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- Volume 2, Issue 1, 2011
Critical Studies in Fashion & Beauty - Volume 2, Issue 1-2, 2011
Volume 2, Issue 1-2, 2011
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Fashionable dilemmas
More LessContinuing the approach he developed in his book, The Enemies of Progress: The Dangers of Sustainability with regards to design, Austin Williams takes to task the emerging ethical and sustainability dogma in the area of fashion. While acknowledging the importance of the issues addressed by the rhetoric of ethics, per se, he takes issue with industries which employ it as a marketing strategy and as a platform to chide the less industrially developed countries. He critiques the attempt to use sustainability arguments in order to block the underdeveloped world from sharing the fortunes of the developed world's consumption levels. He challenges those who seek to address global problems through the prism of ethics: by blaming individual consumers, or by absolving their guilt through selective purchases. More generally he questions ethical fashion's self-appointed authority to moralize and in particular to impose on the underdeveloped world the equation that environmental concerns should take priority over poverty alleviation and human development.
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Comme il faut – where ethics is not just a brand image but a brand essence. Reflections of the CEO
More LessComme il faut is an Israeli high-end fashion house of women's fashion that was established in 1987 by Carole Godin and Sybil Goldfiner. It has developed a business model that combines traditional business management, the purpose of which is to generate revenue and continuous growth, with management on the basis of feminist values and a responsibility to contribute to the creation of a better world, a more just world, for women and for all. This mission runs through all aspects of the company's operation: in terms of production it consists of designing clothes that respect women's bodies and that fit a wide range of bodies, producing high-quality clothes to last with the finest quality materials, and of paying living wages to workers who make them locally. In terms of the company's relationships with its stakeholders, it is run as a flat shared (and non-hierarchical) structure. Its management assures that suppliers are not squeezed to subsistence level, that employees receive a share of the company's profits, and that the premises are run in an environmentally friendly way. In terms of retail – the company's discourse is anti-hegemonic in that it produces images and messages that subvert the industry's standard that builds on a seduction model that is tailored to the patriarchal gaze. This is complemented by social activism initiatives that are regularly pursued and that reflect the company's commitment to an ethical feminist outlook. 'The Giving List' in the UK newspaper The Guardian, which orders FTSE 100 companies by the percentage of pre-tax profits contributed to charitable causes, showed in 2004 and 2006 that the charitable contributions of FTSE's 100 companies (including gifts in kind, staff time devoted to charitable causes and related management costs) averaged around 1% of pre-tax profits, with the highest spenders (e.g. GlaxoSmithKline and the Cooperative group) spending 2.41% and 5% of pre-tax profit, respectively. In contrast, comme il faut, a household name in Israeli fashion but not a global player, invests 10% of its profits. Finally, the collective spirit of the fashion house is reinforced by the design model that employs house designers, but does not build a personality cult of the celebrity designer. As the CEO of the company – I explain how the company developed and raise important ethical issues about the possibility of having a fashion business with a committed feminist agenda.
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Consumers' perceptions of 'green': Why and how consumers use eco-fashion and green beauty products
Authors: Marie-Cécile Cervellon and Lindsey CareyThe market for green products is expanding worldwide in a variety of industries, such as food, fashion and cosmetics. However, there is little research about consumer behaviour regarding green fashion and beauty, or consumers' knowledge of green labels and certifications. This article explores these issues through a qualitative research approach, using in-depth interviews and focus groups. Results suggest that consumers do not understand the meaning of all terms and labels used to describe and guarantee green products, such as, for example, eco-labels on organic cosmetics. Regarding the motivation of consumers for consuming eco-fashion and green beauty products, protection of the environment is not a priority. Respondents' motives for purchasing these products appear to be egocentric and related to health. Also, such purchases constitute a 'license to sin': they relieve the guilt of non-environmentally-friendly behaviors. Lastly, motivation for consuming eco-fashion is based on self-expression (mainly a North American motivation) and status display (mainly a continental European motivation). For several continental Europeans, purchasing green products appears to be a new form of conspicuous consumption.
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Ethical fashion and the exploitation of nonhuman animals
More LessFashion theorists have largely ignored ethical concerns about the industry's exploitation of nonhuman animals. While critical theory and political economy approaches stress the centrality of animal exploitation to global capitalism, an animal rights perspective critiques the fashion industry's use of nonhuman animals as a 'theatre of cruelty' which turns them from living beings to mere products, or raw materials. Adopting these perspectives, the article provides a brief survey of some key issues, and examines the resurgence of fur sales and fur industry rhetorics. The evidence and the arguments presented illustrate why a critical approach to ethical issues in fashion and beauty cannot exclude nonhuman animals.
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Global ethical culinary fashion and a local dish: Organic hummus in Israel
More LessHummus, one of the most common foods in Israel, was appropriated several decades ago as an icon of Israeli culture and nationality. Organic hummus – a recent version of the dish – represents an encounter of the global and the local in consumption, due to global ethical culinary fashion. In this article I analyze how re-branding local food as organic adds a layer of cosmopolitanism, which is status related. This analysis can be extrapolated from the culinary to a fashion related example in order to make the following arguments:That what appears as the embodiment of environmental ethics of localism over globalism (cutting down on the carbon footprint and eliminating toxins from the product life cycle for the benefit of both producers and the environment) can actually be seen as its opposite when the local value is transformed into a cosmopolitan one.That even if organic is interpreted as an ethical watchword, what motivates consumers is often not high-minded ideals but a better consumer experience (taste, prestige, etc.).This article traces the interplay between the global and the local through the example of hummus, which is analogous to the dynamics of organic and sustainable fashion. It argues that the global socio-economic conditions and ideas embedded in the concept of ‘organic’ allow the imagined re-localization of the dish. Like ethnic fashion, hummus used to represent rootedness, earthiness, and local simplicity but not fashionability. Nowadays, in its organic version, it wears an economic and symbolic framework of global values superimposed on the original local meanings, demonstrating a symbolic cosmopolitan and fashion-forward identity.
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Aesthetic (dis)orders: Styling principles in fashion modelling
More LessBuilding on previous research on the cultural history of models, this article explores a variety of ethical issues concerning modelling. The study of the social construction of beauty and models' social personas, as well as the codes underlying visual representation in fashion advertising, raises ethical issues concerning the promotion of extreme beauty ideals of perfection, the need to fit a very narrow range of definitions of these ideals, and the adverse effects on the models themselves. Based on qualitative data obtained from in-depth interviews with former fashion models and agents, as well as on some auto-ethnographical reflections, I address these ethical questions. More specifically, I examine how these expectations affect the way in which models experience their bodies, their ways of feeling, and how they critically reflect on their modelling career, body self-perception and the performance of beauty. By exploring the forms of symbolic violence that shape the experience of being a model, I highlight an aspect of ethical fashion that is frequently overlooked.
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Fashion World – models and backstages
By Miriam TawilThe ethics of encouraging young girls to aspire to unrealistic and idealized models of femininity exemplified by the 'fashion model' has been discussed both in academic and public debate. What is less known is how the beauty system moulds and affects the models themselves. Those models who appear as the epitome of glamour also have a shady side away from the limelight where different ethical dilemmas loom large. As a psychoanalyst, I know about the human cost paid by the very individuals who are commodified into objects of desire.
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EXHIBITION REVIEW
By Alla MyzelevThe Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From Sidewalk to Catwalk, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, June 17–October 2, 2011
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BOOK REVIEWS
Authors: Diana Crane and Alexandra SherlockThe Myth of the Ethical Consumer, Timothy M. Devinney, Pat Auger and Giana M. Eckhardt (2010) Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, (240 pp.), ISBN 978-0-521-74755-4, PB, £16.49, ISBN-13: 978-0521766944, HB, £55.Globalizing Responsibility: The Political Rationalities of Ethical Consumption, Clive Barnett, Paul Cloke, Nick Clarke and Alice Malpass (2011) Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, (325 pp.), ISBN 978-1-4051-4557-2, PB, £16.49, ISBN: 978-1-4051-4558-9 HB, £55.Shoes: A History from Sandals to Sneakers, Giorgio Riello and Peter McNeil (eds), 2011 London: Berg, (448 pp.), ISBN 9780857850386, PB, £19.99
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BOOK REPORTS
Authors: Catherine Hakim, Nurit Bat-Yaar and Alla MyzelevHoney Money: The Power of Erotic Capital, Catherine Hakim, 2011 London: Allen Lane, (372 pp.), 978-1-846-14419-6 HB, £20Israel Fashion Art – 1948-2008, Nurit Bat-Yaar (2010) Tel Aviv: Resling. (442pp.), Danacode 585-358, Hardback, 149 Shekels (£25)Fashion, Interior Design and the Contours of Modern Identity, Alla Myzelev and John Potvin (eds), (2010) Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, (266 pp.), ISBN 978-0-7546-6915-9, Hardback, $119.95, £65, http://www.ashgate.com/images/9780754669159.jpg, Website price: $107.96, £58.50
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