Fashion Revolution Week 2020: What's In My Clothes?

I’m surprised more horror stories aren’t written about clothing. Maybe because it looks so benign, hanging there in neat rows in a shop, arriving on your doorstep carefully wrapped, or sitting inert in your wardrobe. Or maybe it’s because we don’t like to scratch at fashion’s shiny facade. As well as horrifying tales of garment worker exploitation, there’s the environmental destruction to think about. After all, have you ever really considered what’s in your clothes?

We all think of cotton as a traditional, natural fibre. But cotton’s dark history of human exploitation and misery also started to include ecocide in the mid 20th century as DDT was sprayed onto cotton crops to kill the bollworm. Rachel Carson chronicled the devastating effect on wildlife in her book Silent Spring in the early 60s. Cotton is also an incredibly thirsty crop, and attempts to divert rivers to irrigate large cotton fields in Uzbekistan have transformed the Aral Sea, once the world’s largest inland sea and a thriving location for nature, fishing and tourism, into little more than a salty dust bowl.

A fact that really shocked me is the amount of water it takes to make one cotton garment, so much so that I had to emblazon it on one of my works of wearable art - 2700 Litres. On this shirt, every sequin represents one litre of water. That figure includes water for irrigating the cotton, processing the fibre, dyeing and finishing the garment, but that’s a lot of water. XR Hammersmith and Fulham also illustrated this beautifully during their Boycott Fashion event in Lyric Square - with nine rainbow-coloured bathtubs. Unfortunately I don’t have room for nine bathtubs in my hallway, so it had to be something small but visually arresting instead. 

Since clothes started to be mass produced in the mid 19th Century, we haven’t managed to do a great job of dyeing them safely. Fortunately we’ve stopped using arsenic as a green dye, but research carried out by Greenpeace as part of their Detox Fashion campaign, published in 2012, showed that brands were using azo dyes that contain cancer-causing carcinogens. Other tests revealed nonylphenol ethoxylates or NPEs in water systems, which are widely used in cleaning and dyeing processes. These chemical compounds are toxic to aquatic life, persist in the environment and biomagnify. Commercial fabric dyes contain mercury, cadmium and lead, and in many textile manufacturing areas around the world, the rivers running past dye houses and tanneries are the only source of water for drinking and washing for local people. 

Stories of dangerous dyes from days past inspired this horror-themed blog post a while back, and the creation of an arsenic-victim Halloween costume. But it’s a horror story that persists to this day and affects millions of people worldwide. 

Polyester clothing now accounts for over 60% of garments made worldwide. What many of the owners of those garments might not know is that polyester is made from plastic, a product of the petrochemical industry. The carbon footprint of a piece of polyester clothing is more than twice that of a similar piece of cotton clothing. And polyester clothing is also creating a global water crisis of its own - microfibre pollution.

When we think of plastic in our oceans, we might be thinking of the images we’ve seen in Blue Planet 2 - plastic bottles and containers bobbing about, bags or fishing lines caught around sea birds and turtles, or the scraps of broken-down plastic in an unfortunate fish’s stomach. But there is another hidden problem - the microfibres that are shed from synthetic garments every time we wash them. Too small to be trapped by filter systems in water treatment plants, they end up in the oceans where they add to the plasticky soup being consumed by sea creatures and eventually, us too.

Again, the figures are mind-boggling, as emblazoned on my second piece, 700,000 Fibres. Individually, these microfibres are far too small to see. But when you start to think of the amount of polyester clothing each of us owns and how often we wash those clothes, it starts to become a global problem. Research by Friends of the Earth has shown that 83% of water contains microplastics. That includes bottled water and drinking water as well as rivers and oceans.

I wish I could tell you that there is a quick fix for all these problems - a perfect fabric with no environmental impact, a magical dye that leaves no chemical residue but is colourfast and never fades. Unfortunately we live in a complicated, messy world and there are no quick fixes. Sustainability-minded manufacturers are gradually starting to switch to fabrics, dyes and processing that have less of an impact on the environment, but once again we need to keep asking the big brands to change. If we all ask #whatsinmyclothes we’ll hopefully end up in a situation where no one has to worry if they are drinking the residue from some freshly-dyed fabric, or scraps of the yoga pants they washed a while back.

Your clothes are out to get you: a Halloween horror story

Hello, dear reader. I hope you are wearing your most comforting clothes, because I bring chilling tales from the realm of fashion, both past and present. Our clothes are meant to make us feel good, but sometimes they can do quite the opposite. Don’t seek refuge in your wardrobe if you feel scared, because your clothes are out to get you...

Highgate Cemetery is known for its unique and unusual monuments to the dearly departed, but one headstone stuck in my memory not because of its grandiosity or because it was the last resting place of someone noteworthy, but because it was the only one to record the cause of death.

Emma Wallace Grad

second daughter of

George Hebden Grad

Born the 20th August 1827

Died the 20th October 1845

In the 19th year of her age

From the effects of fire

Her dress having accidentally ignited

ten days previously

What a horrible way to go. The year of her death gives some indication as to how this could have happened; in the mid 1840s fashion dictated very full skirts supported by several petticoats, which could all too easily have swept too close to an open fire. The less sympathetic among us might scoff at how vanity led this unfortunate young woman to become a literal fashion victim, but the truth is that our clothes have been a source of deadly danger for centuries, and still are. 

One doesn’t have to stray far into the realms of fantasy fiction to come across a piece of jewellery with mischief on its mind. The timeless appeal of precious metals makes them the perfect way to beguile a hapless protagonist, whereas clothes feel more ephemeral; would Gollum or Bilbo have been inexorably drawn to an old sweater? Of course the reality is that the gold and silver we favour for jewellery is inert, unchanging, whereas clothes change with us. They adapt and react to our bodies, sometimes in ways that can actively cause us harm.

In an episode of CSI: New York, a young bride drops dead at the alter. The murder weapon? Her wedding dress, illicitly procured from an undertaker and sold as secondhand. The formaldehyde used to preserve the body had seeped into the dress, and poisoned its new wearer. It seems an unlikely scenario now, but if we travel back in time to the 1850s, poor Emma Wallace Grad could easily have been the victim of a different kind of fashion fatality. New chemical dyes were all the rage, but bright green (also popular as a shade for wallpaper) was made from arsenic, which reacted with the warmth and moisture of the wearer’s body to become an active poison. Is it a coincidence that Victorian women were stereotyped as weak and sickly when they were surrounded by toxic substances? 

Examples of clothes that actively wish their wearer ill are surprisingly few and far between in fiction; probably the best-known example are the scarlet pointe shoes that are the undeniable star of “The Red Shoes”, the ballet where the shoes force the unlucky wearer to dance herself to death. But our clothes don’t need to be enchanted with evil spells to cause us harm, or even death. Dancer Isadora Duncan had her life cut short by the long tasseled scarf that was her style trademark: it caught in the wheel of her car as she drove away and... well, perhaps you can imagine. 

I’m sure I’m not the only one who has felt personally victimised by a benign-looking item of clothing. Anyone who has hobbled home after wearing a poor choice of footwear for an event, or experienced the singular sensation of being stabbed in the rib cage or armpit by an escaping underwire might recognise the feeling. After wrestling the offending item of clothing from your body, you stare at it in annoyance and disappointment. “How could you?” you think. “I liked you!”

You might think yourself immune to any fashion-based health hazards. If you wear comfortably fitting clothes, avoid dangling accessories, and ensure your clothes are well looked after, you might think yourself immune. I hate to break it to you, but your vigilance is in vain. Every time you (or anyone else) washes clothing containing polyester or other synthetic fibres, tiny plastic microfibres find their way into our water supply. Friends of the Earth estimate that 83% of our water is contaminated with microplastics. Unwittingly eating old bits of someone else’s clothes isn’t something we’d dream of doing under normal circumstances, yet here we are. 

So maybe the reason we don’t tell horror stories about our clothes is that it’s a little too close to the bone. We all have to wear clothes, after all, so to think of all the harm these innocent-looking and inviting garments could inadvertently do is very disconcerting.

Perhaps we need to turn a suspicious eye towards the true villains of the piece: the people at the top of an industry that has turned a blind eye to deaths of workers in its factories for centuries, and given no thought to  the devastation that its poisonous chemicals and harmful materials can cause. Do I believe they are doing it deliberately? No, but I do believe they don’t care, which is somehow scarier, especially when we’d like to think of our clothes as friends, not foes.

So beware the siren song of fast fashion, my friends. If that beguiling bargain looks too good to be true, maybe it is. After all, cheap clothes aren’t really cheap. Someone, somewhere is paying the cost.

Slaves Of Fashion: The Singh Twins at Ethical Consumer Conference

Whatever our age, gender or personal style, the vast majority of our wardrobes will have something in common: cotton. Whether it’s a smart shirt, floaty sundress, comfortable basics like t-shirts and underwear, or that pair of jeans that you can wear anywhere, cotton is a versatile natural fibre, breathable and easy to wash and care for. Cotton feels like such a friendly fibre, but its history is far darker and more complicated than its uncontested presence in our lives would suggest.

Let me describe a scenario for you: A government redirects its country’s rivers to provide water for intensive cotton growing. This engineering project, ill-conceived and badly executed, diverts the rivers away from a fertile inland sea, turning it into a salty wasteland. An island in the centre of the lake, once used as a weapons testing facility, is now accessible by land. Meanwhile, every autumn the nation’s teenagers are taken from their homes and forced to work as unpaid cotton pickers. If they don’t meet their almost impossible quotas, they are fined or expelled from school. I haven’t described the plot of a dystopian novel, this is genuinely happening in Uzbekistan right now.

Cotton’s role in the destruction of the Aral Sea has been documented in Lucy Siegle’s book To Die For: Is Fast Fashion Wearing Out The World?” and Stacey Dooley’s recent BBC documentary Fashions Dirty Secrets. But the worldwide history of cotton, over hundreds of years, is similarly complex: part of the fabric of our lives, but also responsible for global conflict and human misery. So how to tell this story? There’s no denying we have lost touch with where our clothes come from, but overloading consumers with facts and figures could cause people to switch off rather than engage with the subject.

Liverpool-based artists The Singh Twins have chosen to tell the story of cotton, focussing on Britain and India, through a series of artworks and poetry. The Singh Twins spoke about their Slaves Of Fashion series at the Ethical Consumer Conference on 12th October, and also ran a workshop which centred around the poem and what lessons we could take from it. Sadly my photos, snapped on my phone during the talk, really don’t do justice to these intricate and detailed works of art.

The works which trace the history of the cotton trade between Britain and India are in the style of Indian miniature paintings; they show the lives of the rich but are full of details which relate to the misuse of the environment and the mistreatment of people. The details are extraordinary; for example, the painting titled "Chinz: The Price of Luxury" appears to show a woman in fine clothes and jewellery, but on closer inspection the diamond around her neck is dripping blood and in amongst the floral patterns on the skirts of her dress are curling chains, symbolising the slave trade.

The wealth of detail draws the eye and rewards a closer look: the symbols of imperialism and colonialism reveal how reliant the luxury lifestyle of the elite has been on the slave trade in centuries past, and the global legacy this has left. Some of the works reflect on current trade wars, modern slavery and the greed of global corporations that perpetuates this cycle.

The Singh Twins “Slaves Of Fashion” film, a recitation of their poem about the history of cotton accompanied by details from their paintings, was nothing short of mesmerising. The verses linked the cultural and historical significance of cotton, the Industrial Revolution, the trans-atlantic slave trade, the British invasion of India, Partition, fast fashion and the global economy with heart-felt emotion that would have been completely lacking from a timeline of dates and place names.

As we discussed our impressions of the film afterwards, the same subjects kept coming up. Having the history of cotton presented to us in this very lyrical, visual way, the patterns were easy to spot. The cycles of industrialisation and globalisation, the cycles of exploitation of people and the natural world. The same power and wealth imbalances have persisted across centuries in different incarnations.

But the poem and paintings also contained messages of hope. Ghandi’s use of traditional Indian weaving as a form of protest, and the solidarity shown by Lancashire mill-workers who stood with their fellow weavers in India rather than falling for propaganda that would have pitted them against one another.

Global trade weaves the threads of our lives together, and the “Slaves Of Fashion” series by the Singh Twins is full of messages showing that this is even more relevant now than it was in the past. We need stories that alert us to the dark sides of the things in our lives that we take for granted, but these stories need to spark a desire for change, rather than despair. Fashion is reliant on strong visuals for its initial impact, so it makes sense that powerful images can also reveal the things that need to change for fashion to truly be beautiful, and for us to be truly comfortable in our cotton clothes.

The Singh Twins exhibition Slaves Of Fashion will hopefully be showing in galleries around the UK in 2019, for updates and a closer look at the paintings head over to their website: www.singhtwins.co.uk

20th Century Fashion in Star Trek

Hello friends! Wow, that’s some cute Star Trek cosplay you’re rocking today. What do you mean, it’s just your regular clothing? Sometimes it’s hard to separate fashion from fiction, as I discovered when I researched futuristic costume design for a talk at Nine Worlds in 2016. I’m there this weekend, giving a different talk (Dressing for Dystopia: what should you wear for the end of the world?) but I thought I’d share this (slightly edited and updated) section of my previous talk, as 50 years of Star Trek costume design has provided an interesting parallel to the way that 20th Century fashion has evolved. 

(text now copiously interspersed with my specially made and closet cosplays of Star Trek costumes!)

The original costume designer for Star Trek was William Theiss, and he was really the pioneer of the outrageous intergalactic outfit. Star Trek’s costumes have been derided and parodied over the years, but the costumes from the Original Series tell a really interesting story about fashion in the swinging sixties, and optimism in a decade of global upheaval and change. Star Trek is justifiably hailed as revolutionary: during the Cold War, Communist witch hunts and Segregation, the cast comprised people from different races and backgrounds, working together in harmony.

Thiess’s costumes tie in with the way Star Trek happily presented a radical idea as established and normal in the future world. Mary Quant and Pierre Cardin both claim the invention of the mini skirt in the late 50s, but even by the mid 60s, Uhura’s uniform mini-dress wasn’t just cool but could also still have been considered shocking in more conservative circles of society. Mini skirts were described as “frankly audacious, and worn only by the audacious”. In Star Trek’s utopian future, Uhura wears her uniform without attracting sexist comments from her co-workers, which is sadly still a ground breaking notion in some workplaces.  

Mini skirts are now so ubiquitous they have lost their shock value, and have become a sort of visual shorthand for a woman who is more invested in her looks than her brains. This is quite obvious in some modern rom-coms: Bridget Jones is objectified and patronised by her creepy boss when she turns up to work in a short skirt, and Elle Woods in Legally Blonde has to fight to have her intellect recognised because none of her colleagues can see past her feminine clothes. I’m glad Michael Kaplan, who designed the most recent Star Trek films, fought against these lazy stereotypes and kept Zoe Saldana’s Uhura in a mini dress for some scenes, but also gave her some more practical outfits, because sadly mini dresses aren’t ideal for everything. 

Back in the sixties, fashion became a major factor in breaking down visual class barriers: the same outfits worn by trendsetters like Jean Shrimpton and the Beatles could be worn by both young aristocrats and shop workers. Similarly the Star Trek costumes are more easily identified by the colour of the sweaters, which signify department, than the braid on the cuffs, which signifies rank. The quality of the costumes from the original series became something of a joke (most famously, the velour for the sweaters was chosen because it looked good under lights but it kept shrinking), but funnily enough that ties in with aspects of 60s clothing. Mary Quant tried making a ‘Wet Look’ PVC line, and the first garments were a disaster as no one had worked out the right machining techniques. Although Mary Quant had an official diffusion line at JC Penney, the 60s also saw the birth of what we now know as ‘fast fashion’. The explosion in the teenage market and the simplicity of the garments meant that plenty of high-fashion garments were copied very quickly for the high street from inferior fabrics or with inferior production methods. 

Theiss’s costume designs for the aliens on the planets visited by the Enterprise are a kaleidoscope of styles from many different time periods and from all over the world, often involving surprising fabric choices. This description could also apply to Vogue magazine in the 60s; Brian Duffy’s photo story entitled “six characters in search of 66” consists of the following characters: The Lady of Shalott, Sally Bowles, Ton up or Rocker girl, Russian Heroine, East gone West and Space Girl. 

(As a side-note, I could write another essay about cultural appropriation in Sci-Fi costumes and fashion design, but unfortunately there isn’t the space to do it here. In case you’re wondering what I mean by cultural appropriation, have a read of this blog post  by Laila Woozeer, who explains it very clearly). 

The glamour of cutting edge fashion didn’t always transfer seamlessly into sci fi costumes though - Reuben Torres’ collection for Harrods, designed for an age of “speed, fashion and leisure” was probably an inspiration for the costumes for Star Trek the Motion Picture, but the costumes weren’t well received and have been widely ridiculed. Possibly because the form-fitting beige jumpsuits made passing actors look like they were naked, and partly because people felt nostalgic for the colourful sweaters. 

The sort of fabrics that were fashionable at the time a show was being made often have a big effect on costume design, even if the show is set in the future: the synthetic fabrics that were often by-products of industrial experimentation during the Space Race in the 60s were the obvious choice for costumes for Star Trek. In a decade where future innovation drove design, traditional fabrics looked old-fashioned and drab. 

Theiss seemed to enjoy taking the popular fashions of the mid 60s to their extremes. Mary Quant wanted “relaxed clothes, suited to the actions of normal life”, and Pierre Cardin was designing for “the modern international man who travels and wants functional, lightweight and elegant clothes.”

Theiss saw that “Clothes since the mid century have become less and less bulky, less cumbersome, less protective- both physically and morally- and are headed faster and faster, apparently, for complete nudity.” We may not have reached this point in our everyday clothes, but looking at the trend for heavily embellished but completely sheer barely-there red carpet gowns, he may have had a point. 

Pierre Cardin’s “cosmos” collection from 1967, inspired by the first space walks (and possibly also by Star Trek?) promoted what was then known as ‘unisex’ fashion: a body fitting sweater, under a tunic or pinafore dress, with dark tights or straight cut trousers. These could be worn in different combinations regardless of gender. This style of clothing definitely had an influence on the costumes for Star Trek the Next Generation, again designed by William Thiess for the first series.

His uniform design consisted of a jumpsuit or tunic, with both intended to be gender neutral. The tunic was worn fairly frequently by Deanna Troi, by Captain Picard and Commander Riker as dress uniform with trousers underneath, and by extras of any gender with bare legs and boots. This was a bold design decision at the time, but Theiss’s reasoning for his design was sound. He said “Having the actors and actresses both in skirts was to diffuse any sexist accusations that might have been associated with the old show”.  Being the person responsible for the “Theiss titillation theory”: that the appeal of a costume was directly proportional to the possibility that it might fall off at any time, he was obviously aware of the casual sexism inherent in some of the more objectifying outfits. Reading interviews with him, though, I think he also just enjoyed the challenge of trying to sneak outrageous outfits past the censors, and letting his imagination run riot. Asked to describe his aesthetic in an interview, he said: “currently I really dig floor-length chiffon ponchos, tight knickers, crotch-high boots, pant legs that become bra straps and strong diagonals across the body.”

The pop culture perception of a 1980s workplace was one of power suits, big shoulder pads and corporate greed, so it’s really interesting that Star Trek TNG, which is essentially set in a workplace, albeit one that’s in space, rejected this imagery and drew more from another trend, the popularity of clothing associated with recreational sports and fitness being worn as fashion. Deanna Troi’s costumes were more reminiscent of a dance teacher or aerobics instructor than the traditional portrayal of a ‘counsellor’ on screen. Big hair and glitter abound in any non-uniform outfits, making scenes in Ten Forward, the ship’s bar, an interesting visual mix of 80s leisure wear and cutting edge club style. 

And of course, there is the glamorous and ostentatious Lwaxana Troi, Deanna’s mother, who shows up occasionally and steals the show with her outrageous outfits. I loved the costume design for her so much I wrote about it here. 

Later Star Trek series Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise gave their crews practical-looking jumpsuits and boiler suits, moving away from kitch costumes to outfits that would suit the more minimalist sensibilities of the 90s. There are still some examples of garish casual wear (I feel pretty sure that Jake Sisko’s sweaters are a tribute to the fad for shell suits, which alarmingly seem to be making a comeback), and the show also went into more detail about where their uniforms and off-duty clothes came from. The ships replicators, mostly seen producing “Earl Grey. Hot” for Picard also make and recycle the crew’s uniforms, and, presumably, the outfits for their off-duty shenanigans on the Holodeck. 

Michael Kaplan’s designs for the Star Trek film reboots have updated the original costumes using high-tech looking microfibres, and he has deliberately designed contemporary fashion for the civilian populations of different worlds, rather than riffing on historical clothing. For the new TV series, Discovery, costume designer Gersha Phillips also updated the uniforms with sleek gender-neutral designs, and added in a nod to the popularity of slogan tees (or included a clever bit of in-show advertising for tie-in merchandise): the crew’s workout gear consists of black leggings and a t-shirt with the ship’s name abbreviated to “DISCO”.

Back in the present, it seems like the world of couture can’t make up its mind whether to take the future seriously, or just get involved in some Star Trek TOS cosplay. The theme for the 2016 Met Ball was “Manus X Machina: Fashion in an age of Technology”. The exhibition itself looked at the way the industry is combining traditional techniques with modern technology, but the red carpet featured more sci fi anachronism than innovative couture. Suzy Menkes, writing for Vogue, remarked that “the contrast between the graceful, almost sculptural exhibits and the celebrity vision of what ‘futurism’ means in clothing was dramatic, predictable, and sometimes ridiculous.”

Meanwhile, the sci fi costumes of imagined futures past are affecting our wardrobes in more subtle ways. Although traditional workplaces still enforce dress codes, relaxed working environments have given rise to a self-imposed dress code, one which involves comfortable, easy-to-wear clothing that people can wear for everything, to compensate for their lack of work/life balance. Popularly known as “athleisure”, the look is usually characterised by black stretch yoga pants and a statement sweatshirt. That sounds a lot like a Star Trek uniform to me!

I’m always up for chatting more about costumes or fashion history, and if you’re interested in needing out about Star Trek costumes or 60s fashion, here are some of the books I read to prepare for the talk:

Star Trek Costumes: five decades of fashion from the final frontier
Paula M Block and Terry J Erdmann

Fear and Fashion in the Cold War
Jane Pavitt

Swinging Sixties
Edited by Christopher Breward, David Gilbert and Jenny Lister

Nylon: the manmade fashion revolution
Susannah Handley