The Morality of Fashion by Neil Hughes https://padlet.com/neil_hughes/i8m4yhtmmt13 Where do you stand? en-us 2019-09-02 15:18:12 UTC 2020-02-06 13:47:00 UTC hello@padlet.com Answer 1 han_jeffery90 https://padlet.com/neil_hughes/i8m4yhtmmt13/wish/388753898 I found Tansy Hoskin had very interesting and important things to say and found that she was being challenged an awful lot for her opinions – whether this was people playing 🤬’s advocate or it was their genuine opinion, I’m not sure. When Ellie (I think that was her name) brought up the point about whether Hoskin felt immorality in the fashion industry was either about consequence (that if workers didn’t work in garment factories they would be working jobs that could be more dangerous or unsanitary) or that if they stay in garment factories they are subject to wage exploitation, I feel that by placing these situations in such a binary as one or the other, she overlooked that neither of these problems should be happening in the first place, and that both need to be tackled. She jumped on Hoskins when she mentioned regulations of garment factories, and Hoskins admitted that this could perhaps lead to the shutting of garment factories, but  it felt like Ellie saw this as the lesser of two evils instead of thinking about how to broach regulation in a way that didn’t lead to the shutting down of factories. It also felt almost detached from the current severity of the issues for the debater (I can’t remember her name) to envision a situation right now where employees of garment factories in Bangladesh would be able to undertake yoga on their lunch breaks or after work.  I think the most important things to be working towards right now, as expressed in the manifesto, are dignified work that “does not enslave, endanger, exploit, overwork, harass, abuse or discriminate against anyone,” and “that fashion provides fair and equal pay.”]]> 2019-09-24 11:57:41 UTC https://padlet.com/neil_hughes/i8m4yhtmmt13/wish/388753898 The morality of fashion https://padlet.com/neil_hughes/i8m4yhtmmt13/wish/438695379 I found this debate really interesting. The key questions I am thinking about are whether fashion is an excuse for the rich to exploit the poor, and where/who are the real victims of the fashion industry? I am interested in the human impact of fashion (worker rights, conditions and exploitation). We need to think about the environmental impact (cotton production and the Aral Sea). The threat that AI poses to garment workers globally is something to think about. We also see immoral practices in primary factories the world over, from the East Midlands to Bangladesh. I don't agree that degrading jobs are better than no jobs. 

]]> 2020-01-31 12:37:17 UTC https://padlet.com/neil_hughes/i8m4yhtmmt13/wish/438695379 Fashion Revolution Manifesto https://padlet.com/neil_hughes/i8m4yhtmmt13/wish/438696730 I enjoyed reading the Manifesto. We could discuss this in class and devise our own Geography Class of 2020 Manifesto for 'good fashion'?]]> 2020-01-31 12:41:55 UTC https://padlet.com/neil_hughes/i8m4yhtmmt13/wish/438696730 https://padlet.com/neil_hughes/i8m4yhtmmt13/wish/438834998 I found it really interesting that Tim thought there was no need for a more sustainable fashion industry as everyone is getting richer from the situation. 'We have holes in the ground we can put thing in them.. whats unsustainable about this' madness.... 

I think there needs to be greater regulation of the fashion industry in the global north to ensure greater responsibility- regulating what can and cant be made, what price you can charge (£5 boohoo dress - extremely unreasonable). 

money without borders leads to  sweatshop exploitation of the worlds poorest = Anita Roddick

the environmental audit committee wanted to place a 1p charge per garment on producers to fund better recycling of clothes and have mandatory environmental targets for fashion retailers with a turner over above £36 million ... unsurprisingly this was reject by MPs saying they are focusing on taxing single use plastic in packaging rather than the cheap items 




]]> 2020-01-31 16:18:13 UTC https://padlet.com/neil_hughes/i8m4yhtmmt13/wish/438834998 https://padlet.com/neil_hughes/i8m4yhtmmt13/wish/439593500 I think that the government needs to do much more to encourage the fashion industry to become more responsible. However, this is easier said than done. This is because taxing clothing, such as a 5p charge per item similar to the plastic bag tax. This may reduce the consumption of clothing, or the fashion industry may reduce their costs in order not to increase prices. As a result, it could negatively impact the production of clothing, resulting in more negative impacts for the global south. 

Instead, I think that the government should introduce legislation to make the fashion industry more transparent. Such as all items of clothing should have information on the name of the factory where they were made and not just the country of origin. At least this will give consumers more information about where the things there are buying are really coming from and the implications of this.  One of the key things that came up in the debate is around whether people actually care about where their clothes came from. By providing consumers with more information about where their clothing came from, they can make more informed decisions, such as buying less and wearing clothes for longer. 
]]> 2020-02-03 13:14:17 UTC https://padlet.com/neil_hughes/i8m4yhtmmt13/wish/439593500 https://padlet.com/neil_hughes/i8m4yhtmmt13/wish/439624929 I really enjoyed the discussion and applaud how passionate Tansy is. I did not expect some of the others to go against this argument in the ways that they did e.g. the lady who mentioned that it is 'better than' more dangerous and lower paid options as if to say this was justification for allowing the industry to keep exploiting these already vulnerable women. 
In terms of what the government should do or is doing, I am aware that there are various policies in place such as the MSA (2015) on a larger scale, and 'rules to trade' (Cotton On Group) at a company level. I feel these need to be synthesized and enforced as law to ensure that companies are publishing in-depth and regular CSR reports. If companies are pushed/forced to become more transparent, this will help to combat the structural failures of the industry, and help consumers make more informed decisions. However, this will not likely be the be all and end all solution, as the fashion industry is extremely complex, and 'fixes' to capitalism such as outsourcing only make issues harder to legislate against and control.]]> 2020-02-03 14:02:00 UTC https://padlet.com/neil_hughes/i8m4yhtmmt13/wish/439624929 Regulated Transparency? https://padlet.com/neil_hughes/i8m4yhtmmt13/wish/439634339 Tansy kept mentioning the fact that the fashion industry is 'unregulated'. This is true, but imagining what any realistic regulation would look like is difficult. At least within the UK, we can't force companies who've exported production to foreign countries to pay higher wages, and any law raising the base price of a garment in shops at home would never be passed. Limiting the amount of clothes people can buy per year would go against the idea of a free country, and as a basic premise, any action involving directly or indirectly raising the price of clothes stops a huge, less wealthy proportion of the population having access to fashion.

The best idea I can think of that might help would be introducing laws around transparency. If every item you bought on Asos had the wage per hour paid to make it, and the amount of water used to make it (for example), people could make their own choices about what they buy. This is more realistic than the ideas mentioned above, but will still probably never happen with lobbying from big fashion.]]> 2020-02-03 14:15:15 UTC https://padlet.com/neil_hughes/i8m4yhtmmt13/wish/439634339