Decolonising Fashion: A Deep Dive into Fashion’s Colonial Roots
We need to decolonise the fashion industry!
A daunting sentence, I know, but, we need to talk about it in order to make up for the years spent ignoring the systematic barriers that stood in the way of how many cultures only now got a seat at the table of fashion; we need to talk about it now in order to see why it’s so beneficial for our people, our environment and futures to progress successfully and ethically. For many years, I have wondered why my culture, amongst many others, was not celebrated the way Eurocentric-dominated fashion practices were. How others could not see the delicate and articulate practice it took to attain the look of South Asian garments - our Sarees, Lengha’s & Kurtas never really receiving ‘the hype’ if you will. It really made me wonder why had we only been relevant in terms of colonial restraints, i.e. extracting resources, collating fabric and preparing garments for the Western world to flaunt without having any repercussions or knowledge of the damage it was doing to our people.
However, now, with more education, you & I can understand why;
Decolonising, deconstructing and rebuilding the fashion industry remains so important for our future.
Diving deeper into the colonial roots of fashion isn’t just about cultural appropriation or how Eurocentrism is at the forefront of our big magazines/ media outlets. It’s a lot deeper than that. It’s the exploitation of workers who aren’t given the same chance at life as those who slap their brand label on the garment most probably created in Bangladesh; it's the Rana Plaza factory incident of 2013 when those in sweatshops lost their lives due to the unethical working conditions and a death toll of 1,134 confirmed. It’s the impact it has on those other than you & me. It is known that surrounding the outbreak of Covid 19 - a decline in retail sales in Europe & the United States had been noted by the ‘centre of global workers rights’. As a result of sales declining, multiple brands cancelled their orders with factories (with completed garment orders), totalling $16.2 billion worth of fees that remain unpaid & leaving factories in Bangladesh and many more with insufficient financial situations and unable to compensate their employees. Thus destroying livelihoods and instilling the recycling of exploitation.
All of this can be a really scary topic to think about. Especially because whether we know it or not, we may be participating in this vicious cycle of exploitation. It could arise when we mass consume, when we decide that social media gets to tell us what is in style rather than valuing what we like, or when a small rip in our clothes calls for the choice to throw it out instead of mending it. It all circles back to sustainable practice in all areas of our lives; that is a way we can decolonise the industry and alleviate the strain current colonised habits have on people in different parts of the world. Currently, mass consumption in ‘The United Kingdom is known for the most purchased clothing per person than any other European country, with the average consumer buying 26.7kg of fashion items per year.’ With this in mind, markets for excessive production and poor-quality textiles will always be around without any change in order. Conversations about colonial roots in the fashion industry almost always intertwine with the topic of sustainability. Hearing how the two correlate sometimes shows how practices that involve colonised communities can mend the crisis that is currently at hand. Growing up, my main source of learning about the fashion industry was watching cultural garments get amended when they didn't fit the way someone wanted. I would sit and watch the tailor create something beautiful out of an item that could have simply been thrown away, discarded in a bin, waiting to be sent away to landfill. We all know the three R’s - reduce, reuse & recycle. However, the Western world never really evidently delves into any of the three.
Instead, now, I instil this practice in my life and upcycle when I no longer believe a garment serves a purpose like it used to. I will say it again: we need to decolonise the fashion industry. The fashion industry should not be in the hands of children getting paid 45 cents an hour to create garments that will be thrown away as soon as the next trend releases. Decolonising this industry for you and me can start small, whether it be upcycling our own clothes instead of buying new ones, learning to mend that small tear on a skirt or simply even delving deeper into where we can limit shopping, understanding who is paying a fair wage and treating their factory workers ethically. It really only takes one to decolonise the industry we all love so much.
Words: Isabella Suruthi
