Ethical Consumption vs Retail Therapy

Preloved dress and sandals from Australian Red Cross op shop.

This week I’m giving a talk about ethical consumption at the Australian Red Cross with REDxYOUTH. The preparation got me thinking about my own consumption behaviour. So, it’s time for me to come out with an open secret; I have way too many clothes. For all the minimalist wardrobe techniques that I teach, workshops on capsule wardrobes that I run and clothes swaps that I organise and clients whose wardrobes I help reduce, I still have a really big wardrobe. 

I started op shopping and eco styling at age fifteen. My love for one-off vintage clothes, rare and unusual pieces made me a collector of fine garments that spark tremendous joy in myself and others. It’s been somewhat of a sacred art, with style being like a religion to me. Scouring the racks at vintage stores, op shops, clothes swaps and preloved markets is a rite that I’ve been performing faithfully. Fortunately, I’ve been able to alchemise this practice into a purposeful career in sustainable fashion. 

The fashion industry is one of the most polluting industries. Its greenhouse gas emission levels have recently surpassed all international flights and maritime shipping combined. Globally we’re consuming about 80 billion brand new garments every year which is 400% more than what we consumed just twenty years ago. Australia happens to be the second-largest consumer of new textiles after the US. According to United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), World Resources Institute (WRI), in total, up to 85% of textiles go into landfills each year. A massive part of the environmental degradation happens with fashion manufacture. For instance, the United Nations Environmental Programme says the fashion industry is the second-largest consumer of water worldwide. It takes about 2,000 gallons of water to produce a pair of jeans. That’s more than enough for one person to drink eight cups per day for 10 years! 

On the other side of it, we can afford to be so wasteful because clothes are cheaper than ever. Majority of the people who make our clothes (mostly women) are exploited with a plethora of human rights abuses ranging from super low wages to inhumane work conditions. Workers in developing countries can be forced to work sixteen-hour days for as little as $6 a day which does not come anywhere close to a liveable wage. 

Our modern pattern of fashion consumption is a vicious, short-lived cycle of buy - wear once, twice or not at all - bin it - then buy new all over again. I believe the cycle is driven by trends. Trends are powerful because from birth, we’re conditioned to follow trends. For many decades, possibly even longer, fashion has cleverly advanced its skills in making the masses believe you have no value unless you wear their brand or follow trends. It’s one of the very things that makes us feel like we’re not enough, then promises happiness and acceptance if we buy. All the while, fast fashion brands amass billions of dollars on the back of exploitation and untold levels of environmental damage. What’s also sad is that this fashion consumption model does not seem to be giving us consumers any true, lasting or genuine happiness. This then begs the question; why the heck are we still doing this?!

My recommendation is that it’s time for us to ‘get off the fashion trendmill’. Individual preference and sustainable acquisition methods should be the premise for consuming clothes, not fashion trends. This is the key for buying less, choosing well and making our clothes last much longer. Preloved (secondhand) clothing keeps garments in a circular economy. This delays (or prevents)garments going to landfill. Even though about 97% of my wardrobe is preloved, and I tend to cherish pieces for a long time, I still sometimes wonder if I’m consuming too much. On the other hand, it’s also my career, therefore, these are tools of my trade. As a would-be fashion consumer, I would feel enticed to buy the latest shiny trend to feel validated. However, in my world of preloved shopping, even though it’s more ethical, it used to be fuelled by the need to fill a void like loneliness. It was also a form of escapism from a trauma that I was experiencing. Later, I became more conscious of my personal thought patterns that were driving the behaviour. I guess it’s up to each of us to introspect with brutal honesty to explore why we’re consuming so much in order to heal those parts of ourselves and shift the behaviour of overconsumption. What comes up for you when you think deeply about why you shop so much?

STYLING

This week, in honour of Australian Red Cross and all of the incredible humanitarian, aid and community services they have provided globally since 1914, I am wearing a dress and beige sandals from The Red Cross op shop. This 1950s vintage-style replica dress has a lovely pattern, laced in with side and lower panels of glorious, vivacious art drawings of on-the-vine oranges and flowers. I paired it with beige strappy, chunky heeled sandals I also found at the Red Cross op shop on a different visit. In some photos I’m wearing a charcoal preloved Miu Miu designer light mohair jumper I found at another op shop. I’m wearing a petticoat underneath to give it the voluminous 1950s full skirt look. 

ReStyling tips

If you own a patterned or multi-coloured summer dress like this, you can wear it like I did with a petticoat and dressed-up shoe to look elegant. Otherwise, try any of these tips:

1. If you love pattern clash (like me), try wearing a top, button down shirt tied at the front in leopard print, zebra print or polka dot over the top half of the dress. The key is to make sure at least one of the colours of the top matches at least one colour on the bottom half of the dress. This makes the colour-pattern interaction look balanced. Otherwise it might look too out of sorts.

2. Go casual with no petticoat and a pair of flat sandals. You can even wear a plain, basic t-shirt of a with a colour that matches the bottom half of the dress. 

Outfit sourced from: 

Multicolour Summer Dress: Red Cross Op Shops

Beige Chunky Heel Sandals: Red Cross Op Shops

Charcoal Miu Miu Jumper: The Green Shed Underground Op Shop

Photography by Brunela Fenalte.

♥ Nina Gbor

Fashion, women's rights and free trade agreements

Photo courtesy of ActionAid Australia.

It’s now common knowledge that the fashion industry is not only one of the most polluting industries in the world, but it’s also laden with a lot of social injustice issues such as systemic poverty, unfair wages and lives being lost due to manufacturing. Through the efforts of activists, ethical brands and organisations like Fashion Revolution, Wardrobe Crisis, Ellen Macarthur Foundation and Eco-Age, many people are demanding ethical standards from the brands who make our clothes. However, for a more thorough and holistic shift in these issues, we need the involvement of governments, particularly where laws are concerned.

I wonder at what point in our modern history we degenerated into thinking human life was so worthless. When did it become okay to place profits and economic growth over human lives under the guise of progress? Or has this notion altogether been slyly omitted from the era of modernity and civilisation? Earlier this year the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) trade agreement came to my attention through AFTINET (Australian Fair Trade & Investment Network) and a human rights campaign created by ActionAid Australia called #TransformTradeForWomen. RCEP is a trade agreement potentially in its last leg of negotiations. If signed in its current state, it will have laws that in essence, trade corporate profits over human rights and the environment. Sadly, this notion of profit over people and planet appears to be a fundamental principle driving much of the top-level decision-making in many governments and business corporations.

Free trade agreements (FTAs) are international treaties between two or more nations that set the rules regarding trade and investment. FTAs reduce barriers to trade by giving more rights to corporations and reducing tax on imports for example. Through giving more rights to multinational corporations as an incentive to trade, they can create access to new markets for businesses in a nation and increased opportunities for foreign investment in that country. The idea is to boost economic growth of member nations. However, it’s quickly becoming a well-known fact that FTAs are rigged in favour of multinational corporations.  These agreements are increasingly becoming booby trapped with policies that heavily impact lives and rights of workers, especially women. RCEP is a massive free trade agreement between 16 member states that collectively make up nearly half of the world’s population. They include Australia, New Zealand and fourteen Asian nations, including the ten ASEAN member states. This agreement will have huge socio-economic ramifications on low-income countries – the workers, women and of course the garment workers. Therefore, if this deal goes through in the present form, it’ll boost the power of multinational corporations, to operate in ways that further damage the environment and human rights.

Whenever there’s a disaster of some kind, economic downturn or similar circumstance, women are always hit the hardest. About 80% of garment workers in the world are women. Because a significant portion of garments is made in some of the RCEP nations, the agreement can potentially have a lasting impact on the outcome of sustainability in the fashion industry (and other industries too). As FTAs are covertly designed to profit corporations at the expense of everyday people, the matter is systemically linked to women’s rights, gender equality and poverty. Therefore, signing a trade agreement with such a broad-stroke impact under these circumstances amounts to an act of brinkmanship.

According to information gathered by AFTINET, these are some of the ramifications of FTAs and RCEP:

1. The threat to women’s access to decent jobs

Trade agreements encourage multinational companies to manufacture in sectors like clothing by driving down wages and undermining worker’s rights. This is partially because normal labour rights and standards may not apply within designated “special economic zones”, drafted in some trade deals. RCEP will make provisions for corporations to employ and pay women unfair, low wages. It will validate corporations employing women in poor, sometimes unsafe working conditions. This is already a huge problem in low-income states; therefore, it will make it harder to find solutions to end exploitation and eradicate poverty cycles. Ultimately, it would make it even harder for female garment workers to find some form of self-empowerment.  

2. Temporary migrant workers could face increased exploitation

Temporary migration can be an avenue for women from low-income countries to make higher incomes, however, the reality is that these women often end up being exploited in poorly paid sectors.

3. Environment and climate change

FTAs can propel climate damage and threaten action on climate change. By inciting companies to take their manufacturing and polluting operations to nations with lower environmental safeguards, FTAs can contribute to climate change and other environmental issues. They also place barriers on the ability of governments to respond to climate change, which is unjustly impacting women around the world.

Some FTAs have a clause called the ‘Investor State Dispute Settlement’ (ISDS), which is a policy designed to give multinational corporations the impetus to sue governments if they feel a change in national law or policy will reduce their profits. For example, raising the minimum wage or laws to reduce carbon pollution. In other words, corporations can sue governments over laws that protect women’s rights over profits. Many cases presently being deliberated under trade deals include mining companies suing governments because of foregone profits from environmental regulations.

UN specialists have contributed to this theory, noting that the fear of being sued means governments are less inclined to pass laws that are crucial for people and planet. As of mid-September 2019, RCEP has excluded the ISDS clause from the deal.

4. E-Commerce inequality

In an article written in The Interpreter, Rahul Nath Choudhury has voiced concern from the perspective of most developing countries about the inclusion of e-commerce within FTAs. Some feel that it’s a covert method of using international rules that favour big tech corporations from developed countries to exclude developing countries from the digital economy.  

5. Access to public services like healthcare and education.

FTAs in general need tariffs to be reduced, which in turn minimises government revenue available for public services like healthcare, transport, and education which are a critical part of ensuring that women’s basic needs are met. By doing this they disable gender equality.

Healthcare – Amongst other health matters, AFTINET Convener, Dr Pat Ranald expressed concern over RCEP proposals for long-term monopolies on medicines that would delay the ability of affordable, generic medicines to be made available in developing countries.

Education - The lack of access to education for women and girls has a huge domino effect on so many things. It makes them more vulnerable to things like modern slavery, early childhood marriages, trafficking, etc.

Women make up more than half of the world’s population. And one can even say, that, that in itself equates to an enormous pool of resource and potential. UN Women has said, “Increasing women’s and girls’ educational attainment contributes to women’s economic empowerment and more inclusive economic growth.” Educating women and girls is the key to solving so many of the world’s problems. It means they’ll have opportunities to participate, contribute and have more leadership opportunities. And when it comes to issues like economic growth, empowering half of the population seems like a very long-term strategy for ensuring continued economic growth. So, when you look at it from that angle, it’s not practical to allow women to be disempowered in these ways. It really makes no sense at all to ignore the rights of women, particularly at the top level-decision-making. It affects economic development, politics, social development and the GDP. Billions of dollars of development and growth are lost from denying women access to education and from disempowering them. This is a fundamental pathway to creating positive change in the world. When women are empowered, the entire family, community and nation benefits. Which means the world benefits.

Just as women in the global north experience pay gaps, inequality, harassment and discrimination, women in low-income countries experience these injustices to a much higher degree. So, I believe that Western people being in a position of higher privilege, have the power to shift circumstances towards positive change, not only for garment workers but women in general.

FTAs can be a great way to systemise women’s rights. We have agency to use agreements like RCEP to change circumstances that will have huge ramifications on half of the globe in regard to women’s lives, communities and future generations. This is crucial not only for economic development but for progression in areas of politics, wellbeing, health, science and climate action. It will be on point for us to have RCEP amended to include the rights of women. And furthermore, using the gravitas of such an agreement, make it the standard for all future trade agreements to have women’s rights as a fundamental requirement before the drafting process even begins.

This is not just a women’s fight for women, it’s a people’s fight for the progression of humanity. And we hope that governments can see the value in it as well.

AFTINET - To stay up-to-date with developments on RCEP, follow AFTINET here.

ActionAid Australia - To learn more and support #TransformTradeForWomen, sign ActionAid’s RCEP petition here. You can also do the following:

• Look into joining your local activist group and find out how you can get involved with a campaign in your community.

• Watch their events page to find out if there is a campaign event happening near you. 

• Donate to help power the campaign and make sure they have the resources to run hard-hitting stunts, grow public support across Australia, and use creative tactics to target key decision-makers.

• Follow ActionAid on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to make sure you’re first to hear all the latest ways to take action on a campaign.

 Dr Patricia Ranald, Convenor of AFTINET will be speaking at The True Cost Movie screening event organised by ActionAid Australia on October 30th. Find tickets here.

- Nina Gbor

Sources: http://aftinet.org.au/cms/Regional-Comprehensive-Economic-Partnership-RCEP https://actionaid.org.au/actions/rcep-petition/