainable choices by buying responsibly, extending your jeans’ life with gentle washing and choosing to repair, not replace.</p>
<p>In this guide we’re looking at the key stages of jeans’ life cycle: cotton cultivation; spinning and dyeing; manufacturing, distribution and retailing; and what happens after you get them home.</p>
<h2>Cotton cultivation</h2>
<p>Let’s begin with the cotton crop, in which water and pesticide use are prominent environmental issues.</p>
<p>Cotton is a thirsty crop, using <a href="http://waterfootprint.org/media/downloads/Hoekstra_and_Chapagain_2007.pdf">3% of the world’s irrigation water</a> on 2.2% of global arable land. However, better management can reduce water wastage and improve efficiency. </p>
<p>Like humans, insects and bugs are attracted to the pillowy white fluff that is actually the fruit of cotton. Traditional cotton farming is chemically intensive, but <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/2003/030207/full/news030203-12.html">genetically altered cotton</a> varieties and innovations in integrated pest management have almost halved insecticide use (<a href="https://www.icac.org/getattachment/Home-International-Cotton-Advisory-Committee-ICAC/measuring-sustainability-cotton-farming-full-english.pdf">from 25% to 14% of global insecticide sales</a>) since the 1990s.</p>
<p>Organic cotton crops use no synthetic chemicals, but yields are typically lower than that of conventional cotton, and organic cotton represents <a href="http://aboutorganiccotton.org/stats/">less than 1% of the 25 million tonnes of cotton grown globally</a>. Its water consumption is similar to non-organic cotton.</p>
<p>However, organic producers in developing countries can charge a premium for their crops and aren’t reliant on synthetic insecticides and pesticides. If you want to buy organic cotton jeans, you can check for brands accredited by the <a href="http://www.global-standard.org/">Global Organic Textile Standard</a>.</p>
<p>To improve cotton cultivation standards globally, the not-for-profit organisation <a href="http://bettercotton.org/">Better Cotton Initiative</a> was established in 2005 to promote more sustainable cotton growing, with better practices across water use, land and pest management and social indicators. Major fashion retailers like Levis Strauss & Co., H&M, The Gap, Kathmandu and Burberry are focusing on sourcing <a href="http://bettercotton.org/find-members/">Better Cotton</a>, organic, or recycled cotton for their clothing.</p>
<h2>Spinning, dyeing and manufacturing</h2>
<p>The process of spinning fibre into yarn, yarn into cloth, and manufacturing cloth into clothes represents some <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01441640500360993">70% of the total energy consumption</a> of creating a pair of jeans.</p>
<p>The iconic indigo colour and the broken-in look of denim are the result of chemically intensive and high water use treatment processes that can take a <a href="http://www.eco-business.com/opinion/corporate-social-responsibility-fashion-industry/">toll on workers’ health and safety</a> and impact the environment.</p>
<p>Leading denim brands are actively promoting techniques that limit the chemical and water intensity of wet processing, like enzyme finishing, laser etching and ozone treatments. </p>
<p>Initiatives such as <a href="http://www.roadmaptozero.com/">Zero Discharge of Hazardous Waste</a> work across the apparel supply chain to tackle this problem. You can check their website for a <a href="http://www.roadmaptozero.com/contributors/">list of brands</a> that have committed to better practises. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170687/original/file-20170524-5763-dm5m67.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170687/original/file-20170524-5763-dm5m67.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170687/original/file-20170524-5763-dm5m67.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170687/original/file-20170524-5763-dm5m67.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170687/original/file-20170524-5763-dm5m67.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170687/original/file-20170524-5763-dm5m67.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170687/original/file-20170524-5763-dm5m67.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Denim manufacturing is chemically intensive.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/textile-industry-denim-department-finishing-41432131?src=-99yPjEkfagF243qNPyvZQ-1-0">Moreno Soppelsa/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<h2>Wearing jeans</h2>
<p>It may come as a surprise, but a large part of the environmental impact of a pair of jeans occurs after you buy them – how you launder and care for your jeans, and for how long, can be crucial in minimising denim’s ecological footprint. Throw-away fashion is a huge problem: a survey of 1,500 British women found the majority of garments (not just jeans) are worn <a href="http://www.barnardos.org.uk/news/press_releases.htm?ref=105244">as few as seven times</a>. </p>
<p>You can minimise your jeans’ footprint simply by washing and drying them less often. We often launder far more often than needed, and overwashing may be more from habit than actual dirtiness of garments. In a 2012 study, participants wore the same pair of jeans unwashed for three months with <a href="http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/national/thirty-melbournians-wore-the-same-paid-of-jeans-five-days-a-week-for-three-months/news-story/170f5643294625b2f0fd281ed4629c31">no ill effects</a>. Any smells or stains were simply managed through airing or spot cleaning.</p>
<p>Jeans have a patina of use that factories work hard to simulate – but you can develop your own patina through wear over a lifetime. </p>
<p>Forward-looking denim brands are embracing longevity, with <a href="https://www.nudiejeans.com/page/this-is-nudie-jeans">Nudie jeans offering repair services</a>, and <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/3067895/moving-the-needle/levis-is-radically-redefining-sustainability">Levi Strauss</a> promoting durability and a personal connection to one’s clothing.</p>
<p>New business models promote a circular approach to consumption: you can rent your jeans from <a href="http://www.mudjeans.eu/">Mud jeans</a>, and at the end of your jeans’ life, Mud will collect them for reuse or recycling.</p>
<h2>Easy steps for buying greener</h2>
<p>If buying new, purchase from retailers actively sourcing responsibly grown cotton. Check for standards and certifications like Better Cotton or the Global Organic Textile Standard. </p>
<p>Look for retailers that promote environmentally friendly processes, such as enzyme-washed denim or waterless denim. You can dig into your denim retailer’s sustainability statements on their website to see if they have signed up to initiatives to tackle hazardous chemicals, such as Zero Discharge of Hazardous Waste, or if they have their own scheme in place.</p>
<p>Remember that the most sustainable pair of jeans is the pair you already own. Care for your jeans by laundering them lightly and less often, using a cold wash cycle and line drying. Freshen them up between washes by hanging them in the sun or in a steamy bathroom.</p>
<p>Most importantly, extend their life by <a href="https://www.bloglovin.com/blogs/designsponge-1221/three-easy-ways-to-mend-fabric-inspired-by-4552933101">repairing them if damaged</a>, and give them that patina of use through wear.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75781/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alice Payne receives research funding from the Cotton Research Development Corporation (CRDC). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susannah Kate Devitt receives research funding from the Cotton Research Development Corporation (CRDC). </span></em></p>
Our clothes are cheaper, flimsier and shorter-lived than ever. But jeans, a staple of the modern wardrobe, are actually designed to be long-lasting – provided you take proper care of them.
Alice Payne, Senior lecturer in Fashion, Queensland University of Technology, Queensland University of Technology
Susannah Kate Devitt, Research Associate, Queensland University of Technology
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.