Liza D: Exposing the Consumer
I cringe when I read 'sustainable fashion' online or 'sustainable' as an adjective to sell everything from cheap shoes to over-hyped seminars. The dilution of this word makes it as meaningless as 'natural' or 'organic.'
Previous to 2000, before President Clinton pushed the American Congress to approve China for membership in the WTO, some quotas kept jobs, quality, and quantity controlled.
Within the Quota system, a clothing manufacturer (or any product) needed to purchase a quota from their government to import products from the developing country they were sourcing from. Key countries were China, Vietnam, Bangladesh, and India. There was a limited amount available for woven and knitted goods, cotton, wool, polyester, etc. Each textile category was stringently monitored with only a certain amount allowed in from each developing country. Quotas protected the middle-class job sector of manufacturing. Quotas kept supply in check, ensuring demand for products and the labour of local workers.
It is no secret that China is a behemoth in manufacturing. The tragic downside of China's admission into the WTO and Quotas being removed was the increase in rampant consumerism, removal of jobs, and financial hardship for minimum wage workers.
The removal of quotas allowed anyone, from the small-town mom and pop shops to country-spanning retailers, to place mass orders of garments for pennies on the dollar over a phone call or an email. By 2014, textile waste had grown to be the second-largest pollutant of the environment.
In the decade before China joined the WTO, consumers were sold stories through national new programs of illegal factories (sweatshops) operating in the US and the personalities and brands profiting from $.30 an hour labour. Celebrity talk show host turned designer Kathy Lee Gifford and footwear icon Nike were pulled into the gutter for the actions of 3rd-party companies that exploited workers.
The hypocrisy was real as these same media outlets profited greatly from the advertising of fast fashion; an industry built on the backs of foreign workers. Consumers chose stuff over suffering, and it was okay because it felt good to have more than the next guy.
My Vancouver factory was 7,000-square-feet, and my 100+ workers made 20,000 units of clothing a month. Sustainability wasn't yet a conversation, but I always manufactured in the community where I lived and paid my sewers well. There was a fully equipped lunchroom, air conditioning, and plenty of space to do their jobs. Once, a friend - an executive cum environmentalist - visited my factory and erroneously assumed I was 'running a sweat shop' upon seeing my workers sewing. In response, I asked to see the label in his shirt, not surprised to see 'Made in China.'
There was a point, around 2008 when walking down 7th Avenue in New York City, I saw a giant ad for a fast-fashion brand of a gorgeous model wearing a sweater dress, larger-than-life and teasing the consumer a price of $19.99. I knew this garment could not be produced ethically or sustainably for this price, but the masses had already turned a blind eye to fast fashion practices for the sake of looking stylish.
By 2015, environmentalists had caused enough of a rumbling that Netflix presented The True Cost by director and activist Andrew Morgan. It became the must-watch movie of the year for exposing the underbelly of the textile and garment industries. It packaged all fast fashions waste and excess into a 92-minute, easily digestible capsule. There was no glossing over expansive landfills filled with new unsold products, the dumping in developing countries, and the tragedy of the Rana Plaza collapse.
Sustainability panels and summits abound exploring sustainability and applauding industry change, but they never address the solution to the core problem – reviving the Quota System. The money spent on these events should be spent lobbying for action, not creating social media content.
I was once very passionate about this subject; however, after a decade of attempting to engage with my peers on this subject, I am tired. I am saying now is no different from 10-years ago, and it's not that I don't want people to buy clothing, I want them to feel smart by buying less. We all know what we 'need,' and it is very different from what we 'want.'
If you believe you make great choices when shopping, go to your closet and check your tags. Are more than 50% of your goods made overseas? Yes? This is your wake-up call. You need to change as the earth is dying.