Clothes make the man

What links Rana Plaza, the eight-storey building in Dhaka that collapsed just under a year ago killing over 1,100 garment workers, to Linkenholt, a dreamy village in the British countryside bought lock, stock and cricket pitch by Swedish retail billionaire Stefan Persson? They both form part of the story of fashion, a $1.5 trillion global industry which, though one of the most toxic and destructive, is also one of the least scrutinised in its totality, argues Tansy E Hoskins, the author of recently published Stitched Up: The Anti-Capitalist Book of Fashion.

A casual observer would not take Hoskins for what she is: a vehement critic of the fashion industry. When we met at Goldsmith’s College in South London, where she was about to give a talk, she was strikingly dressed in a bright pink coat and quirky black boots, with a large faux leopard skin coat to hand. Hoskins, who has worked on a number of campaigns, including the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and Hyderabad-based Prajwala, which works against trafficking, admits enjoying clothes. “I get a lot of pleasure out of fashion and design — I don’t think I’d have been able to write the book if I didn’t,” she says. “But if you love something you want it to be as good as it can be.”

The fashion industry Hoskins portrays is a long way from that. “Fashion reinforces racism, sexism, gender stereotypes, class and unequal power relations,” concludes Stitched Up. “Fashion seriously exploits its impoverished workers and its customers. It pushes the value of wealth and greed and promotes body insecurity and dissatisfaction… In an industry that sells itself as a promoter of individuality, the reality is one of conformity, with billions of pieces of trend-based clothing churned out each year and sent to identikit stores from Birmingham to Bangkok, with magazines on different continents promoting the same styles.”

Hoskins' anger is palpable, but the book is far from a diatribe. It meticulously documents the history and current state of the fashion industry’s many insalubrious facets. Hoskins is quick to debunk the myth that it is just the low-end cheap brands that are guilty of abuses, pointing out the dependence of luxury brands on their own mass-market goods — sunglasses and t-shirts, for example — that make its brands affordable to the ordinary person. “Why discuss only the pollution caused by high street brands in China when “It bags” are made in the factory next door?” she asks.

Hoskins approaches the industry from an anti-capitalist perspective, but even for those who don’t share her worldview her book offers much that is interesting and disturbing. A recurrent theme is the extent to which the fashion industry seems to get away with things that would be deemed unacceptable in any other walk of life. She examines just how much the fashion media must kowtow to the industry it is meant to critique and cover. She does a quick survey of several magazines and finds startling tallies between the number of ads for a particular brand and the brands featured in stories. If the notion of paid-for news has outraged us so much, how does fashion get away with it routinely and across the globe? Other issues include fashion journalism’s treatment of poverty ( Vogue India’s notorious 2008 ‘slum-dweller’ shoot) and use of children (fashion pages thrive on images of under-16 models).

Her analysis of the environmental impact of the industry makes worrying reading. In China, for example, a study found the textile industry to be the third worst water polluter out of 39. “Of all the industries, who’d have thought it would be fashion?” exclaimed Hoskins, who hopes to leave her readers with a greater awareness of such facts.

While many of us have probably long nursed a sense of unease about aspects of the industry, fashion — with its beautiful products and ability to make us hanker after them — still somehow manages to distance itself from its ugly, on-the-ground realities. “I want people, when they wear clothes, to be aware of the story behind them, the garment workers who made them, the chemicals that went into them,” she says.

The book concludes that little will change under the current economic system, but does find some cause for optimism, highlighting industry changes that have resulted from collective action. These include the Bangladesh Accord, a legally binding set of health and safety requirements agreed upon by some of the world’s biggest clothing brands in response to the horrific events at Rana Plaza. Hoskins also points to a recently launched union for fashion models in the UK, which aims to improve workplace conditions and rights. As she notes, this is particularly important given the number of children working in the industry.

Hoskins is adamant in her opposition to the notion that buying so-called ethical clothing can make a difference. “I am sick of the narrative that we can change things by shopping differently,” she says, arguing that this perpetuates the myth that it’s individuals, and particularly the poorest consumers in society, who are to blame. “I have clothes from Zara and H&M, but I know what I am putting on,” she says. “I carry around the stories of the people who made them. I don’t want to disconnect from that.”

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