Workers rights, protecting the environment, ethical choices - these are just some of the issues being discussed during Paris Fashion Week,
alongside the 90 runway shows.
Tansy Hoskins, the author of the polemical book Stitched Up, will be in town at the
venerable Shakespeare and Company bookshop to give her views about the failings
of the global, trillion-dollar fashion industry.
On March 9, she’ll discuss its impact on the environment and
on employee conditions in some developing countries - where factories churn out
garments for Western companies without safety concerns for workers.
Nearly two years ago in Bangladesh, more than 1,100 workers died
and 2,500 were injured when a factory building collapsed, after safety warnings
were ignored. The workers made clothing for brands including Benetton, which only recently
announced that it would contribute to a compensation fund for the victims.
That agreement followed a campaign in which one million
people signed an on-line petition calling for the company to do the right
thing.
For Hoskins, “ethical fashion” are two words that don’t mean
much when huge luxury concerns own most well-known brands and care mainly about
profit.
Still, representatives from the Ethical Fashion Initiative (EFI)
will also be in Paris this week, working to drum up support from more
designers. The EFI is part of the International Trade Centre, itself a joint
agency of the United Nations and the World Trade Organisation.
According to founder Simone Cipriani, the Ethical Fashion
Initiative wants fashion to help to lessen poverty by connecting top designers
with artisans in regions such as East Africa and parts of the Caribbean.
Another goal is the “eradication of exploitation, hardship
and environmental damage from the supply chains to the fashion industry and the
practices of fashion businesses”.
Designers including Stella McCartney, Vivienne Westwood and Italy-based Stella Jean are active in the project, and a growing number
of international stylists show interest.
“The many hands behind fashion goods are often ignored and
forgotten. This is wrong. The lives and work behind fashion products should be
cherished and celebrated,” says the EFI.
When one keeps this in mind, one can’t help seeing fashion
shows in a different light, which now brings us to Paris’ Ready to Wear Fall-Winter
2015 defilés. The week started on Mar. 3 with shows by Christine Phung, Each x
Other and Sofie Madsden, among others.
Phung staged her show at the gleaming Institut du Monde Arabe
(Arab World Institute) and offered elegant costumes of purple, blue, grey and
black, worn by a multi-cultural cast of models. Phung called the collection "Glitchology",
saying she was inspired by the digital malfunctions that can cause both
frustration and a certain kind of beauty. She gets added credit for including models of different ethnic backgrounds in her shows.
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| Each x Other |
Danish designer and illustrator Anne Sofie Madsen was distinctly more outre, with her unpredictable pairing of materials and shapes: fur draped over
silk, ruffles and fringes, a body-hugging dress highlighted with her own
drawings. She and other Danish stylists are rapidly setting trends in Paris and other capitals. (See previous article on Nikoline Liv Andersen.)
One looks forward to what the rest of the week will bring, and wonders which designers will join the debate about ethical fashion. - Tasshon
