I had the enormous pleasure of working with the designers Chromat, Kim Shui and Sies Marjan for NYFW SS20! Working backstage always delivers a kind of adrenaline rush that you can’t get anywhere else. The fashion, the models, the teamwork, the pressure - I love it all. The key artists I worked with were: Chromat - Fatima Thomas; Sies Marjan - Nami Yoshida; and Kim Shui - Chantel Miller.
This was a fun commercial that I shot back in 2017 with Aurora Coast Productions, starring Cristiano Ronaldo. Our crew was in charge of shooting the B-roll characters. The shoot took place over two days in various locations around Brooklyn and New Jersey. (Ronaldo’s scenes were already shot by a different crew overseas.)
For my first blog post, I thought that instead of sharing tidbits about myself (which you can already find via my About page or through my social channels like Instagram), I’d discuss a social issue that I feel strongly about. As an artist, one of the goals I want to achieve through my work is to spread a tangible awareness of issues like these.
You probably own clothes from at least one of fast fashion’s greatest behemoths, such as H&M, Forever 21, or Zara. If you’re style-conscious like me, then you’re drawn to each brand’s constantly rotating inventory, which is updated every week to stay on trend. And how could you resist those affordable prices? But as an average consumer, you may not know the lengthy process involved in making your favorite summer dress. It’s a laborious, difficult journey from concept to fabrication, especially when designs must be on shelves within one to three weeks of conceptualization. Because of this and other factors, the supply chain of the fast-fashion industry often disposes of human rights.
It’s a harsh truth to face, and I worry that the typical consumer has an “out of sight, out of mind” mentality when it comes to the human cost of fast fashion. We know that the majority of our clothes are manufactured in developing countries like Bangladesh, Vietnam and Cambodia. We’re aware of the abrasive management that factory workers face. We heard about the 2013 Rana Plaza factory collapse that killed over 1,000 workers. But we feel that because these things happen thousands of miles away to people we may never know in our lifetime, they don’t affect us. And that couldn’t be farther from the truth.
To be a conscious shopper means to be aware of where your money actually goes once it crosses the virtual threshold of the cash register. Did you know that many factories that supply garments to retailers like Forever 21 pay their workers below minimum wage? For example, in one of the worst cases in Bangladesh, wages could be as low as $1 USD, which is far below the country’s minimum monthly wage of $63 USD. Workers may also be forced to work while sick or pregnant, with little to no sleep. A scene in the revealing documentary The True Cost explains this magnitude of abuse in detail; a Bengali factory worker, Shima Akhter, describes a time when she and her co-workers were beat with chairs, sticks, and scissors after presenting their managers with a list of workplace changes they would have liked to see.
The fast-fashion landscape is immense these days, both online and in brick-and-mortar. How do you decide which retailers are reputable and which ones are exploitative? A tool that I found helpful is the Fashion Transparency Index from Fashion Revolution, an international organization whose mission is “to unite people and organizations to work together towards radically changing the way our clothes are sourced, produced and consumed, so that our clothing is made in a safe, clean and fair way.” In the Index, Fashion Revolution ranks some of the world’s most popular clothing brands according to their level of transparency, or how much information about the supply chain a particular brand is willing to make public. The companies are given ratings between 0-100%; however, the top-ranking companies are still just under the 70% threshold. Fast-fashion retailers that rank higher than most include ASOS and Gap, while brands like Forever 21 and Urban Outfitters score 10% or lower.
While controlling where your money goes is one way to affect the fast-fashion industry, it makes but a tiny dent in patching this vast issue. The problem must be addressed from the roots. Responsibility largely falls on the government of each country that owns an exploitative garment factory. Global Labor Justice is one organization that fights for the rights of garment workers, as well as the U.K.-based War on Want. While right now I’m only able to “vote with my dollar,” a goal of mine is to become involved with these organizations in some way. Change starts with us.
