My Insight into Ethical Fashion

Happy Fashion Revolution Day!

After attending the panel discussion 'Fashion Revolution: Luxury Practice' a couple of years ago; I think that the movement has raised public awareness. Before the Rana Plaza incident not many people were aware of ethical fashion even though this problem has existed for many years. The 'Fashion Revolution: Luxury Practice' talk  at Somerset House really opened my eyes about the existing problem that we are faced with in the fashion industry. Many people point the finger at high street brands such as Primark, H&M and Zara for unethical fashion practices. However, the talk shed light upon luxury brands that make jaw-dropping exquisite and expensive fashion, unethical by using sweatshops and paying people extremely low wages. 

I was astounded that luxury brands were producing garments unethically and I could not understand why people were not scrutinising luxury brands in the way they do with high street labels. Primary has been at the forefront of the scrutiny of the media attention, however they have publicly apologised and gone to great lengths to compensate all the victims of this tragic incident. However, no one has heard what the luxury brands that used the Rana Plaza factory, have done to compensate those that were injured in the collapse. Furthermore people were not aware that luxury levels were involved. After listening to the talk I learnt that the luxury brands processes right from where they source their raw materials through to the manufacturing of their products are often overlooked. 

Fashion Revolution as a movement has really shone a harsh, critical light on all parts of the fashion industry which is kept alive with their active twitter account which regularly raises questions and highlights important articles. I believe that social media has spread the awareness of the movement as well as highlighting the challenges that face ethical fashion. Fashion Revolution's campaign for the first anniversary of the Rana Plaza incident, involved everyone through twitter and instagram using the '#insideout' where people were urged to wear an item of clothing inside out and post a picture of it online. The main purpose was too see whether people knew where their clothes had come from. This initiative is still in action 2 years on. 

After attending the discussion I now think about where my clothes have come from and what circumstances they were made in. You can no longer say, "Don't buy from Primark, it's unethical" because many brands ranging from high street to luxury are unethical in some way. I do not think it matters where you buy your clothes from, but we should not equate a high price tag with ethical provenance automatically. 

Soraya x