At the end of last year I hosted a session in the fair talks series at the fair@square fair trade and ethical festival.
The topic of the session was “fashion and consumption” and on the panel was Jill Chivers of My Year Without Clothes Shopping, a program based on Jill’s own experience where participants who consider themselves to have a over-shopping problem pledge to spend a year without shopping for clothes, and instead “shop your wardrobe” learning to make better use of the clothes they already own.
Jo Cramer is a lecturer in fashion design in the School of Architecture and Design at RMIT University and she is also studying for a PhD titled “The Living Wardrobe” that addresses relationships between consumers and their clothing from the perspective of a fashion designer.
The third panel member was Kate Luckins, a founder of The Clothing Exchange who has recently completed a PhD at RMIT University on young people’s sustainable lifestyles.
As my research focuses on ethical issues within the cultural and material production of fashion, this talk was a great opportunity for me to consider fashion from a different perspective – that of the consumer and consumption.
When thinking about ethical consumption, my observation is that there are two schools of thought, one argues for consumption avoidance complimented by the development of alternative means of satisfying the desires that would otherwise trigger shopping. This has a strong non-monetary component, for example, activities such as swapping, sharing and mending satisfy desires for things such as sociability and the new but are generally undertaken in ways that don’t require as great an exchange of money as conventional shopping. The principal beneficiary in this case is the individual consumer who has saved money whilst having an enjoyable and sociable experience. The environment also benefits through the avoidance of waste creation.
The other approach to ethical consumption is through switching purchasing decisions from conventional products to products that have a considered and harm minimizing supply chain, or better still, are made in such a way as to actively benefit the people who produce them. Fair trade systems, for instance take an active role in ensuring that not only are workers fairly remunerated for their work, the financial arrangement in place ensure groups are able to self manage the production of goods to the benefit of their community. Certified organic systems are another example where both people and environment benefit from reduced or no chemical use as well as the price premium attached to such a product. Certification exists to ensure the robustness of the system and aid in its consumer adoption, but many other variations exist on this model of ethical consumption that don’t involve formal certification.
It is this framework that the fair@square festival exists within. It is a fair trade and ethical festival that aims to demonstrate that business can be profitable without compromising social issues. Held in the lead-up to Christmas time, it targets consumers at a time when shopping is at its peak and suggests that some of that Christmas spending might be done on fair trade or ethically produced products.
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