Fashion Revolution

The environmental dimension problems is often the first thing that comes to mind when people think about sustainability. As a result, people believe that sustainability is far from our life. If I try to encourage individuals to choose a sustainable lifestyle by claiming words like “polar bears are literally losing out of houses; Kilimanjaro is about to lose out of snow,” they will, predictably, find it incredibly abstract and unfeeling. Sustainable construction is about more than just environmental protection; it is about the requirements and restrictions people face daily. For example, try to open your overcrowded wardrobe.

 

Fast Fashion

Because of long-standing trade imbalances between wealthy and developing countries, low-cost countries like Asia could create garments more cheaply in low-cost regions after the Industrial Revolution. Production has relocated from China to lower-cost locations such as Vietnam and Bangladesh. This is when the concept of fast fashion, often known as the ‘quick response’ apparel manufacturing model in the United States, was born. In truth, the fast fashion business model is founded on consumers’ desire for attractive goods. It is simply a business model based on low quality and large volume. Fast fashion businesses benefit from this incredible efficiency because their customers no longer follow a four-season fashion calendar but live in a fashion world of 52 distinct micro-seasons. The ostensibly beautiful fast fashion sector was already in distress and fractured behind the scenes at this point.

 

 Fashion Revelation

Fashion Revolution Week is an annual event that brings together the world’s most significant fashion activist movements. This year, from Monday, 18 to Sunday 24 April 2022, Revolution Week hopes to champion a just and fair fashion system for people and the environment. This year’s Fashion Revolution Week theme is Money fashion power.

 

Sweep Shops

The Fashion Revolution Week event is located in Bangladesh. What kind of country is Bangladesh?Bangladesh employs over 4 million of the world’s 40 million textile workers, who work in nearly 5,000 factories making clothing for major Western brands. Furthermore, more than 85% of these people are women, and with a minimum income of less than $3 per day, it is one of the world’s lowest-paying countries for textile workers. Millions of laborers are compelled to work in hazardous conditions with no assurance of safety, with accidents like these occurring on a monthly basis, killing hundreds of individuals and severing families. And what the textile workers get in exchange for putting their lives in danger is a daily income that makes it tough to survive.This is not just price pressure, and this is disregard for the lives of others. Without fair pay, there is naturally no sustainable fashion.

 

Eco-pollution

The disadvantage that fast fashion brands bring us is not only the visually problem likes ‘sweatshops’ , but nature conditions are also paying the price for the exploitation and waste of the unregulated fashion industry. According to BBC statistics and reports, the average American currently throws away 37 kilograms of clothing each year. And only 13.6% of clothes and shoes are thrown away in the US are returned. Globally, only 12 per cent of clothing materials are recycled. This means more than 110 million tons of textile waste are produced annually in the US alone. Most of this waste does not degrade naturally and will remain in landfills for 200 years or more, releasing harmful gases. How many healthy lives are being eroded by these harmful gases that we cannot see, and how many children are being deprived of a healthy life by invisible pollution?

 

Consumerism

Consumerism is described in Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind: consumerism tells us that if we want to be happy, we should buy more products and services. Did you look at your whole fully wardrobe but still feel like you lacked a dress or a skirt? The consumerism trap leads you to believe that if something is missing in your life, it is time to buy more goods or services. On the other hand, people never consider spiritual enrichment through reading or travel to keep themselves peaceful and cheerful. In addition, the requirement for Petit Credit has become lower and lower, without face-to-face examination, no collateral, and no professional information. If the borrower cannot repay, the interest rate is bound to roll up and up, pushing the person into an abyss of despair. The consumption patterns in this fast economy promoting the behavior likes wearing a valuable mink coat in a tiny and poor room. All these phenomena provoke thoughts on the irrational consumer behaviour of the moment.

 

Sustainable fashion

Sustainable fashion combines ethical fashion, circular fashion, and slow fashion. It investigates how various fibres and clothing manufacturing processes hurt the environment (including animal welfare) and aims to establish a circular system that lowers the human effect on the environment through clothes consumption.More importantly, the clothes’ designs and styles are classic enough for me to wear from my university graduation to my children’s gender reveal ceremony. UN Ambassador and famous actress Emma Watson is a supporter of sustainable fashion. In 2015, she took on the Green Carpet Challenge and wore sustainable fashion on all her red carpets. She has also created a separate IG account called The Press Tour, where she posts advice on sustainable fashion styles.

 

Confessions of a fast fashion brand dress

I am a shirt from a fast fashion brand whose have been abandoned by consumers. Now, please give me a chance to tell the story of my life.

I woke up in a big landfill. I tried to perceive my surroundings as best I could; it was like I was in one vast and endless pit, everything was crowded here, and you were pushing and pushing me. It was so messy here that I tried not to care what they were. But a sudden upcoming accompanied by a pungent smell made me unable to breathe for a moment, and I even had the physical reaction of wanting to puke.

“How did I get here?”

I was born in a textile mill factory located in Cambodia.

Millions of workers work overtime every day to produce beautiful clothes for Europe and America – Oh! That’s us! They have no time for their children, living in the slums, leaving them in villages far from the cities to be raised by their relatives or friends, visiting them only once or twice a year to create one “me” after another. So am I important? Am I glorious? Am I the heart and soul of countless working people?

At that moment, I was curious and ecstatic about my existence!

One day, I arrived at a backlogged storage unit, ready to be sent to America. It was then that I noticed two workers hiding behind the corner. One female worker bandaged her wounds as if nothing had happened and said, “I’m not asking for much money; all I want is a steady salary,” she says, “but the government doesn’t mind how poor I am or how much hardship I undergo; they don’t care about the employees……”

Another woman agrees, saying, “But I want to offer my child a better education, a better future, and more prospects; I want him to cease working in a factory, but it’s all hope.”

Is that true? Or maybe it is the clothes they make from their ‘blood’ under this ‘sweatshop’. It’s a huge predatory industry. There are no human rights, and for a few, it generates enormous profits but fails to support their workers with even a fraction of them or adequately ensure their most basic human rights. And could this have been done?

I can’t judge the “factories”. The workers do need jobs, but could the tragedy have been avoided? Come on! I was just a shirt; I didn’t have time to think about it that much before I was sent away.

Then I went to the hypermarket in America. Some so many beautiful young women seemed to think they were great when they put me on; however, In my opinion,  it didn’t look good on her. Customers took my friends one after the other. The customers shopped like crazy for us, as if the more they bought, the happier they would be. Of course, I was soon taken away too.

I don’t remember how long I lay in the wardrobe; I watched as it became increasingly crowded and the shoppers’ purses became “thinner”, but I was never dressed.

One morning, I listened to the clothes talking about where the landfill is. It is deemed to be a small village, but there were no clear rivers or rice paddies, only fields, rivers and air that toxins had eroded. It’s a place where the toxins are in the soil, in the rivers, in the air and finally on people’s meals, in their bodies, wrapped up in their lives. This village is known as the “cancer village”. There are hundreds of cancer patients here and almost a hundred mentally and physically disabled people; farmers who have stretched their capacity to work but cannot afford the high cost of medicine and have been waiting for a painful death for generations.

Hey man, do you know how much I hate myself? I looked around at the clothing friends still smugly on their faces, and I was beyond ashamed. It was time to put an end to all this.

I am tired of the upheaval of this life. I closed my eyes. It seems to be the sound of trumpets and the shouting of people from far away. Is the fashion revolution finally about to begin?