DRESSED TO KILL
By Hannah Newport
Excited doesn’t begin to describe how Jimmy’s feeling right now. He’s holding those pants like their God’s greatest gift, and he aint lettin’ go. ‘Thanks Mum!’ he cries. ‘I mean, um, cheers… you can go now.’
Little Jimmy thinks that the snaz new pair of Dickies his adoring mother has just purchased is going to solve all his problems. He truly believes. Finally no more spit-ball sandwiches from those dastardly 6th formers. No more childish treatment from the aloof and awe-inspiring 7th formers and certainly no more sickening pity from the teachers. Who knows, the girl with the pretty pig tails from science class might even smile at him.
Jimmy may be deluding himself just a little, but how many of us do the same thing? How many of us feel our adolescent problems will be solved by the power of a logo or a ‘look’? A bit of retail therapy will calm our self-conscious nerves! We’ll happily pay the price for a branded t-shirt if it’s going to help us fit in with the crowd. We’re hooked on sweet, sticky conformism, and boy does it taste good.
But while expensive items tailor our ‘personal look’ (to be like everyone else’s), and boost young Jimmy’s cred, what are your clothes saying about you? And what’s the true story behind the labels we love?
The reality is most clothes we buy were made in overseas factories, usually in developing countries where work is done in extremely foul conditions. Workers are often teenagers and women who are low paid and treated badly by employers. How ironic that some of the garments they make to survive are then bought by children and teenagers on a whim. We are all in danger of letting the right label or ‘look’ take over our own sense of identity or, even more frighteningly, our sense of morals.
Most Kiwi brands have stopped printing ‘Made In New Zealand’ on their labels, and now manufacture in China instead. It doesn’t take a genius to infer this is cost motivated. Profit wins out over supporting local products and concern about the transporting costs upon the environment.
But hidden among the wonderful sea of apathetic youth that we are, are the odd students who break the stereotype; they’re actually thinking about life, the universe, and clothes. They’re few and far between, but isn’t that always the way?
Susie Harcourt, has been working as a volunteer at Trade Aid for more than a year now.
‘I’d say teens are more materialistic than ever,’ she says. ‘And also there’s more material to be materialistic about. People have money, children have money, and the advertising is more than ever before.’
‘Most kids probably don’t know; don’t particularly want to know. Don’t really care. A lot of people are aware of it, but they sort of feel that it’s not their position to do anything about it.’
And often, it’s not even as clear cut as knowing about it, or not. There’s this whole other grey area, where un-conformist and ‘cool’ overlap. ‘Fashion isn’t just about clothes, it’s often about ideas. The fashion when I came to high school was to buy organic food, buy fair trade shoes, things like that. But then when it went out, suddenly a lot of people who cared about that stuff suddenly stopped caring about it, because it went out of fashion.’
‘People do have this thing on the surface, where they want to be seen as having a social conscience, want to be seen as standing up for things. They want to be seen to be ‘good people’, basically. But that doesn’t extend into the way they live their lives.’
So what can we do? Susie volunteers at Trade Aid. Others, like Steph Cairns vent their individuality on a sewing machine. ‘There’s lots of reason for making your own clothes. Number one is that it’s just cheaper. I’m a poor student, so it’s the best thing. And basically you’re not taking part in the whole capitalist machine. If you’re doing your own thing and making your own clothes then you’re not taking part in the cycle of exploitation. Some people don’t have an understanding of how much work goes into something. Maybe that’s why they don’t care so much about slave labour.’
Whether it’s taking to fabric with a pair of scissors, or carving your own style through donating time to a cause, it’s about expressing yourself; stepping away from the clothes that ‘everyone’ wears and from what they represent.
And the ultimate example, both Susie and Stephanie agree, is the use of Che Guevara’s image in popular culture. ‘People think they’re being so revolutionary by wearing this image on this t-shirt, but they don’t even know what it means,’ agrees Stephanie. These clothes or items that are sold to us, in countries like NZ, have usually been made in sweatshops. ‘Che Guevara was working for a world where people weren’t oppressed like that, and didn’t have to work for someone else’s profit. It’s sort of like this phoney radicalism. Just the fact that they’re wearing it on a t-shirt; it’s the most hypocritical thing, and nobody realises.’
While the masses are dressed to kill, a few among us question why someone you have never met is making some very personal decisions for you, about the shoes on your feet and the way of the world. All in the name of profit.
But hasn’t it always just taken a few to lead the way to change?
‘Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.’ Margaret Mead
Learn More:
- Trade Aid
- The Fair Trade Foundation (UK)
- The Good Shopping Guide (UK)
- Make Poverty History in NZ
- Global Issues magazine 15 (July 2005) ‘Trade: A Fair Journey?’
Take Action:
- Make your own clothes
- Volunteer your time, eg at Trade Aid
- Find out more about your own jeans brand, or Google where your t-shirt was made
- Write to your favourite shop and tell them you love their stuff but want it to be fairly traded
- Go op-shopping / buy second-hand stuff
A version of this article was originally published in JET magazine.
