In today's age fast fashion brands are huge within the fashion industry, providing the latest trends from the catwalk at extremely affordable prices has led to these brands rising to popularity. With this being said, are fast fashion brands inclusively catering for a range of diverse community groups?
The Office For National Statistics (ONS) found in March 2020, that the UK's Fashion and Textile Industry had a turnover of £102 million. Making the UK the epicentre of fast fashion within Europe. These brands allow the latest fashion trends to be accessible to everyone, from younger generations to students and those on a tighter budget. RetailX's Fast Fashion 2019 report, stated fast fashion will represent 10-20% of total revenue share in European fashion markets. Meaning in the UK's £42 billion UK fashion market, fast fashion brands provide a huge £4,2 to £8.4 billion annually.
Is everyBODY catered for?
October saw leading fast fashion brand PrettyLittleThing release their Modest Clothing Collection, after launching in the Middle East. The range aims to increase diversity by catering for all shapes and sizes to their international audience, offering stylish covered up clothing.
‘Our ethos of ‘EveryBODYinPLT is extremely important to us, so it’s been amazing seeing such positive customer feedback and working with models who represent all of our customer base’
PrettyLittleThing
The collection saw the fast fashion retailer feature their first ever Hijabi Muslim woman on their site, with plus size model Billy Marsal facing the campaign. The 21 year old model from London tweeted her excitement about the launch.
However, the launch brought about many questions as to whether PLT and their fellow fast fashion competitors are diverse - from the models chosen to face their campaigns to the style of clothing they offer to their employees.
Closing the loop in fast fashion
It is evidently more noticeable that we are seeing more brands feature, represent and cater for a wider and more diverse community. UK model Mariah Idrissi became the first Muslim woman to feature in a mainstream fashion campaign wearing a hijab, in H&M's 2016 'Close The Loop' campaign. Idrissi described the campaign as working towards her aim of bridging the gap between the East and West.
3 years on saw American model Halima Aden launch a fashionable headscarf capsule collection with Modanisa. The site provides fashionable modest wear at an affordable price. The model aims to celebrate women around the world through the exclusive fashion collaboration, encouraging females to be change-makers and powerful.
The same year also saw one stop online shop ZAFUL celebrate their inclusivity at New York Fashion Week 2019. The show, titled #RealMeRealYou, brought together models of all ethnicities and ages, in addition to the LGBTQ+ community. The aim was to represent the key feature of the collection, Multi-Diversity.
There have been signs to showcase a recent yet significant movement towards making the fashion industry diverse and inclusive. The British Fashion Council announced in September 2020 the launch of its Diversity & Inclusion Steering Committee. This committee is dedicated solely to fighting prejudice and discrimination within the industry, whilst constructing a longterm plan of action. BFC said: 'The Diversity & Inclusion Steering Committee aspires for the fashion industry to be open for all and reflect the diverse, global communities it inspires and serves.'
Unhidden Clothing: the socially responsible adaptive fashion brand
Victoria Jenkins founded Unhidden, a socially responsible adaptive fashion brand for people with disabilities, after noticing many fashion brands failing to inclusively cater to this community. The brand uses deadstock cloth to create made to order clothing, targeting all bodies, sizes and disabilities.
Discussing the lack of diversity within fast fashion, the brand ambassador for Models of Diversity said: 'They might use disabled bodies in their campaign, but very rarely the images end up on their product photography.'
Recently, Misguided ran a campaign with Models of Diversity to scout for adaptive bodies, but Jenkins notes they stopped short of creating adaptive clothing.
With 13.9 million people with disabilities in the UK, Victoria stresses why the inclusion of this community within the fashion industry is so important: 'There is huge room for improvement, they need to invite Disabled people in to their design meetings, in to their press office, in to their head offices.'
The purple pound (spending power) of the Disabled community is estimated at £247 Billion annually. We are the largest marginalised group in the world.
Victoria Jenkins, Founder of Unhidden
When comparing fast fashion to high end fashion, the designer adds: 'High end fashion ignores disabled people and is still extremely problematic when it comes to race. So I would say fast fashion is (on the face of it) better at inclusion.'
Victoria describes her goals for the future, with plans to have an adaptive alteration service and host free workshops, in order to teach people how to adapt their own clothes so no one is left behind.
'When I find something nice, it either has a slit in it or something not very modest'
However we must consider those at the forefront of this issue, from those that choose to dress modestly to those of diverse community groups. I spoke to Rushma and Mehjabin, of the Bangladeshi ethnic group, to discuss their experiences shopping for modest fashion.
Both women expressed their love for fashion, with stylish clothing making them feel more confident in their day-to-day lives. Whilst they both purchase most of their clothing from highstreet stores to avoid the mishaps of online shopping, Mehjabin said: 'I often have to layer clothes to make it modest'.
Yet the women state a noticeable improvement in recent years, finding it easier to shop modest clothing.
Modest clothing is much more available now and it's a lot easier to layer.
Rushma
When questioning whether mainstream clothing brands could be more inclusive towards diverse groups, the result was an outright yes. Mehjabin said: 'They should and could do this by having a department in stores for modest clothing and also do the same online.'
Rushma describes her struggle for modest accessories: 'I think headscarves should be available in local highstreet stores, modest wear doesn't just mean clothes but other accessories too,'
The inclusive failure of fast fashion brands
In 2019, ASOS released their modest activewear collection, featuring hijabs and abayas. Model Asha Mohamud and the online retailer faced praise for their representation of the Muslim community. However the collection is now not featured on their website, posing the question of why?
Fast fashion e-commerce site, Shein has faced many controversies over some of the products sold on their site. July 2020 was a notable month where customers held the international retailer accountable. The first of which saw the site selling Muslim prayer mats, labelled as 'Greek carpets'. The mats featured Kabaa, a building in the centre of Mecca, which is considered the most sacred place by Muslims. After removing the products from their site, the retailer announced an apology to their 15 million followers.
The site faced a similar scandal just days later when customers identified the site selling necklaces showcasing a Swastika symbol, used by the Nazis. The company, rightfully, faced huge backlash and eventually also pulled the necklace in question from their site.
I spoke to Birmingham City University's Fashion Branding and Communications lecturer, Claire Ritchie, on the behaviours behind the fashion industry: 'The fashion industry is built upon such a history of deeply engrained behavioural and psychological primers making it difficult to make significant changes quickly.'
Raising the question of how prominent is the issue of inclusivity for fast fashion brands?
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