I still remember the Balmain x H&M collaboration, people went crazy for that, and before that Alexander Wang, a classic example of people’s desire getting satisfy at a low cost, more over, there is always news about how fashion industry like Zara, H&M stealing designs from the top brands, and have their cost reduced in designing. However, they have never been charged for that, I think the copying issue is still a grey zone in fashion industry, because fashion is constantly borrowing and adjusting. In order to make the fast fashion less desirable, we have to make it happen, look into the crime of stealing and that is the action that’s only capable by government. The other thing that I totally wasn’t aware of is how much damage the fashion industry has done to the soil. It not only contaminated the soil but also forces the farmers to commit suicide and people who shopped at at the fast fashion stores subsequently becomes the accomplices. When listening to the answer of how people think we can solute this problem in class, most of the answers are base on what we can do as a individual, but I think that even though everyone had realized the hazard of fast fashion, H&M will still sells, because this society right now has already passed the stage of feeding hunger, it’s the desire that we are fighting against. It was also a shock for me knowing that fashion industry is the second most polluted industry after petroleum industry. That cheapness of clothes is build on resources plundered in the developing countries, including my country, on the extremely squeezed workers. The phrase ” the clothes are made of my own blood” from poor workers made me in tears. What can we do to change? Yes, people are awakening, workers are rebelling, some are starting to build organizations to change the industrial system, others are trying to build a new model of fair trade, so what contribution can consumers make to this problem? The answers are thousands, recycling, buy less, trace the sources of your own shirts… but none of them will work if social media keeps manipulating our mind. Social media tells you what a independent women looks like, what is their fashion, it tells you that you need to transform yourself through fashion to achieve your goal of being that who you want to be. People need to be waked, we are losing the the ability of thinking individually and building our own values , instead, we all adore ones lifestyle and forget that how we might be happier by not becoming them. It’s now important to include social media in our textbook, or otherwise social media will becomes the education off the school, but our education doesn’t changes as fast as fashion, it never will because it cost money and doesn’t gives profits to any department, but I say it is a inevitable process of social development, there is no such thing in our history that why it’s hard to come up with the right solution. We can only wake this generation, and the generation after this, and trust the process.
