ASA 141
Week 2
In this week, I almost bought new clothes because of the discount on Urban Outfitters. It was so attractive when I saw the 30% off for dresses. But I finally realized that the reason why I wanted to buy the clothes was not because of my need or my preference. The thing triggered my desire was cheap price, then I decided to choose something I could buy among the discounted products. This is the normal but wrong idea of consumer influenced by fast fashion nowadays. We should consciously change the surface view of a product from price into the deep meaningful view of the design of product. I really love the dynamic formation of design from Buddy Mahil mentioned in the article "It's hip to be Asian", "one need not wear what is already designed and stitched for one, but one may create an individually produced suit by inputting one’s own ideas by negotiating with a design/retail professional" (52). This codes the special meaning from consumer inside the design and make the clothes unique. Bubby even allowed his customers to go through the fabric samples to choose the fabric so that they could design what exactly suit to customers and go beyond embodying the dresses. I think that is why the Asian ethnic clothes could lead a fashion trend in London. The savvy design democratizer took seriously to the clothes, respects each steps in the product process and integrated new ideas into the clothing. These are exactly something we need to arouse and reflect in contemporary period where we lose our wits under the fast fashion flow.
In order to look at sustainability in fast fashion in detail, Maarit's article "Designing Sustainable Fashion: Possibilities and Challenges" gives me a brief view of a model which is to serve fashion designers, who wish to take sustainability into consideration. The concepts of the core category, “considered take and return” means you can only take out of a system the same amount of energy as you put back in, with no pollution or waste. Then we could insert sustainable idea into each step in supply chain. For example, we could merge the processing stages and use updated methods that consume a minimum amount of water and energy in the finishing processes of fabrics. The following picture is the overview of the model.
Works Cited
- Bhachu, Parminder. "It’s hip to be Asian: The local and global networks of Asian fashion entrepreneurs in London." Transnational Spaces. Routledge, 2004. 52-71.
- Maarit Aakko, Ritva Koskennurmi-Sivonen, (2013) "Designing Sustainable Fashion: Possibilities and Challenges", Research Journal of Textile and Apparel, Vol. 17 Issue: 1, pp.13-22, https://doi.org/10.1108/RJTA-17-01-2013-B002
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