This hashtag is just my style: popular feminism & digital fashion activism

ABSTRACT

The emergence of digital fashion activism in the second decade of the twenty-first century coincides with ‘popular feminism’. As trend forecasting site, Worth Global Style Network (WGSN) noted in 2014 ‘the idea of feminism in itself has become almost fashionable’. In this paper we explore how the appropriation of feminism as a fashionable slogan relates to the framing of fashion as a feminist issue, via digital campaigns such as Fashion Revolution’s, ‘Who Made My Clothes?’ (WWMC). We argue that digital fashion activism performed in the name of feminism raises uncomfortable tensions. The imperative to care about the conditions under which our garments are made is based on twentieth-century concepts of gendered solidarity; ‘we should all be feminists’ in order to identify with female garment workers. At the same time, campaigns such as Who Made My Clothes? reflect a neoliberal context that favours women with the economic resources to shop consciously. In this paper we explore how the WWMC campaign constructs the female body both as a site of injustice in the global South, and of ethical fashionability in the global North.

KEYWORDS:

• Digital fashion activism
• popular feminism
• fashion
• Fashion Revolution

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers who provided feedback, the editors of this volume, Rimi Khan, Natalya Lutsy and Harriette Richards; as well as Dr. Ariadna Matamoros Fernandez for her contribution to this project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. As of 20 February 2021, the Garment Worker Diaries website states that it is a research project which collects data on ‘the work hours, income, expenses, and financial tool use’ of garment workers in the global South. It is led by non-profit, Microfinance Opportunities in partnership with local research firms. FR’s role in this project, is ‘spreading the word about the Diaries and engaging stakeholders to advocate for changes in the global supply chain that will improve the lives of garment workers’.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kathleen Horton

Kathleen Horton is a Senior Lecturer in Fashion in the School of Design, Queensland University of Technology. Her research explores the politics, poetics and aesthetics of getting dressed every day. In 2010 Kath co-founded the Stitchery Collective, a platform for collaborative fashion design projects.

Paige Street

Paige Street is a research master’s student and a sessional academic at the Queensland University of Technology in the School of Design. Her research investigates how consumers understand global responsibility for injustices in the fashion supply chain, and how this responsibility is performed online through digital fashion activism.