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December is a season of consumption, and in the last two decades shoppers have filled their closets with what’s known as fast fashion: inexpensive clothing inspired by runway looks.
But in our haste to find the latest holiday sweaters and party dresses, the hands dyeing the yarns or sewing the hems on those dresses are often an afterthought.
On Sunday, in a special print section, “Stare Shopping in the Face,” editors at The New York Times set out to examine the people involved in manufacturing and buying contemporary fashion.
Reporters looked at the low wages of garment workers; interviewed young women who covet inexpensive clothing; detailed efforts by the retailer H&M to become more transparent about its supply chain; and profiled a designer making “trashion:” new clothing from used fabrics.
Vanessa Friedman, the fashion director and chief fashion critic for The Times, discussed the special section and what she hoped readers would take away from it. This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
What made this a topic you wanted to address right now?
We’ve been talking about sustainability and fashion for a very long time. Clearly, it’s a topic that has become more pressing for people, whether they are consumers, or just people who like fashion, or people who are interested in the environment. This seemed like a good moment to pull the threads together and really look at it.
What changes have we seen in sustainable fashion over the last decade?
In 2009, Copenhagen held the first really recognized sustainable fashion conference. At that time, no one in the industry was thinking about this question at all.
In fashion, just in the last year, brands and consumers and designers have really woken up to the need to act more responsibly about their designs and their manufacturing costs. They have begun to talk about it in a way they never had before.
What surprised you most to come out of the reporting?
The role social media has played in all of this really surprised me. We know that lots of people sell stuff on Instagram, and it’s very important to brands for marketing. But so many consumers are buying things because of what they see on Instagram. It was a real shock to understand how much the psychology of buying and the behavior of buying have changed.
What topics do you want to explore going forward?
I think we’ll look a lot more at what is happening in fashion in terms of repurposing waste material or old garments — what they call upcycling. I think that’s all going to become an increasingly important part of the fashion cycle. There are companies that are doing that already, but I think it will happen more.
And also watching how companies try to take control of their own supply chain and to be transparent about it and let consumers and watchdogs in on that process. I think in the past there’s been a real fear in fashion that if companies weren’t perfect they would get attacked. Now, brands are willing to say, “We’re not perfect, but we’re trying, and here’s what we’re trying to do.” Holding them to it is a really important part of this too.
What do you hope readers take away from this reporting?
I hope it makes them think, maybe before they make a purchasing decision, about the human effort and the human touch that have gone into making everything they own, even if it’s a really cheap T-shirt. I hope that they think a little bit more about something they probably knew, but may not have fully embraced, which is that it is really hard to make clothes that can sell for very cheap prices and turn over very quickly in a way that is responsible. If it seems unbelievable and too good to be true, it probably is — and consumers have the power to change that.
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