Fashion and Ethics

Fashion and Ethics focuses on issues of power, social positioning and practices among creators, producers, practitioners, wearers and consumers of fashion. With a special emphasis on the moral fabric of clothing, contributors to the book offer a critique of some of the fundamental assumptions of ethical fashion and expose how products are often framed as fair trade in order to relieve consumers' guilt. With essays that problematize issues such as ethical fashions self-appointed morality, the first-world notion that the environment should take priority over human development, the conflict between business profit and ethics, the unintended agendas involved in consuming green cosmetics or ethical culinary trends and the discursive strategies of denial of the extreme cruelty in the procurement of animal skin and fur for use in fashion, Fashion and Ethics applies its uncompromising scrutiny to all areas of fashion. Throughout, the volume forces readers to confront the question: Does ethical fashion go deep enough into challenging unethical behaviour or is it just a charade of good intentions?