Brianna Goode-Wright

Fashion Revolution Day

In the most recent week I’ve come more accustomed to Fashion Revolution Week and day. The result of this event is due to the terrible conditions that occur in manufacturing factories in many foreign countries that sometimes even result in death. For example in class we watched one film titles “Clothes to Die For” which is a film on youtube that documented the events of the terrible factory collapse of Rana Plaza a couple years ago which inspired Fashion Revolution Day in the first place. The second film we watch was names “The True Cost” which had a similar concept but manly focusing on the poor conditions of the workers across the country, both films gave great insight on the events that people may not know occur when their clothes are being created.

Environmental Issues

Chromium 6- Chromium 6 is referred to in the film as human carcinogen when inhaled and its very bad for humans, it even has risk for lung cancer. With this chemical it many dangers come along with it, especially in the leather industry.

Waste/Landfill – The fashion industry is the 2nd most polluting industry in the world,just right behind the oil industry. Plenty if waste is being thrown into landfills due to, every year 82 pounds of textile waste is thrown away. Not to mention majority of the time textiles and clothing sit in landfills for over 200 years.Donating your things could improve the landfill and waste areas so much more.

Genetically modified crops – True cost went in to depth on this topic, they talked about the GMO cotton which is simply just cotton that is being re-engineered, basically this cotton is being used to combat insects an even pets. The companies own these seeds and grow them which makes it hard for farmers because now they have to take the action of going to actually Toby them from multiple companies and of course those companies only care about there profit rather then the actual plants.

Social and Labor Concerns- this is a major issue, it was addressed in both films and as we know addressed in my opening paragraph. Labor services are table in this time, a lot of people are only making a dollar an hour… if that. Things to change and FAST!

Sweatshops- Not a lot of us take the time to speak on the bad work spaces of sweat shops especially here in the United States of America because a lot of the time it occurs mainly in the foreign countries. What a lot of people neglect is that not just are women working in these sweatshops but even small children are put to work for close to none compositioncompasation A lot of the big retail shops we go and buy all our clothing from use sweatshops to create their clothes and in the film it goes in to grave detail. H&M, Forever 21, Topshop, and Zara are some the top brands known for sweatshop work.

Danger, Hours and Fair Trade – Within the sweatshops danger alone is out of the world. Not a lot of safety precautions are taken to make sure everyone in the building is properly taken care of if needed. Fires occur a lot in sweatshops and majority of them nine times out of ten don’t have the correct protocol for any type of emergency to get them out safely. The hours alone in the sweatshop are out of this world, people may start work at 8am and go home at 3 just to turn around and come back at 7. Its unfair especially for the low wages they are being paid for such conditions. Fair trade needs to occur now more then ever, the trading could benefit each country in need tremendously. The US has even exported goods for the countries such as Bangladesh to simply assist.

Advertising -A lot of brands use advertising to promote sales, deals, and more.They use ads to reach out and have their consumer entertained enough to want to go and buy all new products.

Depression – Many ads attempt to provide the thought of if we go buy there products then we would be maybe more happy with life or even certain situations.

Fast Fashion – Fast fashion is inexpensive clothing produced rapidly by mass-market producers in response to the latest trends and more. A lot of us don’t know how guilty we are of causing pollution when we go out and purchase fast fashion. Forever 21 is a huge one, we go and buy affordable clothes of course and thats no ones fault its just we need to all become more aware of what we do with our clothes once were no longer going to put those clothes to use, because plenty chemicals are produced to make those shirts and etc.

 

So for my upcycled item transformation I decided to take one of my old tie die T-shirt and turn it in to a usable tote back. Doing this project I was thinking about something that I could actually use after I presented to everyone in the class and the tote bag was the most efficent. For this project I used three materials and that was a pair of scissors, my old shirt, and my very handy hands.

I started by just cutting the sleeves off first, then I chopped the hem off at the very bottom. Once that step was over I trimmed the front and back bottoms of the shirt in to fringe pieces so that right after I could be able to tie them together and have the bottom held tight enough to hold actual items. That probably was the most time consuming part of the whole project, many of the strings were getting knotted up together at one point to where it made my head hurt. but of course I got myself together and made it work. This was something I actually enjoyed doing, DIY is a something I always have had a interest in and this project was exactly that. I knew I would be a able sew because I never in my life even touched a machine so I made sure I did something I would actually be able to do with the best tools I could ever have… my hands.

This was something I enjoyed doing and through out this whole project I learned a lot about fashion and the development of it and so furthermore, I can inform others who may not know whats happening with their clothes or exactly they are made.

Global sourcing is a major strategy where a business would seek to find the most cost efficient location for manufacturing a product, including an area such as an foreign country. This is a very big thing that the United States take part in, the most common one would most likely be the US’s mutual business partnership with China. From clothes to cars a lot of our material are usually imported or traded from china over to the states. Not many people pay attention to the trade exchange in the common day but it a VERY important aspect of our business cycle in the US.

China happens to currently be our largest trading goods partner with 634.5 billion coming in total from two ways from the last report stated in 2017. Goods exporting total at 129.9 billion dollars and when not comes down to exporting it comes to an total of 505.5 billion dollars. With finances coming in like this china has financed and supported about 900,000 jobs in 2015 with the help of the trade and support of the export and import of goods.

Sadly, in the last couple of years from the records of The World Trade Organizations numbers have declined recently. The World Trade Organization is a governmental organization the regulates international trade between nations and stays up to date with records. From the most recent reports the WTO has suffered slightly severe collateral damage from Trump and China. With, us being the US being the most dominate with power in the world trading system it has also caused  an upstart with Chinese challengers, yet nothing had changed the the current president to deter more then 200 billion of imports from china with such emergency tariffs and more cause another problem for the US.

As we all know for decades killing animals for their fur so can they be used as garments has been common. Its sold at high prices through designer stores and many celebs and royal figures can be seen wearing it. But as you know their are many activist programs who are against things as such the one I’m sure you are very familiar with is PETA. They are known for the red paint movement, in which they walk up to a person in a fast moving city such as New York who have many wealthy people who afford real minks and etc and run up to splash red paint on them and ruin their piece of clothing. When it comes to trapping animals I am totally against it, I think it is unfair to go in to the habitat of one living thing and kill them for manufacturing purposes especially when a lot of the animals today are becoming more and more extinct. Wearing no fur isn’t an issue to me but if there was a preference I feel like faux manufactured fur should be more of todays known clothing, rather then making the real fur business grow we could save thousands of animals and still look good.

Of course when asked what is my favorite performance fiber the first thing I’m always going to say is cotton, not just because its the most common used but because its comfortable and above all majority of the time affordable. But over time fibers have been technologically advanced such as turning milk in to fabrics. Anke Domaske has started developing high fashion clothing from high concentration of milk protein casein, this would be known was the first man made fiber product made with absolutely no chemicals. It takes up to six liters of milk to make an entire dress which cost about 200 dollars but not only is it found in dresses but also makeup. The development of clothes and makeup with milk has been around since the 1930’s but with the help of modern day technology has now caught on in todays world and became something we wear today.

Hello, my name is Brianna Goode-Wright and I’m from Fredericksburg Virginia where I attend James Monroe High school for 4 years. While spending my academic career at JM I took two courses of Fashion Marketing which started to inspire my love for the life of fashion. Ive always been a huge clothes girl, I love putting outfits together I also LOVE the shopping part of it of course . I have become a major online shopper over the years because its just so much easier, I love sites such as BooHoo, PrettyLittleThings, and ASOS but when it comes to shopping in store I’m more of an H&M type of girl. I’m one of those people who are inspired by what I like more of a its my style so I do what I want vibes. After graduating I hope to be somewhere in New York working for a big company or firm and m maybe one day even become a creative director, rather go big then go home!

For my three logo designs I decided to incorporate my initials in all. I feel as if this was a thing of my own being created and sold in the real world I want everyone to know what BGW is. I made sure to use simple but broad colors in a sense. I also excised the shape tools ALOT or as much as I could to give it a different look. The stars and the box’s gave it a special elegant feel and it was actually unexpected since I was really just fooling around with it. My favorite out of the three has to be BGW incorporated, something about it is different to me and sticks out for sure. I can’t wait to put my brand together fully and see how it all threads along.

The sports bra with medium sport from H&M could be updated with better material. I feel like I can update by adding exo-skelatal layers to it and even updating some of the leggings. A lot of the sports bra and jackets could be used with new many patterns that I created. Also having the new felt of wool can be added inside to keep comfort and warmth for the new winter season.

Japan is very interesting culture to look in to but the textiles are even more intriguing. They are know for using more of cotton textiles but not just the basic cotton you use in your white t-shirts. The Northern Japan island industries work with several sewing and weaving techniques such as sashimi stitching and saki weaving which are formal ways of creating pieces in their culture. They also have a very unique way of putting color in to their fabrics such as instead of just going out and buying already dyed fabrics they dye their own. They use methods such as Katazome and Katagami patterns along with the indigo and reddish-brown dye they use on a daily bases to put color in to their pieces. There are many cool and different thing they incorporate in their own clothing and textiles one of the coolest to me had to be that they use a netting called “mosquito netting” that is made from hemp fiber and they use it as protection against ubiquitous mosquitos during the summer time. Japan is known for the pretty flower, dragons and sometimes even fish so that also seems to be the base line for many patterns that go along in the work and stitchings they do. Its crazy how much more you learn just by looking into the basic work behind textiles and methods of each and every different culture.

The upcoming 2019 Fall/Winter season is seen to be emerging with many different textures and colors putting a super cute change on active wear. Including, active wools thats are now becoming more of base for all active wear and even including circular knits in to the patterns. The exo-skelatal base layers also stood out to me not just the look of it but the feel the structure and more its just such a modern cool way to make active wear different. The felted finishes are also becoming he thing but its much more common in active shoes rather than clothing. There are many new colors being used in the season coming upon us such as maroons, neutrals, and burnt oranges. With my line I feel the three best trends to go along with my brand is for sure the restful mars, blistered knits, and serene silk the reason being my line is more based on contemporary fashion, the classy but comfortable aspect of clothes and all of those fabrics and textures speak just that.