Social media influencing
Aja Barber is a writer and fashion consultant. Aja’s work focuses on highlighting inequality at the personal, societal and corporate level, using her own experience and observations across fashion. With over 250,000 Instagram followers, Aja has expertise in using social media platforms to engage global audiences with such issues.
unfortunately there is a range of social justice issues in fashion. These include accessibility, authenticity and the “cycle of buying”
brands do listen to consumers and so there is a need for collective action in holding those across the fashion system to account for bad practices.
Social media is an important tool for raising awareness about social injustice in fashion. It is also a tool for action in its own right, particularly for putting pressure on fashion companies. Social media can also be used to give a platform to people who might not otherwise be heard.
The downside of social media activism is that it can be performative virtue signalling, with little concrete action behind it. Social media is also known for spreading skewed, censored and altered information. Yet social media can support offline activism and help influence the social dialogue about an issue. We encourage you to research information before you share it, and to recognise the limits of ‘clicktivism’, whilst at the same time seeing the value social media can bring to activism.
https://www.teenvogue.com/story/fast-fashion-consumerism
We have a fashion industry that has a lot of the systems that we see in other parts of our society embedded in it, so racism, colonisation. If we are striving to be intersectional feminist, we have to start to realise that these systems aren’t silos. They actually exist in all the things that we love, including the fashion industry. And the sooner we talk about them, the sooner we can make all of these systems better and create a more equitable fashion landscape for everyone.
Social media is a platform to spread messages pretty quickly. That’s what social media is good for. But when it comes to social justice, it’s not, again, a siloed issue where we have to mix it in with the fashion industry. We just haven’t been realising that there’s space for social justice in fashion all along. When you have a entire industry that’s built on the labour of Black and Brown people, especially at the very bottom of the pyramid. But then when you look at who’s gotten the wealthiest, it’s not the Black and Brown people making the clothes, then you’ve created a system of injustice. And there will always be room for social justice there.
The idea that fast fashion has a negative connotation to it has made consumers start to stop ad think about if they doreally want to participate in that system anymore, with this, a lot of brands will start to rethink, if only because you hurt their bottom line. I think that that’s a thing.individual action is great. but Ultimately, we need collective action is better, strength in numbers, a louder voice harder to ignore. you can’t have the collective without having a good, difficult conversation with yourself about why you bought 20 dresses last year, when maybe you only needed three.
it’s important for brands, individuals, citizens, consumers– for all of us to walk the walk. is realise that racism isn’t just a small stain. Racism is systems that claim value Black and Brown voices where, if you look at the corporation and ask for an ethnicity breakdown, there’s not a lot of Black and Brown people moving within that field. Feminism, if we care about women and we fight for all women, then we can’t be OK with women who are not making a living wage to make our clothing. We can’t anymore.
it’s important that all of us really just need to be authentic about what our morals are.to not participate in fast fashion to not be buying in this weird cycle that make you feel like your clothing from last year wasn’t as good anymore and you need to buy new things. especially if you are woman, have you realised that you are participating in a system where maybe a marginalised woman wasn’t being paid for her labour. We need to disengage with this type of consumption that isn't really good or healthy for the planet. ask for authenticity at all levels. If you want authenticity, bring marginalised people into those spaces and listen. Don’t make it a box-ticking exercise.
it’s really important to break down to the general public what clothing cost, because the fashion industry has greatly confused people into thinking that an ethical garment is naturally going to be 300 pounds and that it doesn’t matter if it’s 5 pounds, someone was paid fairly. Where actuality, it’s a grey area. But I do think when garments are 5 pounds, no one was paid fairly that made that garment. pricing has gotten so completely skewed, and when a company breaks it down like that, they’re educating the general public about why your clothing should cost money and why it’s important to pay what you can for clothing. rather than "exploitation pricesthe future of fashion is hopeful, we just need to improve the education and figure out how you play a part in these systems and think about ways that you can not play a part in these systems basically.such as supporting small businesses and handmade/ recycled products. . corporations and the fashion monopolies aren't good for healthy industries. It’s not good for citizens. It’s not good for your community. It’s just not a good thing. we need to challenge citizens to think about these systems. champion small businesses, that can help to lead the way out of this fast fashion cycle. when you give your money to a small business, more of it stays in your community, which can be great for everyone, than when you give your money to a big box store. Sometimes that stuff is unavoidable.
We need to amplify these messages really quickly and to also break down the systems within the fashion industry into bite-size pieces, because one of the issues with the industry is that it’s always been so insular to people that are outsiders. So the average person has no idea how their clothing is made, where it’s made, who it’s made by.
We don't understand a lot terminology and it confuses us a little, but we can just simplify the terms so that everyone feels like they can have a stake in the conversation.
If you’re an individual and you’re looking to get involved in these conversations, the 1st thing we should do is investigate our own consumption, investigate the triggers that make you want to consume, investigate why, because right now, we’re in a cycle of buying that isn’t good for anyone. It’s not good for us. It’s not good for the planet. It’s not good for the people that are making the clothes. But I think sometimes when you’re in a system and you’ve got these habits going, you think that you can’t break out of it. Think about consumption and really conceptualise how did you get to be in this system, and what part do you play in this system. And the sooner you start to break that down, the sooner you can get a bird’s-eye-view of what’s going on and where you fall in init. We need to brush up on these topics, because one thing that we’re definitely going to have to do is push our government leaders to regulate the industries a bit better, if we want our leaders to care about this stuff, we have to care about it. we have to make sure that it’s an ongoing conversation, so educating yourself is the first and foremost thing that you should do, because then you can spread the message. Our government officials to really join the fight, the brands need to listen to consumers and so we must speak out.
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