planB4fashion: V and A

Sunday, 13 December 2015

ethical fashion PR invented 2005

The meaningless phrase "ethical fashion" was invented in September 2005 in London, and searches peaked with news stories about ethical fashion shows for firms like Terra Plana

http://www.craftscouncil.org.uk/.../well-fashioned.../detail was another government-sponsored exibition of the usual suspects - Terra Plana for example - which our taxes helped show at

Crafts Council Gallery: 23 Mar to 4 Jun 2006
The City Gallery, Leicester: 15 Jul to 26 Aug 2006
The Design Centre, Barnsley: 7 Sep to 20 Oct 2006
City Museum & Records Office, Portsmouth: 4 Nov 2006 to 7 Jan 2007
Bilston Craft Gallery, Wolverhampton: 20 Jan to 3 Mar 2007
Estethica room at London Fashion Week, various dates starting 2005

http://planb4fashion.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/you-are-invited-to-masterclass-in.html says something about the formatting of an ethical fashion PR press release that's meant not to promote UK manufacturing but sell the competition from China instead. In other words to say it's "ethical" to close UK factories.

One of the techniques used to sell sweatshop products is to say that torture by Nike contractors and their autocratic states is better than torture by henchmen of the East India Company, who cut of the thumbs of rival loom owners. So: you see a speech my a rep from some far-eastern trade union about injustice there and think "at least she still has her thumbs: things are getting better". I think this is an unfair example of progress to pick. I don't know the source for the story, but if the East India Company still existed it would have its own PR office to rebuff claims from rival Nike.

PlanB4fashion is a link to this ethical fashion blog on a single long page

This blog is by a vegan shoe company called Veganline.com that sells vegan shoes boots & belts

Tuesday, 3 September 2013

V and A misses the lack of a welfare state in Bangladesh

Serious concerns are often raised about exploitative working conditions. End of story.

http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/w/what-is-ethical-fashion/ - This summery doesn't notice that clothes are made in countries without a welfare state and nobody is doing anything about it! - the nearest they get to a grumble is "Serious concerns are often raised about exploitative working conditions", and then they interview people from a google of "fashion" rather than "manufacturing".

There is nobody on the debating floor who makes clothes in the UK, which is odd in a museum funded by UK taxpayers. So the hosts think it's OK to claim a grant from the Department of Culture Media and Sport of the Arts Council, but don't think it a bit rude to leave out the more important things that taxes pay for when they're choosing guest speakers.

There are no speakers who have ever claimed benefits, or used free schooling or the NHS by the look of it, unless they put that difference between UK production and Bangladeshi production in an entirely separate part of their mind that doesn't talk to the public part.

[first linked 01.06.13]

Planb4fashion may be easier to read on a single page
a blog by Veganline.com which is a vegan shoe shop selling shoes mainly made in the UK and Europe