Week 6: Social and Physical Environments of Fashion

Week 6: Social and Physical Environments of Fashion
Grace Petersen
June 2, 2019

This concludes the last week of our challenge, and despite last week's slip, I feel relatively clean in my habits throughout the second half of the quarter. In reflection, I feel like this challenge has helped me to really conceptualize the message of our course not only through the academic sphere but also to connect it to my own personal habits. In going through this alongside the readings, I have had a greater opportunity to think on how our habits as consumers are intricately linked to issues not only of environmental impact, but class as well.

This class has effectively severed the idea from my mind that fashion is a-political in any way shape or form, and especially in regard to race and nationality. The idea that fashion is a western concept, or even a concept which only exists in western influenced societies is entrenched in politics of class just as much as it is with race and nationality. Sandra Niessen writes that "Fashion is successful only when it has a following," and it is this logic that cites fashion as a western trend, since it is the west that dominates on the international scale. This idea, however, neatly ignores the reality in which many Asian designer from Issey Miyake to Alexander Wang who have enormous influence on fashion





It is reflexive upon reviewing the argument that these designers are 'western' to cite the various ways and forms in which their work deviates from the mold, but this argument itself lacks the critical perspective needed in this conversation. It is not enough to expand the world of designers and executives to include 'non-western' perspective, as Minha-Ha Pham states: "...adding more people of color in high-value sectors like design, marketing, and advertising will do nothing to change the work conditions of people of color in low-value jobs in the cut/make/trim (CMT) sectors." What is truly needed is a thorough examination of the material living conditions and use of resources and how this disproportionately benefits people and nations in power.


Works Cited:
Niessen, Sandra. "Afterword: Re-Orienting Fashion Theory." The Globalization of Asian Dress, 2003. 
Pham, Minh-Ha. "How to Fix the Fashion Industry's Racism." The New Republic, April 18, 2019.
      https://newrepublic.com/article/153596/fix-fashion-industrys-racism