Decolonizing Fashion: The Need for Holistic and Intersectional Solutions
Fast fashion has long relied on capitalist and colonialist structures that exploit workers around the world. Decolonizing fashion is a crucial step towards addressing the social and environmental issues caused by this industry. Achieving decolonized fashion requires mainstream fashion to recognize and value the cultural heritage of marginalized communities, and to adopt a more sustainable, holistic approach towards production. It also involves embracing imagination and exploring alternative approaches such as free clothing swaps and trade-based markets. The fashion industry needs to prioritize the voices of minorities and reevaluate its understanding of power, hierarchy, wealth, and inequality to create a more just and sustainable future.
What is decolonized fashion?
Decolonized fashion means transforming the structures and systems upon which the industry was built, including the unequal power dynamics that exist in the supply chain. Although colonialism is typically viewed as a past era, the fashion industry's structures and systems were constructed and continue to operate within a framework of colonization. The fashion industry as we know it was born from the Industrial Revolution that subjugated poor and migrant communities to work endless hours under unbearable conditions. Colonialism's legacy has shaped how we perceive and engage with clothing, given that the fast fashion industry is being driven by a false need for cheap clothes at the expense of exploited labor. However, let's be clear that capitalism is a system of oppression, rather than an attack on the people it oppresses.
While ‘dress’ is a human universal, ‘fashion’ is a culturally-specific system of dress undergirded by a dominant economic system. The now ‘globalized’ Fashion system operates in line with the capitalist imperatives of growth and accumulation of profit. - Sandra Niessen
To properly address the current fashion industry, holistic and intersectional solutions must be created and implemented. According to Tansy Hoskins in her book The Anticapitalist Book of Fashion, she explains that the four key elements that are linked to fashion that wouldn't exist without exploitation are: people of color, the global working class, women and the planet. This means that supporting brands and buying more sustainable solutions is not a viable solution to issues given it perpetuates the very system that is causing the problem in the first place. Any solution must instead center the aforementioned four intersectional elements to do more good than harm. It would mean countering the mainstream narrative of competition and capitalism in the way we produce and consume clothing.
“Corporations must produce fashion in order to produce money. If everyone bought only the clothes they needed it would spell disaster for corporations, so instead “false needs’ are created to keep everyone shopping. These needs are false because they are manufacturers’ needs not those of the consumer.”- Tansy Hoskins
A return to indigenous wisdom is needed to remove ourselves from the mainstream narrative rooted in Western ideology. As it stands, the fashion industry would not continue to exist without class divide. The rich use clothing as a way to express their wealth and reproduce their power, and once the masses have gained access to “elite fashion”, the rich move on. This leaves the masses behind and reinforces an otherness marked by money and status symbols, which include luxury brands.
How do we achieve decolonized fashion?
Systemic change is needed to tackle the root of the problem. The wealthy have become incredibly rich at the expense of the explotation of the Global South as they incessantly market their products to people's insecurities and fears. Brands extractive supply chain reinforces power imbalances and perpetuates the exploitative trade routes that have been in place for centuries. Western dominance is also part of the problem, as it perpetuates beauty ideals as stick thin, pallid white skin and blond hair. And it carries over in how brands see the world and the earth, one to use and profit from without care. So turning to Indigenous wisdom and practices within fashion could effectively bridge the divide between us and earth, and with each other. It would help us see our interconnected nature and the need for localized, communal solutions that benefit everyone.
However, mainstream (fast) fashion has made slow progress in various aspects such as ensuring cultural heritage, social equity, autonomous livelihoods, and environmental stewardship. The fashion industry is in deep need of environmental, economic, and social sustainability, but there is also an urgent need for a cultural dimension to any sustainability agenda. The textile heritage of marginalized groups are subject to abusive cultural appropriation practices by fashion brands, and are systematically obscured. They are often deemed “other”, systematically undervalued and have their production be considered “non-fashion”.
We cannot ‘save’ other people and we should never imagine we can; instead, we can fine-tune into reality as it presents itself and let it determine what needs expression, making, changing, inventing, or letting be, together.- (Helen Storey, 2022).
Brands, and any of its staff members, need to understand how to uplift and appreciate different cultures and rights to avoid appropriation. Brands also need culturally-informed design skills, and a holistic approach towards sustainability that includes artisanal practices. And as the number of forcibly displaced people continues to rise because of the climate crisis and wars, it is evident that we must also reconsider and address the diverse needs and aspirations of refugee communities and find ways to respect and celebrate their rich cultures.
Fast Fashion: Systemic Change & Vulnerable Communities
Dismantling oppressive and exploitative systems in fashion must be eliminated. Dominant approaches must be decolonized, which means dismantling colonial systems of oppression and exploitation, empowering a multiplicity of voices and agencies, and leveraging the values of diversity and sustainability of cultural heritages. According to Dr. Francesco Mazzarella, a senior lecturer at London College of Fashion (LCF), co-creation would be necessary to achieve this goal. To this end, his Reality, Reciprocity, Resilience project investigated and valued the lived experiences of refugees in terms of cultural sustainability and community resilience, with the goal of informing the future development of a framework for decolonized fashion design practice. This is despite refugees having lost their material possessions, since they often retain their original culture, customs, faiths, and craft skills, making them valuable contributors to the fashion industry.
We can also achieve change through imagination and vision. Consider magazines with no ads and products. What would a true fashion magazine look like without ads and product placement in them? Envision free clothing swaps everywhere. Consider all the community hubs that would pop up, and how we would get to know our neighbors and share stories around our preloved clothing. Pretend going to a trade- based clothing market. Imagine a market where you can trade items you no longer need for something you need, including textiles, clothing and shoes! Reconsider what labor looks like. Imagine a world where an hour did not equate to a certain quantifiable number of papers. What would it look like to thrive and grow in dignity and respect every day?
“Despite the pain and violence that makes fashion production possible, shopping for the resulting objects is still proffered as a cure for everything from heartbreak to low self-esteem.”- Tansy Hoskins
Decolonizing Fashion Is a Ongoing Process
Decolonizing fashion is not a one-time event, but an ongoing process that has been happening for decades across different regions and communities. There is no foreseeable ending or conclusion to decolonization, and it will remain a question mark. William Bamber explored the contradictions of Indian fashion during British occupation in his historical article on late nineteenth-century Indian fashion. Bamber examined the Hyderabadi sherwani and rumi topi fashion, a regional men's style, to uncover the colonial and decolonial influences in men's fashion. Bamber avoided reducing fashion as either colonial or nationalist, and recognized the potential for fashionable instability during periods of colonial uncertainty. By doing so, he is able to identify the contradictions that plagued Indian fashion choices during British occupation, a challenge we all face as we decolonize in a colonized world. Bamber's work also provides a historical example of how regional fashion intersects with broader colonial frameworks of fashion in modern body aesthetics.
But sadly some decolonial efforts inadvertently reinforce existing power dynamics that they aim to dismantle. These efforts are a product of the seemingly unavoidable nature of capitalism. They are the recurring power relations through unresolved contradictions and paradoxes that have yet to be resolved, which also highlights the ongoing nature of the decolonization process in fashion. And, despite how difficult it is to create change, some have already started envisioning a decolonized fashion industry. Sandra Niessen presented a Defashion manifesto inspired by the Fashion Act Now activist group, which originated from the Extinction Rebellion climate crisis movement.
The neologism ‘defashion’ signals a paradigmatic shift towards a decolonial future in which fashion fairness goes far beyond concern for the plight of garment workers. In a defashion world, indigenous and non-fashion dress systems that have been erased by dominant, global fashion, are cherished. - Sandra Niessen
Niessen argues that principles of equity, justice, and redress, which are essential to decolonization, are interconnected with the need to protect the environment. The manifesto demands a radical transformation of the global fashion industry to put an end to harmful exploitation of resources and people, as well as the deceptive marketing practices that conceal the devastating impact on the planet.
To decolonize fashion, the industry needs to consistently reconsider their understanding of power, hierarchy, wealth, and inequality. It would mean prioritizing the voices of minorities as leading actors since these communities have historically been sustainable, despite colonialism's impact on their cultures. The industry is also in desperate need of a holistic and intersectional approach to address the social and environmental issues caused by its exploitative practices. It would require recognition and value of the cultural heritage of marginalized communities and adopt a more sustainable approach towards production. It is high time for systemic change and for the industry to recognize the harm it has caused vulnerable communities and the planet.
