Ethics of Fashion

[Belacqua]

The 30 people producing 3,000 damage points makes sense only if the items are being custom made. But in a situation where Zara already produced the 30 jeans, the harm is already done, and now it's a question of whether someone gets to wear them or not.

I'm certainly no expert here -- just guessing as we go along.

But I suspect I know what the ethicists would argue. All businesses still run more or less by supply and demand. Fast fashion is famously data-driven, so they know day by day exactly what is selling and what isn't, and their fast development times mean that they can adjust inventory within weeks, to give the budget fashionista what he wants.

So if the ethicists had their way, and we all stopped buying new, it would mean a few week's worth of dead stock gets shipped to landfills in Africa. But the math majors at the head office would make sure that such a loss is minimal, and production would change to adjust to demand. The fewer Zara jeans people buy, the fewer jeans Zara makes in the coming season. 


They want profit, so if we all became more conscious of cost/benefit, and were more efficient about it, Zara might even introduce a line called "Heirloom" or something, which cost 3x more but lasted 10x longer. It would mean changing people's habits, and backing away a little bit from instant gratification. 

My experience in thrift shops has been that Sears and Penneys clothes from the '60s and '70s are a lot like that -- way more durable than Uniqlo or Zara. I don't know how much Sears cost at the time, in inflation-adjusted dollars, but they were considered the family budget options. 

The second issue is perhaps more important: Since we are talking about personal responsibility, I'm not sure the 30 people can hide behind each other. For example, I personally buy expensive jeans, and I'm able to do so because it's pretty easy to resell them. Now, if I'm contributing to the unethical practices of the manufacturer because my purchase keeps them in business, can't that reasoning be extended to whoever buys my jeans secondhand who is likewise funding my unethical consumer behavior? If nobody purchased my jeans secondhand, I wouldn't be able to sustain my lifestyle.

ps. I don't my think my jeans are made unethically, but then again one never knows.

Yes, if we discovered that a certain company was unethical, the ideal would be to stop wearing them tout court. Get them out of circulation.

Even being seen in the logo would make a person feel dirty. 

No doubt there are extreme Gandhi type ethicists who think that to save the world we really ought to grow and weave our fabric locally, and make at home anything we wear. (And they may be right!) But I can imagine something of a realistic compromise, in which the producers and consumers are conscious of and minimize the negative aspects. They'd want things made locally with union labor, so as to minimize worker exploitation and international shipping costs. 

This all seems very doable to me, but the main thing that would have to change then, from the consumer's perspective, is FASHION. Decisions about how you look would have to be made differently. Zara prospers because when a movie star wears something today, Zara has it on shelves in Ohio next week.

It could be a lot of fun, though. Imagine if the people who set the fashion were local kids (not international stars), working with local materials. It would mean that fashion on the east side of Osaka could evolve to be wildly different from New York or London, which would each have their own trends and pleasures and playfulness. 

I wouldn't mind giving this a try.