Archive for January 2019

For Amaliah.com

Conscious Consumption: I Shop, Therefore I Am

The number of people within the Muslim communities loving fashion has visibly increased over the past decade. Modesty fashion is an ongoing movement that has been picked up online in the late 2008s. More young girls and women are using fashion as a means to demonstrate their Muslim identity. It’s something celebratory, having the freedom to express oneself through the means of fashion. What is concerning, however, is the increase of compulsive consumption.

Loving fashion somehow comes with the automated denotation of shopping. More particularly, accessible fashion. This, of course, should not be the case, fashion is not synonyms of shopping. But fashion can be both style and trend; one emboldens consumption while the other acclaims to be timeless. It’s between prioritising quality or quantity and mindfulness or senselessness. What is perceptible is that more people are driven by trend and seem to reinvent their style through it, without consciously knowing the effects of consumptive buying has on our planet and fellow human beings. The unfortunate truth is that fashion is aiming to be infinite, but our planet and the people making our garments aren’t.

Let’s briefly look at the supply chain of fast fashion (or fashion in general), organisations start with sourcing the raw materials, not many are done so ethically or in a sustainable manner. The next step is usually finding the cheapest labour possible, setting aside basic regulations such as health & safety, labour hours, well-being or any form of the union protecting the rights of garment makers. Then it’s usually overproducing products (according to recent statistics, Inditex group produces 7 billion products consumed only by 1 billion of the world’s population)…we know what happens to the products that are not purchased? Landfills full of products that are toxic and harmful to its neighbouring citizens. These end up being in far Asian countries in remote villages, many of us unaware of their existences.

The gap and distance between the initial production steps and the final products are so vast, that majority of people don’t have an oversight of what is happening (that is also true to the agriculture and meat industry). However, with the digital world and more active organisations exposing and sharing every step of the industry, we really have no excuse to oblivion. But then, the question of finance comes into place, the intention of high street fashion was to make fashion accessible to everyone, regardless of social class and income. One should be able to buy a stylish pair of shoes at £20 instead of breaking the bank at an artesian shoemaker. However, how many pair of those £20 shoes does one need? Is it worth the suffering of the planet and others for one to have that pair of shoes? Has anyone watched ‘The True Cost’ and saw the scene where a garment maker is begging the audience to stop buying products made out of their blood, tears and sufferings? Garment workers in Bangladesh, Cambodia and India have no choice of quitting the job if the work hours exceed 20, or the work environment causes them potential terminal illnesses (or even death, as the events of Rana Plaza showed) or have the privilege to find another job. Working there is survival, to feed oneself and take care of a family. It’s not the kind of poverty where being on government benefit is a back-up plan.

We as a Muslim community really have to build a conscious of everything we consume, the effect it had or has on the planet and our fellow human beings (and animals!). Thanks to organisations such as Eco Age and Fashion Revolution, big corporates are being held more responsible and regulations are being put into places to protect everyone involved in the industry, especially the garment workers. We encourage you to read and expand your knowledge on them. It allows everyone to make the right decisions of where to purchase and how often. Priorities quality over quantity, identify your personal style and stick with it. Invest in pieces that are ethical (perhaps more expensive) but have longevity. It certainly isn’t an easy task, but it’s something to be conscious of. Wearing clothes for modesty is a necessity, fashion is a luxury (yes all fashion, even those ‘trendy’ high street bargains). How one shops is a reflection of their identity, lifestyle, and mindset. Perhaps, some of us can’t comprehend that modesty is not limited to appearance, but how we are, who we are and how we treat everyone and everything around us.

Small Pleasures: Fashion’s Simple Pieces

When it comes to fashion, we often focus on the grandiose and lavish pieces that are theme focused. They bring us great pleasure but in the next season we are yet again seeking another form of very large pleasures from new ‘it items’. Our focus shifts from one trend to another, pursuing a temporary thrill provided by those fashion pieces or trends. But while doing so, we are overlooking the small pleasures in fashion. The pieces that have a staple silhouette, have historical connotations and were once pioneering during their inceptions. The very pieces that will always remain timeless, classic and essential.

We are talking about the white t-shirt, blue jeans, kitten heels, overcoat, turtleneck sweater, little black dress amongst many other iconic fashion articles. Clothing such as these build a foundation in our wardrobe and style. They come in different fabrics, finishing, textures and even animations. If only we pay more attention to them, we will notice that they can be accessorised in any form or shape to suit one’s personal style. Moreover, they can be dressed up or down, depending on the finishing touches. If the perfect shape and fit of these products have been mastered to one’s body figure, they can instantly look elegant and sophisticated. The tactile fabric can bring us comfort and confidence. They can be easily mixed and matched, whether through colour, textile or silhouette.

All we need to do is guide our gaze towards the small pleasures in our wardrobes and personal style. Imagine the simple combination of a cotton white t-shirt with blue washed denim jeans and a pair of kitten heel in ruby red? How effortless but chic? Doesn’t that just shift ones trendiness level just a little higher? Doesn’t the simplexes of it all just boost the confidence and spare time? This is just one of the examples, but the idea is really to gain joy and build a humble admiration to the simplest things in fashion. Decrease the protest of ‘not having enough’ fashionable clothing and be more mindful.

We encourage you look through your wardrobe and relish on the small pleasures of every piece you have. Have some excitement exploring the possibilities of styles your wardrobe can create.

(Photography by Ty Faruki)

New Year: A Transparent Wardrobe

How often have you read “New Year, New Me!” or something along the lines of refreshing your wardrobe? It’s great to have the motivation to refresh your wardrobe in a way befitting to you. But what’s more important is to invest in personal style with quality pieces that are also gentle to the planet.

Sustainability is not just limited to how our clothes are produced, but also who makes them, where they come from and how ecological their disposal will be.

Production:

Though some organisations are attempting to be more transparent on where they source raw materials and how they manufacture their products, many still keep consumers in the dark. Which makes it a little harder to identify who is doing their part for the environment.

Kering group is an advocate for sustainable fashion. Their business ethos is centered around an environmental friendly approach is not only limited to their garments, but also implemented into packaging, retail space and transportations. However, this doesn’t mean that all 14 brands under Kering are on the same path towards sustainability. The two top brands are Stella McCartney and Gucci, who do their part in eliminating the use of fur, exotic leather and a more ethically sourced raw material. Our advise would be to look more into the Kering Sustainability page where they discuss the collaboration between employees, suppliers and clients.

Of course there are independent and smaller brands taking a similar approach, such as People Tree, M&S and M.i.h Jeans. Certain high street names including but not limited to COS are doing their part by showing a more transparent supply chain.

Of course we are not suggesting that you should limit your purchases to the above names, but to reflect on what impact the pieces you purchase have on the environment. We are recommending to take a more sensible approach in investing in quality pieces that can have a long wardrobe life.

Labour:

We wonder about the people that make our clothes, we should care for their work environment and well being. We should support fair wages (living wages rather than minimum wage), sensible working hours and a safe work environment. After all, they are human just like us, our rights should be their rights.

For a very long time, the fashion industry (along with many textiles industries) have gone unnoticed (a politer way of saying remained ignorant) in terms of international regulations. Companies have misused not only raw materials and supplies but also human labour. Yes child labour has been abolished recently, but not soon enough, women still work excruciating hours and men are struggling to maintain a parallel of cheap and safe work environment. The unfortunate truth is that these things are not happening on our continent, but in far East Asia (Bangladesh, India, Cambodia, South East, to name a few)

To have a better understanding, we recommend you to watch ‘The True Cost’ on Netflix. A fashion documentary going into the depth of the environmental and labour cost of fashion, mainly low-priced fashion.

We should be asking the brands we purchase from ‘who made our clothes’, we should demand more transparency. Where there is no demand, there is no business. So the power to protect our fellow human citizens is in our hands. Fashion Revelution is an organisation that works towards a fairer human labour, from the people that make it to the people that wear it. We recommend you have a look and widen your understanding of the organization.

Afterlife:

Our natural instinct should be to donate, resell or recycle the clothes we no longer need. That requires making sure that it’s not done senselessly. Doing the above things to get rid of clothes shouldn’t be done for the sake of clearing out our wardrobe to once again fill them up with more. It can turn into a vicious endless cycle. We can minimise our wardrobe from quantity to quality. The documentary ‘Minimalism’ shows a beautiful insight of what it means to be a minimalist in our modern age. No there is no one cookie cutter formally, but various wonderful ways to be a minimalist.

We should put more thoughts into the pieces we purchase;

- do we need it?

- is it our style?

- is it sustainable?

- Will it last me?

Simple questions for every time you want to make a purchase, to decrease your influence on unsustainable fashion. Fashion should be both beautiful and kind. Let’s make it so.

Let’s do our part:

We can’t change the supply chain, nor where and how the raw materials are sourced. We can’t always know who is behind the manufacturing of our clothes but we can make sure to support those brands that are advocates for faire trade, labour and humanity. We can do our part by not consuming compulsively and recklessly. We can donate our clothes to people and non-profit organisations (note that doesn’t mean dumbing your clothes into the grounds of 3^rd world countries) or recycle them to be reused in manufacturing. We should get to know our style to an extend where we have the same wardrobe ideally for a half a decade or more. Though quality pieces come with a price (but fairer trade & ecological), they’re meant to be long lasting staple pieces.

So in the year of 2019 and beyond, we are hoping to be more mindful and conscious about the fashion decisions we make.

ZINAH

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