Fashion Politics and Sustainability Dilemma

Abstract

COVID-19 pandemics has been a catalyst for the awakening of the masses on the consumerist society going in default. The human race has evolved and developed in a way where fundamental values of capitalism can no more be applied. The present system, where overconsumption is having the main role brought to a point where we can not more close our eyes on which bad effects capitalism created. Income and wealth inequalities, greed, climate change, and pollution, environmental destruction, conflict and violence, rising xenophobia and intolerance, extreme poverty, gender and social inequalities, mental and physical health issues, addiction. All the fashion magazines are speaking about sustainability, conscious consumption, and ethical production in 2020. There’s a ride between big luxury houses on who will be the most ‘’planet-friendly’’ and ‘’transparent’’ producer. Generation Z in big cities are refusing to buy H&M and Zara products, they are refusing to consume plastic packagings and they promote the ‘’Minimalist’’ wave. What is it all about? What is fashion and how it affects society? Fashion is a periodic change in culture and mass behavior patterns and it rises in the transitional moments from one societal model to another. This work will do a deep analysis of fashion as a societal and behavioral event. How the fashion has been used by the rulers to create and restrain the population, and how the population, on the other side, used their costumes to express their not acceptance of the ruler’s choice. The first part will analyze fashion from its roots, its historical evolution and will analyze the first cases when it’s been used as a political tool. The second part will be dedicated to fashion as a political tool to express and make reform, to the major social fashion movements such as Black Panthers, Hippies, and Punks. In the third part, the capitalism system will be studied from its consumerist aspect and how the system was able to create the cult of the object, and how globalization changes fashion politics. In the conclusion, all the issues generated by the consumeristic and multinational corporations will be put on the plate. Human rights, environment preservation, and technology evolution have now the leading role in the new dilemma of fashion. Sustainability and minimalist movements are the new fashion movements which are reflecting the new changes in society.