Ethics in Fashion. Elisa, Rebecca, Rachael, Sophie and Aamirah.
What is being ethical? • Ethics is concerned with morals, knowing when something is right and wrong. By producing garments in an un ethical way could mean that you are using sweatshops as a means of production which harms both humans and the environment. On the other hand, by working in an ethical way you are invested in the health and well being of the workers, therefore you make sure they are working in good conditions, and are getting paid a suitable wage. • A company working in an un ethical way can cause their brand image to become negative, through bad publicity which can deter the consumer from purchasing from that specific brand. Although brands such as H&M are now becoming more aware of the importance of being ethical, forcing them to change their production methods. This change came around after the Rana Plaza tragedy in Bangladesh 2013, where their clothes were being manufactured. Along with brands such as Gap and Walmart. After the Rana Plazaa event, brands such as H&M and Primark contributed towards the relief effort, helping to support the families of those who lost loved ones. However families couldn’t retrieve that money unless they had DNA evidence their family was in the accident.
Ethical Fashion Brands. • People today are becoming more aware of issues concerning the production of garments within the fashion industry. Therefore they want to shop with sustainable brands. • People Tree is one of the largest sustainable fashion brands, they have been around for 26 years. Their aim is to create a fair and sustainable production line. To do this they purchase almost all of their products from Fairtrade groups, which use natural resources throughout the production stages, helping to keep the process sustainable. This prevents the use of more sweatshops which means more under paid employees, poor working conditions and also no laws for building standards. • High Street brands are known for being un ethical, however since the Rana Plazaa incident, H&M who was one of the main brands to outsource their garments to the Rana Plazaa factory now try to use a more ethical way of producing their garments.
Advantages and Disadvantages to being an ethical brand. Advantages: • Consumers trust ethical brands more, therefore they remain loyal. • Being ethical can contribute to a bigger profit. • High retainment of employees. • Positive working environment. • Less legal problems. Disadvantages: • Lower profits, due to higher costs. • Less freedom to maximize profit, they cannot outsource their clothing to a LEDC.
Un Ethical Fashion Brands. • There are way more un ethical brands than there is ethical. One of the most known un ethical brands is Primark. Primark is a huge high street store which supplies the nation with cheap, affordable clothing. Each week they have brand new clothing in to keep up with the trends. This hints as to how they are un ethical. Surely they can’t get new fashion trends in store that quickly whilst still being ethical? Right. Primark has been known for years for the poor working conditions, low pay and suffering their workers go through to produce their products. Furthermore Primark are clueless on where some of their products come from, for example they have no idea where they source their ‘leather’ from. Workers have to go to work for hours, to receive no more than $3. • Companies outsource their clothing to maximize their profits by reducing their costs. If it wasn’t for the mass amount of sweatshops around the globe, the Fashion Industry would make no where near as much profit as they do now. In 2016 it made $1.6 trillion.
Advantages and Disadvantages to being Un Ethical brand. • Advantages: • Higher profits. • Quicker production of clothing. • Disadvantages: • Bad brand image. • Destroying the environment. • Damaging human life. • Causing disaster events like Rana Plazaa.
Shopping Ethically… • There are so many ways you can try to avoid un ethical brands and buying into their un sustainable production. New developments such as Depop, which allows you to sell the clothes you don’t want anymore without throwing them away. Along with apps like ebay and even facebook where you can sell your clothes, you are handing items of clothing on to other people, instead of contributing to mass amount of fashion items wasted each year by the fashion industry, which damages the environment massively because of the many years it takes for an item of clothing to decompose. Ethical Brands: • Stella McCartney • Rag &Bone • Levis • People Tree • Louis Vuitton Brands such as Topshop, M&S, Zara, and Gap all are looking to become more ethical. Marks and Spencer’s have agreed to pay all their outsourced employees a fair living wage, but there is conflict over what a ‘fair living wage’ is.
Animal Cruelty. • Animal Cruelty within in the fashion industry is huge. Faux fur has become a lot more popular now with most fashion consumers, but some still would rather spend a lot more money for real fur. To get this fur, manufacturers pollute animal habitats or destroy them. Anything to get the fur they need from them. Some species such as snakes and crocodiles are bread in captivity so they can be used for manufacturing, and the manufactures can put them down whenever they need them for production. • In some countries such as China, it is legal to produce fur clothing and sell it. However in the UK it is illegal to produce fur clothing and sell it. However we are still allowed to import the clothing.
What you can do.. 1. Do you really need it? Think before you buy. 2. Research. Where does the product come from? Where was it made? 3. Choose quality. 4. Make a clothing of item last. 5. Bring a reuse bale bag when you shop. 6. Buy secondhand.