I do own a t-shirt with 'Feminist' written across it, that I got a few years ago from H&M but the more I look into the Feminist issues the more I feel like brands are exploiting them, and making them into a trend.
80% of garment workers are women and young girls, who are often exploited by their employers. Although, the thought behind buying feminist t-shirts is positive, when it comes down to it are they doing more harm than good? When I purchased my t-shirt a few years ago, I wasn’t really aware of the feminist issues within the fashion industry - particularly in fast fashion.
It was when I started following Fashion Revolution on Instagram that I really began to understand the negative impact of fast fashion, especially on the workers. The global campaign Who Made My Clothes made me truly questions my fashion habits.
How can I call myself a feminist and wear these slogan t-shirts when the women and girls who made them suffer from violence in the workplace, poverty, unsafe working conditions, and exploitation.
Lets take a look at Karl Lagerfeld's work, the Chanel S/S15 runway was one of feminism and activism. However, this is exactly what I mean when I talk about brands trying to make feminism "trendy" and profit from it. He had models with megaphones, signs saying, "Ladies First", "History is Her Story", etc, whilst "I'm Every Women" was playing. It was quite the regular occurance for Lagerfeld to take advantage of Feminism, Sustainablity, and body positivity movements in order to sell clothes. However, his words and actions did not in anyway correlate with these messages, in actual fact he was known for making offensive comments which showed he was not in a fact a feminist, or for body positivity.
Lagerfeld repeatedly made comments about women's weight, claiming that plus size models should not be allowed on the runway.
In a quote when he defended stylist Karl Temper - a man accussed of pulling down models' pants - he said: "If you don't want your pants pulled about, don't become a model! Join a nunnery, there'll always be a place for you in the convent." These comments were made during the rise of the #MeToo campaign.
For me, the fashion revolution movement in finding out who made our clothes is very important! I am sick of brands using important issues as a means to make profit, whilst being completely non-supportive of the real problem, and exploiting their workers.
Rach x x x
No comments:
Post a Comment