Cultivating a Relational Fashion System for Prosperity: Embracing Decolonial Embodiment and More-than-Human Care Through the Practice of Deep-Wearing

From Firenze University Press Journal: Fashion Highlight

Yan Yuan, Xi’an Polytechnic University Oli Dong, Xi’an Polytechnic University

SUSTAINABILITY IS A CRISIS OF WORLDVIEW AND THE STORIES WE CHOOSE TO TELL OURSELVES

It’s becoming abundantly clear from the lack of success of the sustainability initiatives employed by the fashion industry (BoF, 2020, p. 15) that it is either suffering from a cognitive dissonance between its beliefs, and its actions, or more accurately, that it does not want to really change. It is no surprise that the prescriptive, solution-fo-cused approaches by the industry have failed as they come from the same logic, values and narratives of the broken system. As Jennifer Craik describes, the fashion industry upholds a worldview that is a “late-capitalist, neo-liberal, post-Fordist mindset from the Global North” (Craik, 2020, p. 923). A colonial, human-centred perspective that deepens divisions between people Global North and Global South and nature, fostering arrogance and a sense of superiority while disregarding the voices and concerns of garment producers and consumers in the Global South. This worldview lies at the heart of many of the crises of this time (2018, Escobar, 2014, Klein et al). It is a wholly anthropo-centric approach to sustainability that only permits transactional solutions and relationships i.e. “sustainable fashion,”. Sustainability is framed as a purchasable object — a garment. Overproduc-tion and overconsumption are not questioned as industry growth is more important than the needs of the non-human world. The complexity and reality of sustainability as a verb and a process, based on cultivating relationships is diminished. Audre Lorde said, “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change” (1984, p. 110). If indeed the fashion industry wants to do no harm, it needs to expand its narrative framework and delink what it has silenced and erased, to be open to other ways of knowing, from a relational, pluriversal perspective. The latest UN climate report (2024) underscores the critical need for the fashion industry to embrace new value-cre-ation models and incorporate broader social and ecological factors into their success criteria. We need to advocate for more relational, inclusive approaches to knowledge and existence.

THE COLONIALITY OF OUR RELATIONSHIPS

The contemporary fashion system is emblematic of the ideas and values of modernity. (Jameson, 1991, Simmel, G. 1957). As Walter Mignolo and Rolando Vazquez (2013) say, when we peel back the narrative of modernity, we reveal the logic of “coloniality” and its ongoing, hidden processes of extraction, separation, exploitation, and pollution that sustain this story. Coloniality and colonial-ism are distinct concepts (Maldonado-Torres, 2007). While colonialism denotes direct political and economic domination, coloniality signifies the long-standing patterns of power that emerged from colonisation. As Maldonado-Torres (2007, pg. 243) posits ‘coloniality survives colonialism’ — as the invisible yet pervasive set of practices, & beliefs, that shape contemporary societies, colonial-ity is always with us. As wearers of clothing, we are aware; to varying degrees; of the colonial legacies embedded in the production of clothing and cloth as the modern/colonial project dominated the economy, politics, power and knowledge. (Barber, 2021, Barenblat, A., & Mayer, A. 2019, et al). We are perhaps less aware of how coloniality sought to control our senses and the way we perceive ourselves, others, or the world around us (Mignolo and Vazquez 2013). It is difficult to comprehend how this affects everything, how we interpret, understand, or view a situation, object, or ourselves. In the context of this paper, we will specifically refer to how it affects our contemporary relationship with clothing and our embodied practices of wear. As modern individuals in the 21st century, colonial-ity has shaped/and is continuing to shape us, as we “breathe coloniality all the time and every day” (Maldonado-Torres, 2007, p. 243). Mignolo and Vázquez claim that our collective colonial wounds remain present and open, manifesting “in the everyday experience of most people on the planet” (2013). Māori scholar Linda Tuhiwai Smith (1999, p. 24) suggests that our relationships, including those with clothing, are shaped by colonial notions of relationality. Coloniality has imposed specific values and frameworks for relating to clothing — in terms of how we understand power (hierarchical, human/industry-centered), time (linear progress), space (geographical exploitation), subjectivi-ty (racial and gendered identities), and knowledge (Western/Eurocentric expertise).

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/fh-3205

Read Full Text: https://riviste.fupress.net/index.php/fh/article/view/3205