Great fashion advertising is built on a formula. It tells a part of a brand story through strategic styling and strategically selected influencers. When photographer Juergen Teller shot famed writer Joan Didion in an ad for Celine in 2015, he was capturing the timeless style that comes with a legacy brand. When Steven Meisel photographed Naomi Campbell for GAP in 1992, we saw how a t-shirt was a ubiquitous staple for every person, including a supermodel. But beyond famous faces lensed by equally renowned artists, fashion's storytelling has constantly had to toe the line between allure and underlying iniquity.
Those two examples did that in their way. In those photos, Didion was 80 years old, an uncommon age for a high fashion campaign, and Campbell was a top fashion figure wearing something you could buy at the mall. Those messages weren't crossed, and they worked in tandem to highlight what the brand wanted us to see.
In fast fashion, this type of messaging can also obstruct what they don't want us to pay attention to. The brands will launch multimillion-dollar campaigns around initiatives and changes with the hope that we, the customers, won’t look harder to see that the only real change is in the marketing.
Shein, an ultra-fast fashion brand that has fast become one of the most profitable brands in the business, made close to 100 billion dollars in 2021 by selling thousands of trends at super-low prices. These pieces are not only built for few-time use before they end up in a landfill; researchers found harmful chemicals such as lead in the materials. New reporting has also shown workers being paid as little as a few pennies per item they create during 18-hour work days. The marketing tells a much different story, though.
A contest where the brand props up young designers, with the help of famous fashion faces, would have you believe that funding the next generation might be a priority. Another example came even more recently with Boohoo. In September, Kourtney Kardashian helped the fast fashion brand usher in a message of "sustainability" with a line of upcycled pieces. Meanwhile, there are still garment workers throughout their supply chain reporting wage theft.
From a consumer perspective, it's become unmanageable to weed through this noise. Our own biases want us to be able to have it all, and so a great marketing campaign is an easy way to convince ourselves that shopping in a certain way is OK. Especially when a face we trust, like an influencer or celebrity, is giving us the go-ahead.
All this says is perhaps we can’t rely on ourselves to always see the truth. After speaking with some fashion executives recently, it became clear that greenwashing, as it happens when these celebrities face a “sustainability” campaign without any changes to the supply chain or plans for degrowth, is primarily a concern because of how bad it looks when it's called out. Not the fact that it’s obfuscating supply chain abuse. The one thing that will force real change behind those flashy ads is regulations and amplification of worker needs.
For people who fear that making incremental adjustments to their shopping habits might not be enough, this could be a way to disrupt the current system without spending a dime. Legislation could force change fast. Recently, France implemented an overconsumption law that requires brands to pay for the stock that they don’t sell. It’s costly, which means suddenly, fast fashion brands are making a change. But it can’t be just one country, it has to be all of us. In the United States, the FABRIC Act is the first federal bill seeking to end wage theft in fashion and offer incentives for brands to manufacture garments safely in the United States. You can call a representative right now and say this issue is important to you anywhere you live.
There are also The Green Guides in the United States. After the public comment closed, Attorney General Rob Bonta formed a coalition with 15 states urging that the “FTC should make explicit that “recyclable” means what the FTC has intended it to mean and what consumers understand it to mean: that when the consumer properly disposes of a “recyclable” item, it is actually recycled as a matter of course.” That would have a huge impact on the fashion industry’s claims that certain items are “circular” when they simply might not be.
Garment workers I have spoken to in the reporting for my book Worn Out aren’t out to stop the fashion industry. They want their stories heard, and they want safe and fair working conditions. Our need for new clothing cannot outweigh those stories - and shopping differently is only a piece of the solution.