Geography has never been so fashionable
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Today, the global fashion industry connects us to people and places across the planet.
The world of fashion has become global. What we wear is increasingly influenced by people living in places across the globe.The clothes we buy are likely to connect us to places on a global scale.
The pursuit of fashion connects people on a global scale to a network of designers and manufacturers. Away from the catwalk, globalisation takes us into an unglamorous world that challenges us to consider the issues surrounding ethical consumption. |
On the catwalk, Puma fashion. Photo: Sam Deng
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Do we all dress the same way today?
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In 1909, the millionaire French banker, Albert Khan set about photographing the world and its people. His work Les Archives de la Planète records a world before globalisation changed the way many people dressed.
Albert Khan's photographs show a world of local fashions and clothing. National dress was important and a persons clothing could reveal where they lived. Today, our clothes are very different - something has happened to change the way people dress. |
Hanoi en couleurs (1914-1917), Autochromes de Léon Busy. Source: Albert Kahn Museum, collection of the Archive of the planet.
American Blue Jeans
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Indigo trousers worn by American cattle ranchers have become a global fashion icon. The story of cowboy pants begins with the course cotton material called denim that takes its name from the French town of Nîmes (de Nîmes).
During the Cold War, attempts were made by the USSR to restrict American jeans. Yet today, communism in Russia and China have given away to a new global clothing culture. |
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Fashion in China
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After the communist revolution in 1949, China was isolated from the impact of global fashion. Fashion was declared to be a form of Western decadence. Yet, today China has transformed and many people have adopted what at first sight appears to be western clothing styles.
Today, Western clothing brands are popular across China. In the future, it seems likely that Chinese fashion designers will change the way the World clothes itself. |
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Global Fashion - Made in China
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Famous for telling people how to look good naked, the British fashion consultant - Gok Wan - travelled to China in 2012 to investigate the garment industry.
Critics of globalisation claim that the fashion industry provides cheap clothing at the expense of workers' rights in the developing world. Factories that exploit the people who have to work in them are known as 'sweat shops'. Oxfam, in their campaign against sweat shops say that a sweatshop is "is a manufacturing facility where workers endure poor working conditions, long hours, low wages and other violations of labour rights". Take a look at Gok's experience in a factory in Xintang and decide for yourself how far the workforce is being exploited. |
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XINTANG THE "JEANS CAPITAL OF THE WORLD
Xintang is a manufacturing town in Guangdong Province that is dominated by the garment industry, especially denim jeans. Around 260 million pairs of jeans are made here. Xintang makes 40% of all the jeans sold in the United States. However, Greenpeace East Asia reveal that Xintang has a dirty secret. The manufacture of jeans causes pollution to the environment and this impacts on the working and living conditions of those who reside in this part of the Pearl River delta. Greenpeace show photographs of children working in the Xintang textile industry - something not mentioned by Gok Wan in his report.
A global division of labour means that highly paid fashion designers in the west can send their creations to be mass produced, at low cost, in poorer nations. Clothes that are made using low-cost labour in factories that don't spend money on cleaning up their own pollution are then sold at relatively high prices in shops across the world.
A global division of labour means that highly paid fashion designers in the west can send their creations to be mass produced, at low cost, in poorer nations. Clothes that are made using low-cost labour in factories that don't spend money on cleaning up their own pollution are then sold at relatively high prices in shops across the world.
The Environmental Cost of Fashion
People with smaller wardrobes are more environmentally responsible than those who just can't be seen wearing the same thing again and again.
When you shop for new clothes you are likely to cause an environmental impact somewhere on the planet.
Polyester is the word's favourite fibre for fashion. Yet, micro-fibres from washing polyester clothing is being pumped out of our washing machines and into our sewers. These tiny particles of plastic are adding to the problem of our plastic seas.
Switching to cotton is not the easy answer either. Cotton farming requires plenty of water and pesticides. Retailers may seduce us with 'natural fibres' but natural fibres have to be spun, knitted or woven, dyed, sewn and transported on a global scale.
Clothing of calamity or Dead Men's Clothes
Donating your clothes so that you can buy more has a global impact. Most of the secondhand clothes donated from high-income countries ends up in Africa. Far from being grateful, many African nations are trying to stop rich countries from dumping secondhand clothing on them. In Mozambique they talk about the "clothing of calamity". Whilst in Kenya your charity donation is known as the "clothes of dead white people". Get the message - they don't want your clothes.
Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, South Sudan and Burundi have been trying to curb imports of secondhand clothing by implementing tariff barriers. Your kind donation undermines African attempts to develop their own textile industry. See the New York Times, "For Dignity and Development, East Africa Curbs Used Clothes Imports".
Make do and Mend
Keeping your clothes for longer and buying fewer new clothes is the best way to live sustainably.
Wear last year's fashion with pride!
When you shop for new clothes you are likely to cause an environmental impact somewhere on the planet.
- Textile dyeing is the second largest polluter of potable water globally
- Many textile dyes are toxic and are banned in many countries
- Toxic textile dyes are bio-accumulative
Polyester is the word's favourite fibre for fashion. Yet, micro-fibres from washing polyester clothing is being pumped out of our washing machines and into our sewers. These tiny particles of plastic are adding to the problem of our plastic seas.
Switching to cotton is not the easy answer either. Cotton farming requires plenty of water and pesticides. Retailers may seduce us with 'natural fibres' but natural fibres have to be spun, knitted or woven, dyed, sewn and transported on a global scale.
Clothing of calamity or Dead Men's Clothes
Donating your clothes so that you can buy more has a global impact. Most of the secondhand clothes donated from high-income countries ends up in Africa. Far from being grateful, many African nations are trying to stop rich countries from dumping secondhand clothing on them. In Mozambique they talk about the "clothing of calamity". Whilst in Kenya your charity donation is known as the "clothes of dead white people". Get the message - they don't want your clothes.
Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, South Sudan and Burundi have been trying to curb imports of secondhand clothing by implementing tariff barriers. Your kind donation undermines African attempts to develop their own textile industry. See the New York Times, "For Dignity and Development, East Africa Curbs Used Clothes Imports".
Make do and Mend
Keeping your clothes for longer and buying fewer new clothes is the best way to live sustainably.
Wear last year's fashion with pride!
Summary: fashion and globalisation
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