Just Use What You Have: Ethical Fashion Discourse and the Feminisation of Responsibility

ABSTRACT

The rise of fast fashion has meant that young women (even those on relatively low incomes) are able to ‘regularly consume and discard fashionable clothing’ [Buckley, Cheryl, and Hazel Clark. 2012. “Conceptualizing Fashion in Everyday Lives.” Design Issues 28 (4): 18–28. doi:10.1162/DESI_a_00172., 21]. While this development may be aligned with the democratisation of fashion—the fact that the supply chains that deliver fast fashion are not consistent with the principles of global democracy is now also relatively common knowledge in the democratised West. This, along with growing awareness of the ecological harms associated with the fashion industry has contributed to what Elke Gaugele [2014. Aesthetic Politics in Fashion. Vienna: Sternberg Press] has termed the ‘ethical turn’ in fashion. However, despite the fact that young women are often not deemed capable of translating their (ethical) attitudes into (ethical) behaviours [McNeill, Lisa, and Rebecca Moore. 2015. “Sustainable Fashion Consumption and the Fast Fashion Conundrum: Fashionable Consumers and Attitudes to Sustainability in Clothing Choice.” International Journal of Consumer Studies 39 (3): 212–222], nor able to be ‘trusted to consistently make good decisions’ [Brooks, Andrew. 2015. Clothing Poverty: The Hidden World of Fast Fashion and Second-Hand Clothes. London: Zed Books, 241], they are also increasingly being called to recognise their individual role in the politics of global fashion supply chains. Drawing on examples from scholarly and popular discourses as well as online peer to peer communications, this article explores the historical moment of fast fashion as an instance of both the feminisation of consumption and the feminisation of responsibility.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethical fashion
• fast fashion
• young women
• digital culture

Notes on contributor

Kathleen Horton teaches fashion theory and communication in the School of Design at Queensland University of Technology. Her teaching and research centres on the aesthetic, political and social aspects of fashion practices. In 2010, Kath co-founded The Stitchery Collective, a design cooperative that explores innovative models for the production and consumption of fashion. She is currently undertaking a PhD in the School of Humanities and Communication Arts, Western Sydney University, examining the material practices of fashion amongst young Australian women.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 The vlogs that I draw on were observed between February and June 2018, however I also looked at archives dating back to 2015. The majority of the vlogs that I observed emanated from the UK and North America, however I also observed German, Greek and Australian vloggers. All the videos that I refer to in this article were published by young female vloggers, although the ethical vlogosphere does feature some young men as well.

2 Comment posted by Mae Menk on the YouTube video ‘A Beginner’s Guide to Ethical/Sustainable Fashion’. https://youtu.be/-VRJ9B03NLI.