Research: Radio 4 - The Morality of Fashion

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As my first piece of research, I listen to the Radio 4 show - The Morality of Fashion.  This was a debate between a variety of people who work in the fashion industry about the positives and negatives of Fast Fashion.

The group discussed the way that Fast Fashion products are produced quickly and then, often, worn once and then thrown away. They talked about the effect that the fashion industry has on individuals (self esteem, pressure etc) and also whether sustainable clothes are actually possible or necessary. One of the main topics they debated was whether or not stopping production of clothes in 3rd world countries, paying less than the living wage, would be helpful or harmful. I made notes while listening to this.


·         Cheap throw away clothes made in 3rd world countries made by workers on ‘3rd world wages’

·         Items worn once and then thrown away

·         Most Fast Fashion clothes end up in landfill within a year

·         Glastonbury acts donated outfits to Oxfam to encourage fans to buy second hand

·         Fashion is ‘poisoning’ self-worth – dissatisfied with he way we look so go to the shops for a new look

·         Fashion is an immoral, short termist industry – resources and products – short life trend-based product, not supposed to be valued, supposed to be worn for a short time and thrown out

·         People in developing world making a living from Western need/want for trends – sweatshops. Getting rid of sweatshops deprive these people from making a living at all

·         Richest people on the planet pay women workers 35p an hour – employment opp but unfair

·         60 million garment workers in the world.

·         Living wage for factory workers – current wage is about half.

·         Double in global consumption of clothes between 2012 and 2021

·         Farming of cotton problematic in water use and sustainability

·         Unrecyclable product ending up in landfill

·         Fashion industry promotes certain body type that is the standard of beauty that’s unattainable for most people. Pressure on women to look a certain way (increasingly also affecting men)

·         Fashion industry more moral if models look more like normal people

·         Narcissism of fashion

·         Judged on appearance, fast fashion means that we all look very different (positive)

·         Care too little about clothes – seen as superficial to care about clothes so we treat them disposably. If we care more about clothes, then we may care more about the people who make them. Fashion industry encourages us to care about clothes less. Smart works charity.

·         Fashion industry make money from attitude to clothes but degrades our attitude to them.

·         Difference between fashion and clothing – clothes are for need, fashion is about design

·         Works through making us feel dissatisfied so that we buy more to make ourselves feel better, clothes form identity

From this programme, I have learnt that making clothes more ethical isn't as simple creating clothes in different countries or closing down factories that don't pay workers well because this stops workers from making a living at all. This was a good starting point for my research as it highlighted a range of issues with fast fashion that I can now look at in more detail. This source is reliable as it showed a variety of viewpoints from people in the fashion industry which reduced bias as different views were shown.

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