Hey, it's Kristen and today I'm gonna be starting a new segment on this channel
which is going to be called Problematic Fashion because I personally see a lot of problems within the fashion industry.
Not just that it's one of the top four most polluting industries in the world
Not just the ethical issues that arise when it comes to how many fast fashion brands treat their workers,
how much they're being paid, how unsafe their working conditions are.
But I'm just gonna be talking as well about different social issues, like racism in the fashion industry,
misogyny in the fashion industry, how there are almost no
average sized models in the fashion industry. Also
problematic designers. So a lot of different topics
but today I am going to be focusing on feminist t-shirts. The feminist t-shirts saw a spike in its popularity in
2017 when Dior launched their
710 dollar worth "We should all be feminists" t-shirt. And it was worn by celebrities like Jennifer Lawrence, Natalie Portman and
Fashion blogger Chiara Ferragni. And a lot of other celebrities have followed this trend like Emma Watson, Thomas Hiddleston,
Benedict Cumberbatch, Madonna. And what always happens whenever celebrities wear something?
Fast fashion brands tried to capitalize out of it by turning it into a trend and
selling it to the masses
for a very low cost. But why is this wrong?
Why is it wrong to wear a $5 t-shirt from H&M that says feminism on it?
You support something that you believe in, you advertise it to everyone and you just feel more like a feminist.
Right?
Not really because once you look into what goes behind making those fast fashion
five-dollar t-shirts then you realize there is a huge amount of exploitation
especially done towards women because the majority of people that make our clothes in the factories
are
for the most part women. The majority of the factories the produce clothes for fast fashion brands are
sweatshops.
If you go into any fast fashion brand store and check the label of their clothing
you'll see 'Made in Bangladesh', 'Made in Cambodia', 'Made in India'.
These are countries where human rights violations are rampant and
a very small amount of factories in these countries actually have
fair or at least
semi-fair working conditions.
Most of the factories in these countries are either unsafe, either through the building itself -
there are very few factories with fire escapes or any fire safety at all for that matter.
Workers in these factories get paid about
39 cents an hour which even if you adjust for inflation that is still an extremely
small amount of money that these people are making in these factories.
There's also a lot of sexual abuse that happens directed towards women and
They are not allowed to form unions in a lot of cases or if they do, they are fired.
If they get pregnant, women get fired. If they try in any way to rally to
protect their human rights and to fight for better working conditions,
they are fired. And you know what other t-shirts were made in sweatshops?
These. The ones that I showed you in the beginning of the video worn by
female activist and human rights supporter Emma Watson among other
celebrities. And these t-shirts were designed for Elle UK magazine's
december Feminism issue in partnership with Fawcett Society, which is Britain's
largest women's advocacy group. And these tops were manufactured in a sweatshop in Mauritius where workers earned
$1 an hour. And in total to about a hundred and ninety dollars a month, which is lower than
270 dollars a month which is the minimum poverty level according to the national empowerment fund. A worker
reported that she had to work up to 12 hours a day and struggled to live on her salary
these t-shirts cost $14 to make and they were sold for
72 dollars and these workers were not oblivious in the irony of this t-shirt
One worker actually said how can this t-shirt be a symbol of feminism when we do not see ourselves as feminists
We see ourselves as trapped. The women and people in general
working in these factories are very much aware of how inhumane these working conditions are. And
they are trying their best to change it
but I cannot see their situation and their working conditions getting any better if us, the people that are
consuming the clothing that they're making, don't demand better working conditions.
There's no such thing as fast fashion without the exploitation of humans.
It is impossible to produce cheap clothing without exploiting people, without using child labor, slave labor, and
paying people dirt cheap.
There's no other way to make cheap clothing. And this brings me to another issue that I have when it comes to
feminist t-shirts or just any fast fashion t-shirt with a supposedly meaningful logo on - is
the complete hypocrisy behind it and the fact that these
multi-billion dollar corporations are taking meaningful movements and turning them into
profit, turning them into
capital. This is not what feminism is. And it's not something that H&M, Zara,
Forever 21 and any other fast fashion brand should exploit and
profit out of. Because they're not selling feminism.
They're selling the opposite of feminism whenever they sell a feminist t-shirt. Have we through our ignorance
allowed fast fashion corporations to exploit their workers?
Yes.
But I can't be mad with ignorance.
I'm mad with the fast fashion corporations that are very knowingly exploiting their workers and at the same time
exploiting their customers through selling them products that
automatically contradict with the values of their customers.
We've seen that with H&Ms Conscious collection, which is not at all conscious.
They're just selling the idea of consciousness to people. Or the fact that they pretend to be eco-friendly by introducing their
recycling bins in their stores where they give you a ten percent discount.
And that is just another marketing scheme to kind of incentivize people to buy more of their stuff. And
very few of the items actually gets recycled. And a lot of other brands do this. It's called green washing
I also call it ethical washing whenever they promote the idea that they're supportive of the
LGBTQ community, when they're supportive of animal rights, when they're supportive of
women and
anything. They don't support anything. They don't stand for anything other than
taking your money. And I'm absolutely certain that about 99 percent of the people watching this video
understand this hypocrisy and are willing to actually change and do something else.
This is what I always see in comments when I make this type of videos. People are like Ok,
so what do I do? How do I not support fast fashion?
How do I not support the exploitation of people? So I
have a complete
playlist with all the information that you might need in order to learn how to shop more ethically.
I also have a list of ethical brands that I have created with all my favorite
ethical brands in the description box and I have a bunch of videos with different solutions on
what you can do to shop more ethically.
And it really varies on your budget and
where you live.
So there are different solutions for different people. As long as we all try our best to
boycott fast fashion as much as we possibly can or at least to lower our consumption and fast fashion. And
in my opinion that's gonna have a huge positive impact in the fashion industry
to vote with our money and give our money to the people that deserve it and give our money to people that
respect their workers and make sure that they're paying them a fair living wage.
So I want us to have a conversation about this in the comments below. So let me know what you think - do you agree?
Do you disagree? Do you have something to add? I would love to know and
also, if you did like this video give it a big thumbs up. Subscribe for more videos like this, hit the bell notification button to
get updated every time I post a new video on this channel, and I'll see you guys next week. Bye!