By: KS
Part I: Community
Whether you care about fashion or not, clothing is an important aspect of everyone’s life. Though the complexity of our relationship with the clothes we wear can often be overlooked. There are many reasons we wear clothes, for comfort, warmth, functionality, creative expression, to present ourselves a certain way, etc. Fashion is often used as a way to find community and connect with people who might have similar views and passions as you. By wearing a shirt with something you care about you can help create a community.
Fashion is often used as a way to find community and connect with people who might have similar views and passions as you. By wearing a shirt with something you care about you can help create a community.
For example, a band tee with your favourite band or a shirt supporting a cause you care about can encourage other like-minded individuals to approach you. This is mutual support and will help both people feel comfortable in their communities by forming relationships outside of immediate kinship networks (Chatzidakis et al., 2020). Another example is the art of drag. It is often seen that exposure to things like drag queens can help queer people feel like they belong in a world where they are frequently excluded. LGBTQ-friendly bars, drag queen storytimes in public libraries and other places where the public can have exposure to queer culture and drag will help people in these communities become less excluded from everyday life and help others be understanding and compassionate towards communities outside of their own. These public spaces allow those who might now have access to this culture at home to experience it firsthand and potentially find a space where they feel accepted by others. Often being in drag helps people discover who they are, ranging from people who just see it as a fun hobby or career, to transgender people feeling their first sense of gender euphoria. In this way, clothing can be a vital part of self-expression and discovery. In this way, people are able to work together and share ideas that help each person flourish individually (Chatzidakis et al., 2020). The next part of a caring community is shared resources. Clothing is a crucial resource that we would be unable to survive without, especially here in Canada. With the harsh winters, having access to warm clothing is a must. This is why we have systems in place like thrift stores, clothing swaps, and clothing donations where the more fortunate people in society are able to share their clothing with people who cannot afford it themselves. In turn, everyone else also has access to thrift stores and clothing swaps, so anyone may go in and find the old clothes a new home. At the root of a caring community I think is just feeling the support from others. This was shown in the activity from week 4. All the ideas came from people helping people. Whether that was by donating or by being surrounded by the company of strangers and finding comfort in knowing other people within your caring community understand your struggles.
Part II: Environment
With climate change becoming a more prominent issue in today’s society, taking care of the environment is now a concern on a lot of people’s minds. With centuries of humans using Earth’s resources without care, we are now finally seeing the repercussions and trying to take them into account when going about our daily lives.
With centuries of humans using Earth’s resources without care, we are now finally seeing the repercussions and trying to take them into account when going about our daily lives.
When it comes to clothing, an environmental issue that has become prevalent is fast fashion. This is where people buy clothing based on what is trendy at the moment and not considering whether or not they actually will wear the item of clothing long-term. People will buy hundreds of dollars worth of clothes just to get rid of most of them within a couple of months. This has led to companies mass-producing clothing and constantly coming out with new styles that will quickly become unfashionable again. Since this has come to light, “sustainable” or “eco-friendly” clothing has started emerging. Companies claim that these items of clothing are made with recycled materials and they are keeping the environment in mind when producing their products. Although many of these companies could have good intentions and are actually trying to help the environment, lots of clothing retailers are just green-washing their products to make themselves feel and look better. This also could add to the problem since people might buy more “eco-friendly” clothing because they no longer have to feel guilty about the environmental impact. Another problem with these environmentally friendly clothing companies is more often than not, the prices of these clothes are much higher than what is typically found at the average clothing store. Many people can be shamed or made to feel guilty because they are unable to afford clothing at these increased prices. This reminded me of a smaller-scale version of the climate gentrification we discussed in class. These clothing brands allow the wealthiest customers to have access to these green initiatives and leave the rest to buy lower-quality clothing and feel bad about it (Anguelovski et al. 2019). An alternative version of this issue is when Indigenous people are shamed for their traditional way of making clothing from parts of animals. People will ignorantly direct anger towards these practices when in reality, they are more sustainable since they will use every part of the animal and will not kill more animals than necessary. Many have gone further to try and get these traditions banned. These are two examples of environmental injustice in clothing. The activity we did in week 9 where we put the sticky notes up with different ways to change climate change initiatives made me realize that it is difficult to have changes like that put into place. Most of the suggestions with the biggest impacts would force politicians and lawmakers to set aside some economic and capitalistic motivations. Which is unfortunately something I personally do not see happening.
Part III: Economic
The styles of clothes people wear go through cycles over time. New items are always getting made and popularized and old trends will often find their way to be discovered by the new generation after enough time has passed. As previously mentioned, this creates high amounts of supply and demand in clothing. In this capitalist system, consumers are encouraged to buy the newest and trendiest items meaning people will constantly be spending money on clothes and companies will constantly be producing clothes for them to buy.
In this capitalist system, consumers are encouraged to buy the newest and trendiest items meaning people will constantly be spending money on clothes and companies will constantly be producing clothes for them to buy.
This can lead to these mass amounts of clothes being created unethically. Companies will take advantage of the less strict laws in other countries and build factories where they can use child, forced, and/or unfairly paid labour. This allows them to make tonnes of clothes while keeping the cost down since they are not paying the employees of the factories a fair wage. Once people started learning how prevalent this actually is within the big companies that we all know and use, some started boycotting businesses that use these practices. This shows the ambivalence of care, it can be extremely difficult to not buy clothes from some of these major clothing brands. Some of these brands are the ones that are most easily accessible to the general public, the ones you find in any mall you go to. By avoiding shopping at these stores people are limiting their selection by a lot since they can no longer just walk into any store and buy something. It can be difficult to evade the places that are most convenient but for those who do so, it is worth it since they are taking their hatred for the unethical practices and putting it into their actions (Chatzidakis et al., 2020). Unethical practices are usually associated with “cheap” fashion brands when it is also seen in high-end luxury brands. Clothing stores should be considered public spaces where anyone can do their shopping at. However, if a store’s target demographic is people on the wealthier side they will try to keep that image as much as possible. This results in store employees following, questioning, or even kicking out those who look like they do not belong in the store. Similarly, to the boys in the video we watched in class who got kicked out of the park that was supposed to be public. These places are meant to be for anyone but as soon as anyone less than the rich tries to use these resources they become limited. The activity from week 10 made me think about how the ways we care are more on the structural scale than we think. The people who boycott businesses for environmental reasons are also affecting the economy which could also affect the state by encouraging changes in laws. When I originally thought of the idea of avoiding businesses for ethical reasons I saw it more on the global/world scale, but I realize now that the ultimate goal is to get laws changed so that these factories can no longer run.
Part IV: Digital
In this new digital age, technology and the internet are huge factors in most aspects of our lives. Social media apps, like TikTok, can be seen as one huge community made up of several different smaller communities. These apps influence many of the most popular trends at the moment. Within each niche group, there are popular items and aesthetics, people are able to share clothing items they have found from various stores with others who have a similar style to them. Online spaces are a great way to find mutual support. For instance, people will feel more comfortable asking a stranger online where they got an item of clothing than in person. One person gets to know where the item came from and the other person gets a compliment knowing someone else likes their style. When online, people have more confidence to speak and share their opinions. This was seen in class with the padlet. I found that it was a lot easier for me to participate when it was online since I can struggle with speaking out loud. I know that even if I knew that speaking out loud was a requirement for participation I would still hesitate to do it whereas online I had no issue. I also noticed this when we made the online versions of our online spaces. Most of the online versions of the initiatives had features where you could chat or ask questions to people you do not know. I think this is because it is a lot more intimidating to talk to a stranger in person than it is online. Online versions of systems in place were especially important during the pandemic. An example is the online version of the thrift stores discussed previously. Apps and websites like Poshmark and Depop gave a space for people to continue buying used clothing without having to make a trip to the physical thrift store.
Online versions of systems in place were especially important during the pandemic. An example is the online version of the thrift stores discussed previously. Apps and websites like Poshmark and Depop gave a space for people to continue buying used clothing without having to make a trip to the physical thrift store.
Having online spaces to share also allows people to gain access to knowledge. People are able to learn about the traditional clothing of other cultures. I think having this exposure to different kinds of clothing will allow people to be less ignorant when seeing someone wear something different in real life. In Ringland and Wolf’s (2020) article, people were able to find, learn about, and appreciate BTS, many of which have gone on to educate themselves about the K-pop community as a whole. This would certainly not have had the impact it did without the internet. The internet allowed people to not only learn about the traditional clothing of other cultures but to familiarize themselves with the popular clothing trends in other countries right now. In turn, our popular culture is then influenced by people in other countries and vice versa. The internet can help us rid ourselves of ignorance and gives us the space to ask questions about things we would not even know about without it.
References
Anguelovski, I., Connolly, J. J. T., Pearsall, H., Shokry, G., Checker, M., Maantay, J., Gould, K., Lewis, T., Maroko, A., & Roberts, J. T. (2019). Why green “climate gentrification” threatens poor and vulnerable populations. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(52), 26139–26143. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1920490117
Chatzidakis, A., Hakim, J., Litter, J., & Rottenberg, C. (2020). Chapter 3: Caring communities. The care manifesto: The politics of interdependence (pp. 45-58). Verso Books.
Chatzidakis, A., Hakim, J., Litter, J., & Rottenberg, C. (2020). Chapter 1: Caring Politics. The care manifesto: The politics of interdependence (pp. 21-31). Verso Books.
Ringland, K. E., & Wolf, C. T. (2022). "You're my best friend." finding community online in BTS's fandom, ARMY. XRDS: Crossroads, The ACM Magazine for Students, 28(2), 66-69.
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