7% of all worldwide exports are in textiles. In 2000,consumers spent $1,000,000,000,000 on clothing. Thats one trillion dollars.This industry is a very big part of the world economy with a lot of money atstake. It has built all this wealth on a historical dependence on cheap labor.Even though a lot of the developing countries in the supply chain have minimumwage laws, in most cases it is lower than a realistic minimum wage, such thateven though the industry provides many relatively low skilled jobs it stillmakes it nearly impossible for the workers to escape the poverty cycle.
2. The clothes are made to die
The advent of massclusivity and fast fashion - hasdriven cheap clothes onto the market, and this has had to be done at theexpense of quality. Designer clothes arent as expensive as they used to be,but then they are not as durable. The Well dressed? study by the Universityof Cambridge found that if fashion houses increased emphasis on durability as acomponent of fashion it would greatly reduce the per capita waste volume oftextile goods. So the environment has paid a heavy price, especially as thehigh volumes have been supported by an increased use of synthetics. This couldbe alleviated if the concerned and educated consumer makes the decision to paya slightly higher price, for a garment that lasts twice as long.
3. Everybody and their grand-ma has a label
The massive proliferation of copycat fashion labels hasdevalued the industry. Every other artist and celebrity with a little bit offame is trying to cash in on their 15 minutes in an attempt to monetize theirmedia equity into a fashion label. This isnt a bad thing in and of itself.When the model has been applied in other areas, such as the fragrance industrywith the celebrity perfume, the results havent - to put it delicately - stunkas bad as they have in fashion. Contributing to this disparity is thecomparable lack of controls and barriers to entry in the fashion industry. Butultimately it comes down to the customer, the customer who continues to buysubstandard product without any retaliation.
4. The labels give nothing back
Very few labels have established social responsibility programs. Given that in the typical production life cycle, the fashion industry causes moredamage to the environment than any other there is a big built-in responsibilityto make up for. With only a handful of exceptions, that opportunity to be asocially conscious fashion brand has not been taken.
5. The brand has been sold
Ask yourself now, these following questions of your favoritefashion brand. What does brand x stand for? What are the principles of brand x?Answer the question in your mind of why do I like brand x? without using thewords, nice, cheap or I dont know. Got it? A sense of any real branddifferentiation other than your portable social-proof elements i.e. becauseLindsay Lohan was wearing it in a picture, has been lost. In a massdistribution model, fashion houses care less for creating a relationship withtheir customers. It seems that they would forget that, the real value is notthe customer herself but the relationship with that customer.
Aboutthe Author:
BaneleNkhosi
http://BantuRepublic.com
BaneleNkhosi is the co-founder of Bantu Republic.
Bantu Republic is a premium lifestyle brand that designs exclusive limitededition socially conscious fashion and brings social awareness and change toimportant socio-economic issues around the world.
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