Separating Art from Artist - Topic of the day 6/15/24
Do you consider brands/designer's ethics before you click 'purchase?' Is there any brand/designer that you refuse to wear because of factors completely unrelated to their clothes? How important is it to you that the people/brands who design your clothes also share the same values as you? How do you rationalize wearing designs created by problematic brands/people?
117 Replies
I’m guilty of not paying close enough attention to whether or not the brands I like manufacture their clothes ethically and I rationalize it by buying almost everything secondhand
To me basically everything is fair game secondhand.
Though I sometimes wonder if I should give money to ppl who buy these things new...
Yeah secondary market necessarily supports the primary market actor, otherwise it wouldn't exist. they wouldn't sell if it wasn't serving them
so I don't think 2nd hand is carte blanche
Most of the blatantly unethical stuff I would not want to be associated with anyway, even secondhand. I.e. fur
I am glad I never got any Yeezys because I would find it hard to wear those now since Ye went off the deep end. Except for shoes, I mostly wear plain unbranded stuff so not much to worry about there.
My gf has some Harry Potter stuff and I really struggle with the presence of that, to the point that she handed me a tote bag and I turned it inside out to use it. She knows I feel strongly about it and it's a little bit of a sticking point tbh.
my decade of fashion hobby synthesized:
- ethical consumption is a game of hedging losses, there's little winning to be had
- however, labor chain ethics are real and can be considered
- however, neoliberal capitalism makes it such that globalized labor leads to lower labor costs which leads to lower priced clothing, and most people cannot afford the prices that "ethical" clothing requires to be financially viable for the maker
The only truly ethical way to consume is theft
Also the global market is by design pretty intransparent
Mostly don't care, outside of thigns like Yeezys which are extremely associated with a single (horrible) person.
I have distaste for certain brands cause of their designers, and yet accept others so.
If something is horrific like shein or fur new I'd avoid it but I don't think theres any real logic to my feelings.
My reasoning is too irrational for me to set strong rules about it.
I think I agree with this, I'm not going to buy things from shein, asos etc that I know are being produced at lowest possible price
That doesn't mean I'm looking into other things I buy and probably incorrectly make an assumption that if it costs more then surely it must be produced ethically. We all know that isn't true
We’re lucky that the Yeezy aesthetics is no longer cool so we don’t have to worry about that
Ehh labor chains are too hard to actually quantify for me to say one brand is more ethical than another, unless you’re obviously using slave labor, like SHEIN or boohoo
Hell airbus used a vendor that faked certs and they’re the paragon of vendor tracing and audits
Corridor sucks entirely because of Dan being an annoying former Fed turned party guy and I'll never separate the brand from him
Luckily I think Kanyes clothes and Kanye are dogshit so Im safe
Ive successfully helped my wife steal all the movies and now she just reads HP fanfiction, its still cringe but she's happy and ethically ok
the awkward question I suppose, is thrifting stuff where the problematic person made no money, still an issue
idrc what other people do with their money but it's always goofy to me whenever someone tries to justify purchasing or enjoying shit from shitty people. there's genuinely so many choices for everything out there u can just admit it if ur favs are bad.
This last part really sticks in my craw. There is only so much “ethical” consumption the average person can afford. Only the ultra-wealthy could afford to consume ethically, and their wealth was most likely made off exploiting people until they cannot afford to choose more ethical consumption.
TL;DR ascribing ethical or moral dilemmas to buying clothes is neoliberal bullshit, not because there isn’t real harm happening throughout the industry and supply chains that get us apparel, but because at the end of the day we are institutionally getting fucked anyway
I think it’s awesome to buy clothing secondhand or from a smaller maker or someone with a more transparent supply chain and know that there (probably) wasn’t slave labor involved. But being able to do so is often a luxury
That's kinda my sentiment, too. Like if you gotta try and convince me it's fine then YOU don't think it's fine
it's also worth exploring what specifically is good or appealing about the deisgns from the problematic person (ye, galliano, etc.); you might see a less awful alternative that perhaps makes even better clothes
no ethical consumption, and also i vote with my money
This is a complete cop out. We’re all on a forum for clothing as a hobby. None of us are shopping for clothes with the main goal being „i just want to be sheltered enough from the environment to survive“
I reject the argument entirely that individuals have no ethical obligations in their consumption.
Those of us here who fortunate enough to be born in the first world belong in the top 10% of global living standards
We live in abundance that was not afforded to even noblemen only a few hundred years ago.
Even unemployment insurance in Germany is twice as high as the average wage in Vietnam
So I find it absurd that poor people in the rich world somehow have no moral obligations just because close to them live some other people who are even richer
I suspect there’s a middle ground here but I’m not reading all that so there’s no way to be sure
I think an important secondary aspect to consider, though, is that the development seen in countries like Bangladesh (largely through the textile industry) shows that even the industry as it stands today has created enormous benefits for the affected countries
The true most ethical way to consume clothing is to own like three shirts and two pants and four socks and a pair of shoes but unfortunately then we wouldn’t have mfad
i don't think jawn's argument was that poor people have no ethical obligation to consumption but rather it's more difficult if you don't have a surplus of time and income to be able to do so
I’m not sure that buying clothes made in Portugal is actually better than those made in Bangladesh/Vietnam/etc at low cost
Yeah I think that we should all strive to purchase and consume ethically but in 2024 I don’t think it’s attainable for most people
The best we can do is our best
In general, I’d say that in terms of the ethics of a particular garment, you’d need to buy it made in Bangladesh but at Portugal wages. Or of course even higher wages. I’m skeptical that moving garment Production to rich countries is actually a net good
animal husbandry tho - raise a sheep, use all the parts
I refuse to marry a sheep
I refuse to marry only one sheep
what responsibility does a poor person have in this given the functional/societal/legal need to be clothed
yes we're discussing this in the context of a hobby and thus have the space to consider how we engage but this is a broader picture impacting all things we consume
One needs to be clothed. But most clothing demand is actually simply because consumption is nice
so consume less?
buy only from employee owned firms that are vertically integrated in order to support those who own the means of production :commie:
where a thing is made is immaterial until the workers own the means of production.
I actually think there's a true ethical dilemma in this. Less developed countries need to have some path to development. Historically, textiles have been a very good path
this is why i only buy from the local manufacturer Conscious Clothing™ where the workers do actually own the means of production
As I said earlier, the optimal ethical choice is to seek out items made in developing countries but at good wages and working conditions
smh
to say nothing of how "ethics" takes multiple components. you could be ethically manufacturing goods in terms of equity, but at what environmental cost? what if the ethically made goods are culturally appropriative in some way bode?
When you say it like that
brother is out here learning about Moral Relativism and thinking he's written a dissertation on ethics
Let’s wrap this up because we’ve got another banger totd about to drop
or if the ethically manufactured goods are made by someone personally problematic ye
Oh boy wait till we start talking about fabric production and also where the materials for fabric comes from….
all we can do is the best we can do with our limited means; if you have the space to practice more ethical consumption in terms of manufacturing AND can post cool fits in the process please tag me i'd love to know
is ALD ethical
Yes
There's no ethical dilemma here bc poor people don't wanna fking hear they have a moral obligation to spend money on ethical goods when they can't afford rent
unless it's IOAN their clothes are mid lol
We have moral oblatigations of various kinds that we do not meet all the time
Such as not killing animals for pleasure (to eat them).
That doesn't make it pointless to discuss them
actually yeah we should just have a thread where people can post "is X ethical" and then a bot will say "yeah" so we can all absolve ourselves of the guilt of living in an imperial core
You imposing your morals onto others doesn't make it a universal
I don't see how you can create a coherent ethic that permits the killing of animals for pleasure which doesn't also permit human rights violations for several categories of humans
I don't mean to make this about vegetarianism - I'm not even a vegetarian myself - but as I said above it's a bit of a cop out to simply say that you have no obligations if you're poor (by rich world standards)
boy i joked about moral relativism (the quintessential phil 101 topic) but this guy doesn't even get that
did u know that we don't live in a perfectly ethical society 🙂
A pigeon shit on me so I murdered his family
You aren't even a vegetarian why the fuck are you talking about animals lmfao
Get off that high horse and eat it
The analogy: obligations in food Vs clothing consumption
Which are unmet by many, but nonetheless exist
U talk like sephiroth
ethics don't exist in a binary and don't exist in a single dinemsiom
Is this a weeb thing
not knowing sepiroth smh
are you trying to tell me it's not as simple as this good and that bad?
my whole life is a lie
I think the meta argument here to me is that when my friend told me xx died I literally told her so what bc he was an massive asshole irl
She prob already knew that but the way I said it also made me an asshole when she was mentioning someone who just died
it's ok u can say the queen
It just wasn't the right thing to say
I think they meant XXXtentacion lol
ive never seen the two in the same room at the same time I'm js
And they both suck too
You’ve never been to hell
sucked*
I don't think I reduced it to a single dimension in the discussion. If I seemed to, then I did not speak clearly. My point is that there's explicitly a dilemma w.r.t. where you buy your clothes from, because the textile industry in poor countries is a huge development engine even though conditions are often poor.
But, the ethical obligation itself applies to everyone in the rich world, because the rich world is so very rich.
Art has a point, they probably suck in the afterlife also
No he's right because no poor people exist in the US
No poor people by global standards.
Living by ideal ethics is bait to me because by default you'd be a hypocrite for like a hundred different issues
That's stupid
Apples - Oranges
Pick certain issues you'd advocate for and stick to it
Both are good... exactly
"Rich by global standards" doesn't really help parents who struggle to feed their family does it though
This server demographic isn't really the place to talk about poor people obligations to begin with
That'd be a entirely separate convo
And yet - the garment workers in question are living in far greater destitution
counterpoint - i don't want to buy clothes from kanye west because he's an antisemite, and in a hypothetical world where his supply chain was transparent and sustainable without/with minimal burden to the worker i still wouldn't buy his clothes because he's still an antisemite
it's not a contest of who is poorer
Pushing ethical obligations onto individuals will not solve the issues of this world
It is literally a cop out for capitalism
Of course it is! This is why we have progressive taxation and all sorts of other policies
My metal plastic straw can be a good gesture/symbolism
and yes i recognize the privilege in choosing to not wear clothes solely due to the designers beliefs but also i don't feel like supporting bigots
But people will also delude theirselves that theyre making changes when they're just being performative
I was still copping designer shit when I had to steal food to get by is that ethics
You're talking about this like the only consideration in ethical consumption is sending your money to less developed countries. But there are a million other considerations, like wages paid, working conditions, sourcing of materials, environmental externalities, etc. It's not that easy.
The difference between me thrifting or rawdogging clothes retail is minimal from a utilitarian perspective
Is it ethical for me to lock this dumbass conversation
By global standards this conversation is actually not that dumb
That's actually low key racist, not even being ironic here
No it isn’t
I literally just took your words and spun them around
It implies that global "dumbness levels" are higher than those found in the developed world
:xd:
Which I would consider low key racist. Simply saying that poverty is higher in some countries is not the same thing
hey titus i'm convinced your favorite subreddit in 2020 was /r/neoliberal. am i wrong?
Things are getting weird now that school is out for the summer
The sub was terrible by then already
>by then
telling on yourself
an OG neoliberal lmao
my sibling in religion
i read this as global meaning "within the span of the internet"
words can have multiple meanings, like "ethics in fashion"
I was literally just talking about british people actually
or separating art from artist because i think the intent of this was about problematic geniuses
but who knows, i'm in PRL so i'm probably condoning this on some level
The P in PRL stands for “Problematic”
it's good when things are labeled so u know if it's good or bad
* neoliberalisn has arrived in the chat *
sidebar isn't this kinda what bode uses to justify the cultural appropriation
My favorite part about this whole conversation is that someone responded to my criticism of neoliberalism with some neoliberalism
Because it's dogshit neolib idiocy
Alright guys
Accusations of racism aside
This has been a blast
The most ethical thing you all can do is touch grass