November 28, 2007
Indiaretailing.com: Ethical fashion! Does it exist?
Commentary by Ranjan Kaplish
Through a special arrangement, what follows is an excerpt of an article from Indiaretailing.com, presented here for discussion.
Retail is flourishing, but is it carrying forward the ethicality of the business of fashion retailing, not just to give the world better clothes to wear – but also make earth the best place to live?
There is a lot of tireless work for AIDS and breast cancer charities, but when it comes to the real business of fashion, everything about it is fundamentally counter to current ethical concerns. It is an industry based on fueling consumption for things that are defined by their built-in obsolescence; on making people want things they don’t need and buy more than they can really afford; and on seducing us into believing that owning a material object can change our lives.
Before you even get on to the conditions in an Indian textile industry and the problem of knowing which big brands really use the ethical labor they or their contractors claim, there are the environmental nightmares associated with the textile industry. Take cotton – actually, don’t. Because the world’s favorite ‘natural’ fiber is not, in fact, ‘pure and simple’ as we have grown up to believe. Lovely as it is to wear and sleep in, cotton is one of the most pest-prone of crops – meaning, that to produce it cheaply in industrial quantities, enormous amounts of chemicals have to be thrown at it. And when you add in the various soil sterilizers, fumigants, herbicides and defoliants also used to grow this ‘natural’ fiber, we are talking about some of the most deadly chemicals in the world. According to World Health Organization (WHO), about 20,000 people die each year in developing countries as a result of sprays used on non-organic cotton.
Just like the boom in organic food, awareness of uncontaminated textiles is taking off at a grassroots level, with parents seeking organic cotton baby clothes, towels and bedding for their newborns. If we could absorb chemical residues through our gnarly adult hides, the thinking goes, how much more at risk is the superfine skin of tiny babies and their delicate systems? If you hunt around on the internet, you will find some basic sportswear and underwear lines that are acceptable, but that’s about it. It will be hard, at this stage, to find much to buy beyond t-shirts. Wherever you do buy clothes, ask the shop assistants if they have an organic range. They will probably look at you blankly at first, but if enough people do it, word will filter up to buyers and management.
Best of all, explore the possibilities of hemp clothing, which is the real answer to the whole problem. But that, as they say, is another story.
Discussion Question: Do you see ethical concerns driving demand for organic cotton and eco-friendly fashion similar to what has happened with organic foods? Are retailers at the forefront of this now going to have a competitive advantage if conscious fashion goes mainstream?
BrainTrust
Recent Discussions
Discussion Questions
Poll
Definitely agree–the fashion industry cannot be deemed “ethical” in terms of environmental impact. I love the definition for fashion provided above–the marketing behind these apparel companies are driving consumers for additional and unnecessary purchases–isn’t that increasing the impact even if it is, comparatively, less significant than “non-ethical” alternatives?
George Clooney owns two hybrid cars. Given the impact of production of these hybrids–purchasing a single car for transportation purchases would have been more symbolic of ethical consumerism.
The vintage movement last decade was more environmentally-friendly than today’s pressure to replace all goods with trendy “ethical” brands.
Given what goes into growing cotton, it really should be positioned as a luxury fiber more often, whether it’s organic or not. I think there’s a lot of room for new fibers and creative re-use in clothing design, though for anything to take off, manufacturers must play the fashion game. Ethics and health in clothing sell…when they’ve been featured in editorial and on celebrities….
Not sure fashion can easily follow the organic foods model. For one thing, it’s *fashion*, it is, by definition, constantly changing and changing for the sake of change. It is also not ingested and regardless of whether clothing is equally bad for our bodies, the case is harder to make with the public. That takes away one of the biggest drivers for organic foods–the selfish desire to be healthier–and requires reliance on the weaker, altruistic “make the world a better place” argument.
Example: for a while there in the ’90s and early ’00s, it looked like the anti-fur movement had finally succeeded in making fur unfashionable, but fur came back with a vengeance, and has remained part of the fashion scene. You don’t read about celebrities being splashed with blood or red paint much anymore either.
Fashion is tough place to run a movement.
Fashion is recession proof because basically, fashion boils down to what people want, and want badly enough to buy over and over again.
We’ve been saying for a while now that “food is fashion,” which, as Whole Foods proves out, is a truism. But can apparel take advantage of the movement towards sustainability the way WF’s has? On the fringe benefits side, perhaps, but in our opinion, that’s about it.
Publicity around ethics in fashion seems to focus on working conditions and animal rights. Although organic clothing brands exist, they don’t seem to be moving into the mainstream in the US. Americans have been spoiled for several decades by apparel deflation, caused by the elimination of all meaningful tariffs. It’s an industry driven by “a great look at a great price.”
There are three major mechanisms to make it work for ethical fashion, retailing, and marketing, and these components need to be put in place in sequence:
1. Consumer education – what is good for the world and why do I care?
2. Company belief and acceptance – what is good for the world and why do I care, and how do I create a business model that works with my compliance?
3. Company profitability – I comply and I’m making money and consumers keep buying.
Without any of the above, the ethical approach simply does not work short term or medium term for textile manufacturers and marketers.
More Discussions
Has Same-Day Delivery Become an Expectation Across Retail?
Are expectations around retail delivery speed in flux?OpenAI Names the Infrastructure Standard for Agentic Commerce
Will OpenAI or Google (or another entity) set the gold standard for agentic commerce?Is Five Below Poised For Even Greater Growth?
Five Below is hitting serious growth numbers. Can this trend continue?
Definitely agree–the fashion industry cannot be deemed “ethical” in terms of environmental impact. I love the definition for fashion provided above–the marketing behind these apparel companies are driving consumers for additional and unnecessary purchases–isn’t that increasing the impact even if it is, comparatively, less significant than “non-ethical” alternatives?
George Clooney owns two hybrid cars. Given the impact of production of these hybrids–purchasing a single car for transportation purchases would have been more symbolic of ethical consumerism.
The vintage movement last decade was more environmentally-friendly than today’s pressure to replace all goods with trendy “ethical” brands.
Given what goes into growing cotton, it really should be positioned as a luxury fiber more often, whether it’s organic or not. I think there’s a lot of room for new fibers and creative re-use in clothing design, though for anything to take off, manufacturers must play the fashion game. Ethics and health in clothing sell…when they’ve been featured in editorial and on celebrities….
Not sure fashion can easily follow the organic foods model. For one thing, it’s *fashion*, it is, by definition, constantly changing and changing for the sake of change. It is also not ingested and regardless of whether clothing is equally bad for our bodies, the case is harder to make with the public. That takes away one of the biggest drivers for organic foods–the selfish desire to be healthier–and requires reliance on the weaker, altruistic “make the world a better place” argument.
Example: for a while there in the ’90s and early ’00s, it looked like the anti-fur movement had finally succeeded in making fur unfashionable, but fur came back with a vengeance, and has remained part of the fashion scene. You don’t read about celebrities being splashed with blood or red paint much anymore either.
Fashion is tough place to run a movement.
Fashion is recession proof because basically, fashion boils down to what people want, and want badly enough to buy over and over again.
We’ve been saying for a while now that “food is fashion,” which, as Whole Foods proves out, is a truism. But can apparel take advantage of the movement towards sustainability the way WF’s has? On the fringe benefits side, perhaps, but in our opinion, that’s about it.
Publicity around ethics in fashion seems to focus on working conditions and animal rights. Although organic clothing brands exist, they don’t seem to be moving into the mainstream in the US. Americans have been spoiled for several decades by apparel deflation, caused by the elimination of all meaningful tariffs. It’s an industry driven by “a great look at a great price.”
There are three major mechanisms to make it work for ethical fashion, retailing, and marketing, and these components need to be put in place in sequence:
1. Consumer education – what is good for the world and why do I care?
2. Company belief and acceptance – what is good for the world and why do I care, and how do I create a business model that works with my compliance?
3. Company profitability – I comply and I’m making money and consumers keep buying.
Without any of the above, the ethical approach simply does not work short term or medium term for textile manufacturers and marketers.