Cultural Appropriation in Fashion: A Guide to an Ethical and Sustainable Fashion System
Fashion often draws inspiration from different cultures, but when it happens without recognition or financial compensation, it risks slipping into cultural appropriation. It is essential to distinguish between appreciation and appropriation: while the former implies respect and recognition, the latter involves the use of cultural elements without consent, mainly for profit. In essence, cultural appropriation refers to the act of borrowing, imitating or adopting elements of one culture by members of another culture, often without understanding, attributing or respecting the meaning and cultural context of those elements (Chumo 2023). The use of indigenous symbols is growing, but without due respect. Pham and Nguyen (2018) analyzed the phenomenon in fashion magazines…
SHEIN: New report reveals dangerous chemicals in products
Ultra-fast fashion brand SHEIN has a “business model based on hazardous chemicals and environmental destruction” according to a recent investigation by Greenpeace Germany. SHEIN’s marketing bombards young people, through platforms like TikTok, with glamorous-looking items sold at bargain prices, promoted by micro- and macro-influencers who get free products and other benefits in return. However, little is known about the thousands of suppliers who cut and sew garments in Guangdong, China, and even less about the factories that wash and dye their fabrics, the major source of the pollution caused by SHEIN. To find out more about the products and especially the use of hazardous chemicals in the supply chain, Greenpeace…
Denim production in Pakistan: Environmental Impacts, Strategies, and Future Directions
Denim is one of the most popular and ubiquitous fabrics globally, and the fashion industry heavily relies on it. However, the production of denim has a significant environmental impact, from water usage to chemical pollution. Therefore, the need for sustainable denim production has become more pressing as the world moves towards more sustainable practices. In the last Premier Vision Denim fair in Milan we met many Pakistani realities selling denim. This article aims to explore the challenges faced by Pakistan in achieving sustainable denim production and the strategies employed to overcome them. Denim in Pakistan: A Blue Gold Rush Pakistan is the third largest preferred cotton-producing countries* in 2019/2020, after Brazil…
Shein: Channel 4’s investigation into Chinese factories
Channel 4 enters Shein’s Chinese factories undercover and tells the dark social side of fast fashion. The video investigation, entitled Inside the Shein Machine: UNTOLD, brings to light the conditions of the workers who produce the garments of the ultra-fast fashion giant: they work 7 days a week up to 18 hours a day they don’t have a break, the employees are forced to wash their hair during their lunch break they only have one day off per month they make 500 items of clothing a day they are paid a maximum of 4,000 yuan per month (about 550 euros) for every mistake made, they lose 2/3 of their daily…
Primark: does more sustainable cotton mean sustainability?
Does more sustainable cotton automatically indicate a brand’s sustainability? Primark communicates the progress of the Sustainable Cotton Program and there is nothing but talk of sustainability after the launch of the Primark Cares line. The Irish fashion retailer, owned by Associated British Foods (ABF), says it aims for garments to last longer, to reduce the company’s impact on the planet and to improve the lives of the people who make the products. In the section dedicated to sustainability, between attention to the environment and commitment to people the multitude of virtuous messages strikes the reader. Is this really the case if we take a closer look at the data? Why…
Money. Fashion. Power. It’s the Fashion Revolution Week
April 18-24: is the week dedicated to the fashion revolution. It was created to commemorate the collapse of the Rana Plaza, the building in the Dhaka region of Bangladesh where more than a thousand people died on 24 April 2013. The factories produced clothing for well-known international global brands. From that moment on, the spotlight began to be focused on what lies behind the fashion industry. We talk about it every year because we don’t want this dramatic event to happen in vain, and to stop the repetition of tragedies like this one. 👉🏼 Challenge yourself with our QUIZ! You can win a gift! We talk about this and the…
Shein: the false statements about the factories of the ultra-fast-fashion brand
Shein (Zoetop Business Co Ltd) is a very popular online retailer, especially among young people, because it offers fashion items at affordable prices. We can buy a complete outfit for less than $ 30. But who pays the price for us? One of the problems of fast fashion, which we have written about many times, is that in most cases the low price is the result of a lack of recognition of a fair wage and appropriate working conditions for people involved in the production of the garments. For this reason, consumers are increasingly asking for more transparency on the production chain. Shein offers tens of thousands of styles, about…
- Companies / Aziende, Environment/Ambiente, Fabrics/Tessuti, Fashion/Moda, Modern slavery / Schiavitù moderna
The impact of leather and tanneries: what we don’t know and who is inside is scared of telling us
When I saw DW’s documentary on the dark side of fashion-luxury, I was sick for several days. It’s a punch in the stomach. I wanted to write about it in an article, but to do it in the best possible way I wanted to involve Francesco Gesualdi who in that documentary tells of a report made on leather and tanneries, hindered in several ways. With the aim of spreading what emerged even to those who do not have the patience to read the report to the end, I asked for his help to highlight the most relevant points, what we need to know: it is too important to be ignored…
Fast fashion and social sustainability during COVID-19: which brands are not paying workers?
Italiano/English below Puoi ascoltare qui l’articolo: Fast fashion, sostenibilità sociale, COVID Seguiamo con attenzione la situazione nelle fabbriche di abbigliamento, perché la sostenibilità sociale è uno degli aspetti che più ci coinvolge. E ci fa arrabbiare. Quando arrivano racconti di misere retribuzioni, di condizioni di lavoro senza garanzia di sicurezza, di mancato rispetto dei diritti dei lavoratori, di sfruttamento e schiavitù moderna. Racconti che coinvolgono fornitori di marchi fast fashion che, mentre leggiamo dei loro mancati pagamenti, propongono saldi, sconti e promozioni. Con la diffusione del COVID-19, seguiamo ancora più assiduamente la situazione lavorativa di chi prepara per noi, a km di distanza, ciò che arriva nel nostro armadio. In…
- Companies / Aziende, Dove acquistare, Fabrics/Tessuti, Fashion/Moda, Modern slavery / Schiavitù moderna
More sustainable men’s T-shirts: 8 addresses where to find them and why choose them instead of traditional cotton ones
Italiano/English below Puoi ascoltare qui l’articolo: Magliette uomo Le giornate estive si avvicinano, tempo di maniche corte e di cotone. Si stimano però 2.500–2.700 litri di acqua necessari per produrre una maglietta, principalmente perché la coltivazione del cotone è ad alta intensità idrica, nella metà dei casi in aree in cui le precipitazioni piovane non sono sufficienti per la sua crescita. Oltre a sottrarre una preziosa risorsa agli essere umani, l’utilizzo intensivo di acqua sconvolge gli ecosistemi locali, con conseguenze sulle caratteristiche del suolo e sul mantenimento della biodiversità mettendo a rischio specie animali. Inoltre, la coltivazione di cotone è responsabile del consumo di fertilizzanti, pesticidi e insetticidi tossici, che…