Fashion Legacy

NOTES FOR A RESEARCH FUNDING BID

see the article Shaming Fast Fashion, some keywords and concepts such as Fashion's DNA

Plans to re-shape fashion

INTRODUCTION

3 talks on sustainable fashion

3 talks for the International Metadesign Congress in Brazil.

VIDEO 1: Prof. John Wood argues that design as we know it needs a re-fit
VIDEO 2: He offers a very brief overview of our previous work on metadesign
VIDEO 3: He asks whether this approach could be used to reshape the fashion system

Our proposal

The Strategy
- To seek funding that would enable us to research top-down and bottom-up ideas and approaches.
- Where possible and appropriate, to compare and evaluate suitable ideas in combination.
- To seek further support that would enable us to implement selected actions & interventions.
The Vision
- Imagine fashion as a grass roots network of local hubs.
- Imagine fashion as a catalyst for raising global consciousness.
- Imagine fashion based on styles co-created in local communities.
- Imagine fashion that advocates feeling good as the path to looking good
- Imagine fashion blended with other social, recreational and performative activities.
- Imagine fashion as a popular movement renouncing mass produced disposable clothes.
The Planned Actions
- To co-manage an AHRC-funded fashion research project.
- To collaborate with relevant experts in dance, choirs, semiotics, &c.
- To augment/support the work of the CSF & other experts in the field.
- To draw upon knowledge and expertise not usually associated with fashion.
- To plan possible futures of the above endeavours (e.g. ThinkTank / Futures Lab).
The Intended Outcomes
- A historical, sociological & creative analysis of fashion's DNA.
- A financially credible, service-based business model for a new paradigm.
- An experimental fashion transformation network of ethical consumers & activists.
- An accessible publication & DIY kit for activists, fashion designers & community leaders.

How are we defining fashion?

The term fashion means a trend, fad or pattern
- It derives from the verb 'to make'.
- It tends to emphasise form or style.
- However, its evolving history offers a number of distinct identities.
Fashion as running with the pack
- Systems of etiquette helped royal courts to maintain a strict social hierarchy.
- Royal courts expected ('de rigeur') courtiers to follow seasonal fashions.
- Standards in Haute couture made it affordable only by the rich & privileged.
- In the past, conformity was mainly imposed on a top-down basis.
- Today, corporations use marketing & the semiotic manipulation of choice.
Fashion as performance
- In the popular imagination, fashion often means visually flamboyant dress.
- However, La mode also included physical postures, gestures, manners and rituals.
Fashion as standing out from the herd
- After the French Revolution, mass-production enabled citizens to live more like monarchs.
- Since the late 19th century, design creativity & industrial innovation was normalised.
- Increasingly individualised customer identities co-created greater product diversity.
- This, in turn, enabled some consumers to invent eccentric or transgressive identities.
- This may also have inspired today's openness to gender diversities, etc.
- Drag / Cosplay / Crossplay /
Fashion as a commercial business.
- In 2021 the global fashion industry estimated between $1.7 trillion - $2.5 trillion turnover.
- Those with higher disposable incomes buy more fast fashion than poorer consumers.

Why fashion must change

It is increasingly unsustainable
- i.e. the volume of poorly sourced, processed (then discarded) garment materials is set to increase (Y)
- e.g. fashion industry generates 10% of all carbon emissions (more than aviation and shipping combined)
- e.g. making one shirt requires 2,700 litres of fresh water (one person's drinking water for 2.5 yrs (Z).
- e.g. Polyester and nylon account for 69% (75% by 2030) of all clothing made (Tonti, 2024)
- e.g. Some synthetic materials (e.g. Lycra) may take more than 500 years to decompose in landfill.
Many of its HR practices are unethical
- many garment manufacturers in poor countries pay less than the minimum wage
- working conditions can be dangerous or even life-threatening (x)

Why have we failed so far?

Fashion is a system
- It is the co-dependency of businesses and consumers that create certain outcomes.
- Roland Barthes outlined how fashion corporations calculatedly maintain control.
- He contrasted this with the intuitive & unconscious responses by consumers.
- Understanding this whole complex process calls for a systemic approach.
The fashion system is a paradigm
- It it is useful to think of the fashion system as a paradigm.
- Paradigms are complex sets of habits, meanings and assumptions.
- Unfortunately, they are so normal we may not notice them.
Paradigms resist change
- Paradigms are sustained by vested interests, habits and outdated belief systems.
- This often enables them to survive well beyond their anticipated expiry date.
- Some of fashion's attributes are so established we will call them its DNA.
- Perhaps we can change the DNA by remixing and adding ingredients.
Governments can see the big issues
- Ideally we need a whole paradigm change.
- To change a paradigm we first need to imagine it differently (Meadows, (1997).
- However, tomorrow's paradigms may defy description in the language of today's paradigm.
But they prefer incremental reforms.
- e.g. it is easier to outlaw toxic supply chains.
- e.g. it is easier to punish harmful employment practices.
- Unfortunately, applying standards, taxes & laws is suboptimal (Meadows, (1997)
A recent example:
- The Fixing Fashion Report (2019) sought 17 reforms:
- (e.g. that specified certain materials, manufacture & waste management strategies).
- (e.g. that would apply modern slavery laws to HR policy).
- Prof Dilys Williams reminded a later committee (2024) that none of these recommendations had been applied.
- In any case they would have had little impact on the underlying business model
Fashion needs a new business paradigm.
- In the current paradigm, selling clothing at a profit is a no-brainer.
- This business model accords with the government's (GDP-based) economics.
- However, fashion's creativity masks the inflexibility of this business model.
- We will look for fashion-related activities that attract investment.
A RESEARCH QUESTION
- It has long been known that shopping behaviour is driven by both utilitarian and hedonic motives (Babin et al. 1994). In the latter category the primary purpose for purchasing goods is to lift mood, rather than to satisfy the need for those goods. While this may serve as a temporary distraction from problems elsewhere it is unlikely to build a lasting relationship between shopper and the goods purchased. This behaviour may therefore increase the environmental burden (e.g. landfill) if the act of shopping leads to early, or casual disposal.
- Can we show that hedonic shopping (i.e. retail therapy) increases high levels of cortisol and dopamine but does little to increase other neurotransmitters (e.g. serotonin, endorphins or oxytocin) more associated with wellbeing?
- Moreover, that - given the ability to monitor these indicators - could we use them to guide the design of a new business model that usurps the usual (dopamine-centred) habits of retail shopping.

Fashion's DNA

See a more detailed timeline.
- Clothing began as personal shelter (for migration to colder climates)
- Today fashion design helps us to manage our identity.
- e.g. fashion can operate as a unifier of collective identity.
- e.g. fashion can operate as a signifier of individual status.
A signifier of rank and privilege
- Fashion increasingly became a signifier of social superiority.
- e.g. 'Haute couture' was unaffordable for ordinary people.

How might we change it?

We will need to reimagine the fashion system.
- We need a safe substitute for fashion satisfying (at least) similar needs.
- This will mean exploring and analysing its history, meaning and purpose/s.
- This may help us to find harm-free elements that can be re-mixed or reinvented.
Exemplars in the service economy
- Virtually all of us want to feel part of our community
- Virtually all of us want to be noticed/unnoticed for our uniqueness
- We will explore parallel activities such as classes (e.g. choir, karaoke, yoga & dance).
This requires a systemic approach.
- We may use a systemic approach such as VSM (Beer, 1984).
- Here, we would seek to emulate living, rather than industrial, systems.

Looking Good --> Feeling Good

When mass production made fine clothing affordable, global production overheated.
Marketing narratives began to suggest that, by looking good you would feel good.

Feeling Good --> Looking Good

We will reverse this order by working on feeling good to inspire benign deportment.
We hope to learn from post-ballet developments that established relevant techniques:
- e.g. Laban, (1926) / Stanislavsky, (1936) / Maslow, (1943) / Rogers, (1961)

More than a Dopamine Hit

The harmful net outcome of fast fashion's are caused by shoppers with higher incomes.
Perhaps these consumers would pay for fashion services that also enhance wellbeing.
It might focus on performative activities, rather than on ready-to-wear garments.
Harnessing creative fashion hactivism would enhance local identities and pride.
This could also be designed to introduce new social & health-related benefits.

The Fashion Legacy Club

STEP 1: Create a Fashion Legacy Club

free/affordable membership
Approved individuals could join one of three membership groups:
A: Fashion Legacy Creatives - (would participate in local fashion designer/maker groups)
B: Fashion Legacy Guardians - (local organisers / custodians of Fashion Legacy brand)
C: Fashion Legacy Angels - (fundraisers / sponsors / trusted activists)

APPEALS TO THE HEART (feeling)

e.g. members would ask themselves: 'how am I feeling about myself'?
e.g. members would ask themselves: 'what makes me feel good about the world?'
e.g. members would ask themselves: 'what undermines my self-confidence?'
e.g. members would ask themselves: 'how well attuned am I to the feelings and emotions of others?'

APPEALS TO THE HEAD (knowing / choosing)

e.g. members invited to be updated with key facts/laws/evidence about fashion harm.
e.g. members offered coaching to help understand their individual role in fashion harm'?
e.g. members invited to sign a 5 year commitment of support for 'Fashion Legacy'?

APPEALS TO THE HAND (creative making)

e.g. members would ask themselves: 'is my body sufficiently aware of itself?'
e.g. members would ask themselves: 'would I enjoy more active/creative making processes?'
e.g. members would ask themselves: 'how can I get more from the experience of touch?'

APPEALS TO HUMOUR (playing / gaming / learning)

e.g. members would ask themselves: 'do I know how to move slightly outside my comfort zone?'
e.g. members would ask themselves: 'what's the worst thing that can happen when I want to look good?'
e.g. members would ask themselves: 'am I able to deal with ambiguity or contradictory information?'

Attracting interest

In order to emphasise the performative aspects of fashion they must become more desirable.
Ideally, we might want to offer healthier activities that deliver more fun,

Measuring effectiveness

It hard to measure personal health & community wellbeing.
Perhaps brain neurotransmitters & hormones could be used as indicators.

Indicator example 1: Dopamine

It can be triggered by a number of different factors:
- i.) e.g. by eating good food
- ii) e.g. by getting enough sleep
- iii) e.g. by completing a task (such as clothes shopping)
Designing and making clothes would deliver many dopamine hits.
- It could be monetised like service economy activities such as yoga or keep-fit classes.
- e.g. the popularity of the BBC TV's The Great British Sewing Bee indicates its potential.

Ritual and fashion

Arguably, capitalism (cheap clothing) has swapped performative ritual with the act of choice (commercial clothes).
A ritual is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, actions, or revered objects (Wikipedia)

It can be defined more narrowly as a performative action in which the actor is/feels transformed
e.g. saying "I do" at a wedding
e.g. stag party at which the bride groom is forced to wear women's clothes and is taken somewhere and abandoned
e.g. at a funeral, Kriah (Judaism) requires mourners to tear their clothes.
Arguably, capitalism (i.e. its power of consumption) has replaced quite a lot of older rituals with choice.
e.g. simply needing to judge what to wear for a funeral to cause least offence to the family etc.
e.g. bride and groom circulating a list of acceptable wedding gifts
N.B. workshop that invites students to invent a genuine ritual to mark an important life transition

Swapping clothes & dressing up with friends should therefore deliver more dopamine hits than shopping.
- Similar processes could be monetised as community cosplay/crossplay catwalks
- If these are inventive enough they could exercise both brain and body.
- Perhaps they could be combined with film-making classes.

Indicator example 2: Oxytocine

It can be triggered by a number of activities:
- e.g. by playing with animals
- e.g. by giving someone a compliment
- e.g. by holding hands with people

Indicator example 3: Seratonin

e.g. by meditating
e.g. by experiencing the natural world
e.g. by letting sunshine reach your body
e.g. by practicing mindfulness
e.g. by eating bananas

Indicator example 4: Endorphins

e.g. by laughing and enjoying laughter
e.g. by doing exercise

Combining different experiences

Could it introduce more local collective pride?
Could it increase the perceived value of individual garments?
Would the above changes lead to a slower and less wasteful fashion system?

Singing triggers dopamine and...

...oxytocin, β-endorphin and seratonin too. (Keeler & Roth, et al. 2015).
In choirs it can enhance feelings of wellbeing and an emotional connectedness to others.
By boosting Immunoglobin A, music may also help to keep the immune system healthy.

Individuality within the whole

Arguably we experience bliss when our individual uniqueness merges into the whole.
At their best, both fashion design and community choirs exemplify this truth.
However, shopping can get compulsive because it releases dopamine.
If seratonin is released during relaxation or meditation it can enhance one's mood.
Fashion offers a spectrum: collective-to-individual (La Mode v. bespoke, personal expression).
- Virtually all of us want to feel part of our community
- Virtually all of us want to be noticed/unnoticed for our uniqueness
The collectivity-to-individuality spectrum in choirs is comparable:
- e.g. pluralising brilliant but identical voices does not sound right
- e.g. when an individual (egotist's) voice becomes too prominent this can also be irritating.
Dance activities also show comparable collectivity-to-individuality strategies.
- As the choreographer Bim Malcomson said,
  - "Working with people of all ages, abilities and identities, I use meticulous and playful exploration to reveal beauty".