International Women's Day: the abilities of womanhood

An important ability that women in the world have is the ennoblement of our surroundings. And the ability to ensure a continuous flow of positivity, upliftment and positive change that can direct the progress of humanity in the right direction. So, make no mistake, the existence of women in the world is not merely to have children and to be mothers, even though this is also a very beautiful and crucial task. With intuition, women in the world have the ability to ensure the continuous exaltation and advancement of our species in ways that can shift the entire status quo and change global systems. In this way, women can take the lead in cultivating harmony and balance with people and the planet. Happy International Women’s Day.

♥ Nina Gbor

Instagram: @eco.styles

Vintage: a portal to fashion’s sustainable future

Over the years, I’ve become somewhat of an op shop (thrift store) aficionado with a deep love for vintage (clothing circa 1940s – 1960s) treasures like this grand pink ball gown. I started op shopping at age 15. The love for vintage happened in my childhood from watching style icons of the vintage era in classic films.

About 90% of my wardrobe is either vintage or preloved (secondhand). When I first started this journey, it wasn’t really cool to wear secondhand. People just thought you were either a hippy, poor or just freakin’ weird! It thrills me to know that vintage clothing is increasingly becoming more popular and it has had 46% growth in sales compared to 2017.

A league of its own

Each country in the global North has their figures but in Australia alone, over 501 million kg of unwanted clothes go into landfill each year! Another 94 million kg gets exported overseas but some of that also ends up in landfill, albeit on another continent. Why am I bringing this up? Because these figures include vintage clothes! I haven’t figured out the precise amount but it irks me nonetheless to even think of vintage being wasted like this. Vintage clothing is in a league of its own. Here’s why: vintage usually lasts at least 4 or 5 decades longer than most contemporary clothes. Secondly, if your wardrobe is blessed enough to be graced with quality vintage pieces, you possess a little piece of history that might hold clues for a sustainable fashion future. And finally, incorporating vintage pieces into your wardrobe is like style on steroids! Exhibit A: my pink ball gown. No, it’s not a costume even though I look like I’m on set of an 1800s period drama!  

Everyone can wear vintage

Vintage fashion is certainly not limited to ball gowns like mine and the ones you see on screen sirens like Elizabeth Taylor or Grace Kelly. You can find daily vintage-wear ties, scarves, shirts, dresses, pants, skirts, brooches, hats, etc. Each item brings its own special kind of magic. Some pieces give you all the ‘feels’ of the era they were made. Even though vintage can range from thousands of dollars in cost for luxury designer items, all the way down to merely just a few dollars in cost, the value of a vintage piece is not in the price. It’s in the magic of that piece. For instance, the way it can set your wardrobe ablaze with stylish inimitability and the power it has to turbocharge your serotonin levels when you get dressed.

Mainstreaming vintage

If you’ve been following me for any length of time, you’ll know that I abhor trends. Trends are short term and therefore fuel textile waste. And the implication with trends is that people are to wait for a celebrity or advert to dictate or bestow permission to wear something, whether or not that thing is right for you. That choice belongs solely to you and your intuition. So, instead of making vintage-wearing another trend, let’s make it part of our daily culture by giving ourselves the permission to wear it throughout life. Take back your personal power (if you haven’t already) and normalise the habit of incorporating vintage pieces into your wardrobe. The greater goal here is to for it to become an everyday thing for as long as humans are wearing clothes.

How to wear vintage

I’ve been pondering upon what it’ll take for vintage to become as ubiquitous as fast fashion with all age groups. Start with baby steps by incorporating one item at a time to mix with your more contemporary pieces. My ensemble below is an example. This white denim jacket, tan cross body bag and sneakers transform this dress from ball gown to more casual everyday wear. I literally wear this look to lunch, dinner or to hang out with friends. The next time you need something in your closet, try searching through online vintage stores, your local vintage shops, op shops or even save the dates of the next vintage markets in your area.

When we all rise to the challenge of #DailyVintageWearing, we’ll be heroes for preserving these treasures that hold the exquisite craftsmanship of artisans from past generations for the future generations to experience. And on some level, we’ll buffer the environmental burden created by clothing manufacture and textile landfill waste.

STYLING

Outfit sourced from:

Rose pink vintage ball gown: Op shop

Tan Belt: Noffs Op Shop

White denim jacket and tan cross body bag: Hand-me-downs

♥ Nina Gbor

Instagram: @eco.styles

Images by Najah Onn

A different kind of Christmas

I chuckled when I found this Grinch t-shirt at a clothes swap a couple of years ago. 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas' is a culturally iconic story and popular children’s book I read as a kid. In the 2000 film adaptation with Jim Carrey, the Grinch’s home was bombarded with trash from the townspeople’s Christmas celebrations. For this and other reasons, the Grinch hated Christmas. So, he tried to stop the holiday by stealing people’s Christmas presents from their homes while they slept.  

I've never been a fan of the superfluous nature of the festive holiday period with its excessive overconsumption rituals that seem to get worse every year. Christmas has been reduced to the notion of excessive material consumption, excessive food waste, excessive packaging, decorations and presents that people don't need or probably don't even want. Most of it ends up in landfill. Australians for instance wasted an estimated $400 million on unwanted presents last Christmas! Some environmentalists even say that Christmas is the world’s greatest annual environmental disaster. Americans throw away 25% more trash during the holiday season, amounting to 25 million tons of garbage which is about 1 million extra tons per week based on data from Stanford University. And according to the OECD, about 54 million plates of food are thrown out in the UK every Christmas. Food waste and its supply chain is a major source of CO2 emissions. The IPCC report on Climate Change and Land stated that wasted and lost food is responsible for up to 10% of all global greenhouse gas emissions. This might be why my Grinch t-shirt resonates. The Grinch is in this way symbolic of disrupting the holiday overconsumption culture.   

It feels like the beautiful things about the holidays like family, culture, connection, community and the opportunity for rest and reflection have been corrupted. Now it’s all about consumerism and directing our efforts towards skyrocketing profits for big corporations. So, what if we redirected all of these resources towards making life liveable for people who are underprivileged or marginalised? What if, instead of going along with the old tradition of giving presents to someone who doesn't really need it, maybe the cost or the item/service can be donated to the people or organisations that work towards environmental regeneration?

I think the moral of the Grinch story was that after lamenting on the stolen presents, the townspeople realised they could have a happy Christmas without the excessive material stuff. We too can create a different kind of Christmas. During the super consumption period that goes from Black Friday through to the holidays and into the January sales, we buy and consume a lot of stuff in richer countries. It’s a good opportunity for low-income earners to afford necessary items and luxurious treats. It’s also a time to shift this modern trend of THE NEED TO BUY things we don’t need. We spend a big portion of our lives shopping and spending. This isn’t necessarily about being frugal. This is about filling our lives with purposeful activities that have a more lasting impact on our souls than just inanimate objects we pay for.

The holidays carry a different meaning for everyone, but I hope the end of this year is a time of positive introspection for all of us. A time we use wisely to do some self-love and self-care by alchemising the things within us that keep us from evolving to our highest selves. And shifting habits like unnecessary consumption that damage ecosystems and hurt the environment. And by doing random things like showing bundles of love and acts of kindness to the people that would never expect it from us both online and in-person.

The holidays done differently

If we choose to resist the status quo and #MakeChristmasGreatAgain, here are a few tips:

Personalise the holidays. It’s important to recognise that we don’t have to stick to doing the same thing we’ve been doing for decades or centuries. We can make brand new holiday traditions that hold personal meaning for you, family and friends. Ones that don’t have to rely on excessive use of things or products to make the holidays fun.

Giving – Have you noticed that people who have a lot, get given a lot too? Consider giving to people who really, actually need resources and things for their survival and personal growth. This is one way to tip the scales towards more balance and equality in society. Seek out people in need within your local community or even in parts of the global South to give to. Giving need not be something limited to the holidays. It can be all year round.

Quit holiday sales – Reducing overconsumption is about finding alternative habits to replace excessive shopping. Buy what you need, reuse, recycle and repair when you can. Place a higher value on experiences over things.

Photos by Madé Kosala

♥ Nina Gbor

Instagram: @eco.styles

Exposing fashion's Jedi mind trick

It was many years ago that I started working in ethical & sustainable fashion.

Today, I'm going back to basics. Back to my first and original eco styling messaging and ethos of getting off the fashion trendmill. It means personal style (individual preference, lifestyle) alone should be the premise for choosing our clothes and NOT TRENDS. The concept is psychological, environmental, and spiritual and also rooted in social justice, self-awareness and confidence.

This ensures you'll likely love, keep and wear your clothes for much longer. As opposed to following the wear once-disposable throwaway culture that has resulted in Aussies sending 6000 kg of textile waste to landfill every 10 minutes!

Invest in timeless, ethical, sustainable pieces that you know you'll wear for a very long time to come. Pieces that give you joy when you wear them.

Throughout our lives, fashion has taught us that we're not enough. And that we need to stay current with the latest trends. This brainwashing is the JEDI MIND TRICK that has grown and kept their profits super high for years. That’s because it keeps us in a hamster wheel loop of buying consistently to fill that void of not feeling enough. To get out of this loop, we need to step out of the fashion trendmill.

Meanwhile, fashion trends are the root cause of many of fashion's evils. They do nothing good for the consumer's self-esteem, body image and psychology. They fuel waste and overconsumption. The fast trend culture also influences the exploitation of garment workers. While many of us don't wear trends, the notion of constant consumption is a CULTURAL TREND we need to address.

This will require shifting our individual and collective psychology, relationship and behaviour around clothing consumption. It's not just about whether or not you have a lot of clothes. It’s about acquiring clothes with a specific plan of keeping and using them long term. And ultimately, how we will dispose of them at the end of their life cycle.

STYLING

The flower on this preloved skirt inspires love feelings. Inspired by its beauty and elegance, I paired it with plain black tops so that the focus remains on the hypnotic beauty of the flower.

To restyle an elegant skirt like this one into something more casual, I’d wear it with a t-shirt and a pair of sneakers like the ones below. I’d also wear less blingy jewellery or no jewellery at all.

Outfit sourced from:

Preloved black top - Salvos Op Shop (thrift store)

Preloved floral skirt - Marketplace

Red, vegan sneakers - Etiko

♥ Nina Gbor

Instagram: @eco.styles

Modern slavery & fashion’s complicity: 7 ways you can help

Image by Johannes Krupinski

Did you know that 1 in 200 people in the world work in slavery-like conditions? It’s staggering, I know! Advocacy groups cite fashion as one of the top five industries implicated in modern slavery.

What modern slavery is

Modern slavery is described by new laws and labour rights organisations as the exploitation of human beings for commercial gain. Practices like unsafe work conditions, debt bondage, human trafficking, forced labour, excessive & unpaid overtime and involuntary servitude are some of the makings of modern slavery. Activities like these are the target of emerging laws determined to end these practices. There are roughly 40 million people in slavery today. Data from the UN states that modern slavery garners over $150 billion in profits and is the second-largest criminal industry in the world. SDG 8.7 is a pledge to end modern slavery, with the goal of reducing the number of people affected by 10,000 every day.

Uyghur Region, the modern slavery capital of China

According to a coalition of more than 180 human rights groups, many of the world’s biggest retailers and fashion brands are complicit in modern slavery conditions being perpetrated on millions of people in the Xinjiang region of Northwestern China. In this region, cotton and yarn are produced through an enormous system of detention and forced labour using approximately 1.8 million Uighur and other Turkic Muslim people. Made of enslaved factories, farms and prison camps, it’s said to be the largest confinement of an ethnic and religious minority for forced labour since World War II.

China is the biggest cotton producer in the world and its Xinjiang region produces 84% of the country’s cotton. It is believed that this cotton can be found in one-fifth of cotton products worldwide, including PPE exported to many countries.  

Image by Trisha Downing

Fashion supporting slavery

G20 countries imported $US127.7 billion of fashion garments identified as at-risk products of modern slavery. 40% of all fashion industry textiles use cotton. Global fashion brands source so extensively from Xinjiang despite these abuses. Chloe Cranston, business and human rights manager of Anti-Slavery International has said there’s a high likelihood that every high street and luxury brand runs the risk of being linked to what is happening to the Uyghur people. A coalition of human rights groups says that brands like Tommy Hilfiger, Gap, Adidas, Calvin Klein, C&A and Muji have been identified as brands sourcing from the region or farm factories connected to forced labour.

Modern slavery in the West: The Boohoo story

There is an estimated 1,400 to 15,000 modern slaves in Australia today, an estimated 100,000 to 400,000 in the US and about 130,000 in the UK.

It came to light in July 2020 that Boohoo (a UK online fashion conglomerate), had been engaging in modern slavery practices in their factories in Leicester, UK. Workers were being paid £3.50 an hour against the legal minimum wage requirement of £8.72 for workers aged 25 and over. The discovery was made during the localised lockdown period owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. The company was putting employees at risk by working in factories that did not have social distancing measures in place.

Undeterred by the injustice, an estimated 643 influencers were still spruiking the brand’s apparel during the height of this scandal in the first 2 weeks of July. The brand’s share prices have now rebounded and more influencers are back to promoting their hugely discounted clothing. With all of this, the brand has enjoyed rare financial success in the time of the coronavirus crisis. Amid the row of modern slavery and poor work conditions, the company’s profits have soared by 51% in September this year.

COVID, the excuse of fashion brands

When the COVID-19 pandemic began this year, big fashion and apparel brands engaged in one of the biggest corporate unethical dealings. They refused to pay for products they asked suppliers to make. According to a recent report, “Unpaid Billions”,  authored by the Worker Rights Consortium and Centre for Global Workers’ Rights, this has resulted in $16 billion missing from the apparel supply chain, which is owed to suppliers. The report states that $1.6 billion of this amount represents garment workers’ unpaid wages. Millions of garment workers have lost their jobs and become extremely destitute because of this circumstance. Mainly in countries like Bangladesh, India, Myanmar and Cambodia. The fashion industry for years has been rife with slavery conditions of human rights abuses and exploitative practices. The Global Slavery Index estimates that 58% of people in slave labour are in the major cotton or garment-producing countries of the world such as China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Uzbekistan. The refusal of big brands to pay for orders and using the COVID pandemic as an excuse, has made bad situations unimaginably worse for workers.

Slavery is not the stuff of human nature

Human beings are born with the innate ability to think, analyse and choose. And with the freedom to develop themselves and the freedom to ennoble their environments. These are embedded in human nature. Enslaving human beings is, therefore, an abomination onto the human race. Freedom is a fundamental right, always. No one has the right to enslave another human for profit or any other reason. Its unnatural and absolutely incompatible with the human spirit and it does not befit humankind. Where slavery is enforced, it’s a real scourge on collective humanity. We should have systems that protect the sanctity of human freedom by ensuring everyone is insulated from conditions that make slavery possible.

Image by Jonathan Sebastiao

Actions that have sparked change  

Brands - Nearly the entire global apparels industry is tainted by forced Uyghur and Turkic Muslim labour, according to Chloe Cranston. The executive director of the Uyghur Human Rights Project, Omer Kanat has said “Global brands need to ask themselves how comfortable they are contributing to a genocidal policy against the Uyghur people. These companies have somehow managed to avoid scrutiny for complicity in that very policy – this stops today,” The End Uyghur Forced Labour coalition insists that the global apparel industry must eradicate all materials and products connected with the forced labour of Xinjiang in less than a year. The coalition is made up of more than 70 anti-slavery organisations, Uyghur rights groups and labour rights campaigners.

US House of Representatives - In September this year, the US House of Representatives passed the Uyghur Forced Labour Prevention Act (H.R. 6210). The bill is created to put an end to forced labour of the Uyghur Region in corporate supply chains. When executed, it will establish the legal presumption that any products arriving at US ports manufactured in or through the Uyghur Region were made from forced labour, unless it can be proved otherwise. If not, they will be barred from entering the US.

Petitions – Remake created a #PayUp petition campaign at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic to demand fashion brands pay money that was owed to garment workers. It resulted in $22 billion being unlocked to garment workers. This money saved the lives of millions of workers experiencing food and housing insecurity.

Tech – In some cases, tech might be used to monitor conditions of modern slavery. For instance, a drone was used to record ariel footage as evidence of Uyghur brutality with hundreds of Uyghur men blindfolded, shackled and being transported.

To map forced labour patterns and predictions, the University of Nottingham, UK has used artificial intelligence with satellite imaging. In South Asia for instance, it can be used to map brick kilns in places considered to be hotspots for debt bondage and forced labour.

How we can create change

1. Ethical Clothing Australia (ECA) is an accreditation body focused on ensuring that local textile, clothing and footing workers are being paid appropriately, receiving all their legal minimum entitlements and working in safe conditions throughout the entire supply chain. Shop with ECA accredited brands here. Find ECA accredited ethical manufacturers here.

Find other global ethical clothing accreditation bodies here.

2. Worker Rights Consortium is an independent labour rights monitoring organisation. They hold corporations accountable and protect worker rights. Use WRC’s COVID-19 Brand Tracker to see which brands are acting responsibly towards suppliers and workers.

3. Support the coalition to End Forced Labour in the Uyghur Region. The Coalition is a group of civil society organisations and trade unions united to end state-sponsored forced labour and other egregious human rights abuses against people from the Uyghur Region. Join their call to action here.

4. Write directly to fashion brands (social media, email and direct mail) insisting they no longer use materials sourced from modern slavery. Also request full transparency in their supply chain. Find a letter template from Freedom United here.

5. Sign a petition (or two). Here are several petitions you can sign to help make a difference: Freedom United, Change.org, Payup Fashion, Oxfam, Labour Behind the Label, and Traidcraft Exchange.

6. Organisations can fill a form to endorse the call to action on human rights abuses in the Uyghur Region. Find the form here.

7. Lobby your local, state, regional and federal governments to create policies that will end modern slavery locally and internationally. A good example is the legislation made by the US House of Representatives. International trade agreements are an area to focus on that have major implications on modern slavery in multiple countries.

Considering slavery is very much against the essence of humanity, are we also complicit when we remain silent in the face of modern slavery or when we purchase products made from conditions of modern slavery?

♥ Nina Gbor

Instagram: @eco.styles

https://fashionjournal.com.au/fashion/an-expert-weighs-in-on-tackling-modern-slavery-in-the-fashion-industry/?fbclid=IwAR2wisIW4DVUM-ZTRNycR4AgfzxPfcD04tmsbZ4gXDEW4KRxLHZdN2N7Y2k

https://theconversation.com/fashion-production-is-modern-slavery-5-things-you-can-do-to-help-now-115889

https://www.globalslaveryindex.org/2018/findings/global-findings/

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/boohoo-leicester-factories-modern-slavery-boohoo-leicester-factories-modern-slavery-investigation-coronavirus-coronavirus-fast-fashion-a9602086.html

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/jul/23/virtually-entire-fashion-industry-complicit-in-uighur-forced-labour-say-rights-groups-china

https://www.workersrights.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Unpaid-Billions_October-6-2020.pdf

https://www.commonobjective.co/article/modern-slavery-and-the-fashion-industry

https://www.news.com.au/world/asia/chilling-video-shows-chinese-police-transferring-hundreds-of-blindfolded-shackled-prisoners/news-story/67a3f1742b261c6dc78334ff16b6d775

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/01/how-ai-and-satellite-imaging-tech-can-put-an-end-to-modern-slavery/

https://www.news.com.au/world/asia/chilling-video-shows-chinese-police-transferring-hundreds-of-blindfolded-shackled-prisoners/news-story/67a3f1742b261c6dc78334ff16b6d775