Is Fashion a Credible Platform for Protest?

LONDON, United Kingdom — Last week in Paris, Chanel appropriated the visual signifiers of feminist protest for its seasonal runway show. In a finale led by Karl Lagerfeld, a bevy of supermodels took to a catwalk christened “Boulevard Chanel” holding signs with slogans such as “History is Her Story,” “Make Fashion Not War,” and “Tweed Is Better Than Tweet.” On the same day in Hong Kong, a genuine protest was underway. Protesting for the right to democratically elect a candidate of their own choosing, tens of thousands of Hong Kongers formed crowds that throbbed and swelled in the city’s streets. Playing out against this backdrop, the “faux-test” staged on Boulevard Chanel rang especially hollow, repackaging political riot as a light-hearted, Instagram-savvy performance. We think it can. Over the course of a career spanning more than three decades, Jean Paul Gaultier has used the fashion show format to address the socially and politially charged issues of female empowerment and beauty.

Social Goods | Throwaway Clothing Culture, Ivanka Trump vs Working Moms | Soc... "Pressure Mounts on Retailers to Reform Throwaway Clothing Culture" (The Guardian) "Americans dispose of about 12.8m tons of textiles annually. But a growing number of environmentalists and clothing retailers say it’s time to begin making new clothes out of old items on a large scale, reports Yale Environment 360." "Ivanka Trump Champions Working Moms — Except the Ones Who Design Her Clothes" (The Washington Post) "The company that designs her clothing line, including the $157 sheath she wore during her convention speech, does not offer workers a single day of paid maternity leave." "Indian Apparel Makers Try on Ethical Supply Chains for Size" (Reuters) "Handloom attire was once regarded as fit only for politicians and villagers — now it's seeing a revival, with demand growing for ethical fashion, even as mass-market clothing still dominates."

Urban Outfitters Bares All The main corridor in Building 18, Anthropologie’s headquarters | Photograph by Christopher Leaman America’s original naval shipyard is in Philadelphia, at the southern tip of the city, where the Schuylkill River meets the Delaware — 900 acres that were once a literal island, a teardrop of land floating at the bottom of the city like a dot on an exclamation point. Even after construction crews filled the back channel to glue the dot to the mainland, the Navy Yard remained an island in spirit and function, a city unto itself. Warships were built there. At the yard’s peak during the Second World War, nearly 60,000 craftspeople and laborers jammed together each day to make cruisers, destroyers, battleships and aircraft carriers for the U.S. The old buildings still stand today, and there are still thousands of workers inside. A dog lounges next to a Free People employee | Photograph by Christopher Leaman Yet there’s also a distance between the company and its hometown.

Sustainable Fashion Is Legit Wearable – Day 2 Of Lakme Fashion Week Tells Us How | iDiva How does anyone get sustainable fashion right? Lakme Fashion Week Winter/Festive’16 dedicated Day 2 to the cause of fashion-conscious designers, and the IDiva team concluded that there is no one quintessential formula for sustainability. If your intent is to wear fashion that has a conscience to it, these are the designers who will give you a definitive head start. Scroll through our favourite brands from ‘Indian Textile Day’ and educate yourself on the inherent appeal of our cultural fabrics. The Runaway Bicycle Marking its debut at Lakme Fashion Week Winter-Festive 2016, the brand The Runaway Bicycle stayed true to its philosophy of combining style with comfort. For P.E.L.L.A, sustainability is not restricted to fabrics. Padmaja It was in Maheshwar, Madhya Pradesh that Padmaja Krishnan created the woven fabric used in this collection. Jasonanshu

Sustainability in the Fashion Industry - Supply Chains Effect on the Environment As one of the biggest players in the global economy, the fashion industry has a responsibility to help protect the environment. We’re commemorating this Earth Week by asking some tough questions about our impact on the planet and what we can do about it. We’ll also be profiling people and companies who are instigating change. I used to have nightmares about plastic. The World Without Us is one of the seminal texts of my life. “Supply chain.” “According to fashion theory, there are 101 stages in the supply chain, the first being ‘designer attends fabric show’ and the last, ‘order ready for shipment,’” writes Lucy Siegle in her book To Die For, a useful primer on the subject. In the era of hypercapitalism, the typical fashion supply chain is vast and Rube Goldberg-esque. See what I mean about a machine? So I’m going to try to make this interesting. Now imagine that the ubiquitous garment at the center of this Hollywood pic is: Jeans. The impacts of the fashion supply chain are vast.

Russian mink farms where thousands are slaughtered and left to rot to make $1m coats These disturbing pictures expose the macabre truth about the fur farms in Russia and China which supply the fashion market in the world's leading cities, including London, Paris and New York. Across ten time zones, the images show the reality of mink and sable gulags - many set up during the harsh Communist past - where prized animals are bred for slaughter, bringing in millions of pounds to the Russian economy every single year. An investigation by MailOnline also reveals the appalling conditions in which wild animals, including different types of fox, are captured and killed, from being skinned alive to being poisoned by the faeces in the air, and reveals the heartless farm owners who can't see beyond their profits. And there are certainly profits to be made: a sable 'blanket' sold for a record-breaking $900,000 to a royal just a few years ago, while a coat at last year's Fendi show was rumoured to have a price tag of $1.2million. Animals forced to suffer and starve in Russian fur farm

The 'Chilling' Moment This Father Realized Where His Kids' Clothes Come From | Huffington Post