The Superficial Face of Fashion

Source www.guardian.co.uk

An article by Lucy Siegle in today’s Observer Why fast fashion is slow death for the planet explores the problems of fast fashion: overflowing wardrobes, reduced league times, overworked and underpaid factory workers, stellar fiscal achievements and the fashion consumers lust for more fore less and disregard. I make a point of mentioning this article as there was a particular reference I had not come across before:

Perhaps that mindset explains why a fashion industry commentator watched in horror as she saw one satisfied customer emerge from Primark's flagship Oxford Circus store with six or seven brown paper bags full of clothes. It was raining heavily, and as the young woman proceeded down Oxford Street one of them broke around the handles and folded cotton flopped on to the pavement. Naturally the journalist expected the girl to bend down and collect the clothes, but no. She just walked on. Fashion was apparently so expendable it had turned into litter.


Source www.dedicatedfolloweroffashion.com

On my many trips via Oxford Circus to university or even through Coventry city town centre (my home town with the largest Primark store in the UK when it was built in around 2008) I see a countless number of women, both young and old, carrying at least two large brown paper bags. My reaction is always the same: being overcome with shivers. I feel the same when entering a Primark store, yet combined with a glazed sense of attending a farm or cattle market; clothes strewn across their displays taking the form of a laundry pile, miserable staff shuffling about not even attempting to clean up, escalators that herd you around the store in order to get up or down and customers trailblazing around grabbing, dropping and eventually chucking in those oversized baskets that resemble buckets. On top of this the queues are horrendous, almost robotic and airport like. I repeat the same question to myself when leaving; ‘Do people enjoy this?’ Perhaps this experience is ultimately part of the fashion procedure for many, likened to the frustrating process of separating egg whites in order to produce the ultimate meringue.


Source themorganmclearyblog.wordpress.com

After reading the above paragraph that shiver again possessed my body, however much deeper: I felt sad. A newly brought fashion piece means so little to its owner they are willing to dispose of it before even consuming it. It begs the question: ‘has fashion or clothing in general become superficial?’

Lets not kid ourselves, the fashion industry has always been a little shallow quick to snipe an others in out of date wears, but it always seem to connect to us emotionally. Perhaps with reference to the girl mentioned above we no longer desire or need this emotional connection.

Many sustainable fashion writers and designers discuss the need to maintain and encourage this emotional connection. But are we missing the point before us, perhaps people want fashion that they can consume without a care? Perhaps designers and writers should explore sustainable methods of creating clothing to allow for this change in the consumer.

What are you views? Are both areas of research viable?

New Materials for Fashion

I’ve been both a little slow in reading Shaping Sustainable Fashion as well as blogging recently. However, a forty-five minute bus journey recently gave me plenty of time to delve into the text. So far I have not come across anything overly new or innovative, mostly upcycling and fibres, which is another reason why I have not blogged.

A case study that did catch my attention was New Materials for Fashion (page 39), which discussed the potential to explore and develop new materials as possible sustainable solutions for fashion. I know exactly why I was drawn to this text; my MA Final Project was in many ways an exploration of this. Another reason would be that this research is ‘little explored in the fashion industry’. The unknown always fascinates me.

Jennifer Shellard is a textile designer who combines technology with traditional craft skills to create textiles with a colour strip that changes colour. The colour change is ‘slow and measured’ to create an ‘intriguing and meditative’ viewing experience. Her work fits into the new body of research exploring methods of engaging with consumers through transformation. Adaptive clothing has the potential to encourage a relationship or emotional response with the owner, thus reducing the need for the owner to further consume.



Shellard’s work is interesting and appears well thought out; however I feel that consumers need something more than colour change to feel connected to their clothing.

‘A central problem with fashion is that often a garment is disregarded before it ceases to function’. I totally agree. The text continues to promote the need for emotional attachment to sustain interest with the owner as being the ultimate challenge. True, but another method could be explored: to create garments that engage for a short period of time, for example the length of a trend and be safely disposed.

Fashion is and most certainly will always be fuelled by trends. We can either embrace this by searching for methods to sustain it, or turn anti-fashion and focus on maintenance and emotion. To be honest, I believe in both these methods: my own work explores the possibility of safe disposable garments that can be trend led yet there are items in my wardrobe that I have developed an emotional attachment to also. Perhaps the future will hold a happy medium for both. What do you think?

Cassette Tapes: The Revival

I read this article some time ago in G2 (The weekday Guardian supplement) about the renaissance of the cassette tape. I found it fascinating how this music format is slowly growing in popularity again.

The article reports on Bands like Deerhunter releasing albums on cassette tapes, underground labels specialising in the format and the tributes seen on t-shirts and i-pod cases. Cassette tapes are noted for sounding different depending on the decks used and because of this are ‘cherished for their imperfections’, providing a unique sound in turn breathing ‘extra vibrancy’ into the music. This unique-ness mentioned, with its ability to sound different as well as the unspooling of the tape within leading to you nurturing back to its correct form reminded me of something I’d read in a emotional design book. The book: Emotionally Durable Design by Jonathan Chapmen discusses that objects with free will along with a touch of disobedience can stimulate a relationship with the user. Also the idea of the object being dependant on the user can develop a relationship between the two. This relationship will create an emotional response from the user towards the object, which in turn may prolong the life expectancy of the object. This certainly appears to have happened with the cassette tape with a select group of individuals.

The mix tape is mentioned, describing it as a ‘labour of love’. This reminded me of a lecture I attended by Otto Van Busch who also brought up the ‘love’ involved, as well as personal touch of creating a mix tape. Hearing and reading about mix tapes struck a chord within me, taking me back to forwarding, rewinding, stopping and eventually pushing the little red button. I feel I actually miss this about music now. Creating mix tapes was definitely an experience which will never be forgotten, but I have to admit having an mp3 player with 16GB of music is much simpler than carrying a walkman with 20 cassette tapes in my bag.

Just to finish I’d like to mention the mix tape that will stick with me forever. My brother was tentatively creating me a mix tape full of his music to force on me in 1999 when Manchester Utd won the European Cup. Upon my first listen to the tape (and even now when I dig it out) I crack up to hear ‘Schmeichel’s in the penalty box…..The Bayern Munich players are on their knees, they don’t know what’s hit them; Manchester’s hit them’. Such simple joys.