Fashionopolis by Dana Thomas is an investigation into the fast fashion industry and its impacts, as well as how we can move towards a more sustainable future in the clothing industry. This book could be used as a source of information for units on fast fashion, natural resources, carbon and water, sustainability and globalisation.
Whilst this book is aimed at an older audience than the majority of our students, there are parts of the book that are useful for both reading as a whole class or individually and for adapting into a range of activities.
This blog post will explore how part one of the book could be used in lessons.
Introduction
At the very beginning of the book, inside the front cover, there is a useful infographic about the 8 billion garments that are produced every year. This infographic provides a wealth of information for students to consider before moving deeper into their topic of study. Data within this infographic may have changed slightly since the book was published. However, I think this would still be a useful exercise to begin to understand the extent of the fashion industry before delving further into the book. The infographic could be reproduced (within copyright rules of course) and students could annotate the information “thinking like a geographer” about the statements and the impacts associated with the content of the statements.
The introduction to the book, featuring Melania Trump and her anorak would make an excellent guided reading activity to begin to understand some of the impacts of the cotton industry and the wider fashion phenomenon. Some of this may need to be changed into more student-friendly speak to make it accessible, but it paves the way for students to gain an understanding of what Fashionopolis is about.
The introduction also contains information that would work well in an impact grid for fast fashion, for example:
| Slavery, child labour and prison labour have all been part of the clothing supply chain. | Clothing and textile jobs globally nearly doubled from 34.2 million to 57.8 million. | In 1991 56.2% of all clothes purchased in the USA were American-made, by 2012 it was down to 2.5%. | In Europe only Italy is still thriving in the textile industry as people associate Italian clothing with quality and luxury. |
| Towns across the Eastern Seaboard and south USA became ghost towns where factories had closed down. | Some clothing factories are so badly built they catch fire or collapse. | Fashion releases 10% of the carbon emissions into our air. 1kg of cloth generates 23kg of greenhouse gases. | Offshoring has created jobs in LICs and NICs. |
| Fashion employs one out of six people on the globe. | Cheap labour has been used to produce clothing. | Fashion uses ¼ of chemicals produced worldwide. | In the UK only 100,000 people now work in textiles. |
| Fashion has grown from a $500 billion trade to a $2.4 trillion trade. | One cotton t-shirt requires 1/3 lb of synthetic fertiliser and 25.3 kilowatts of electricity. | Between 1990 and 2012 the US textile industry lost 1.2 million jobs. | Synthetic fabrics release microfibres into water when washed. |
Students could categorise these into social, economic and environmental impacts as well as positive and negative impacts. This activity will get students thinking like geographers as well as prompting further discussion. This grid could also then be used by students to answer a question such as “What are the hidden impacts of fashion?”. Students could also look at the ‘cost of a t-shirt based on the information on pages 7-8, which features the heavy environmental load that cotton production has (which links into embedded water for KS4 geography). 33 The introduction also talks about an advert by Patagonia in the New York Times from Black Friday 2011, where the line “Don’t buy this jacket” is featured. Again, this would make a great discussion point – why would a company discourage consumers from buying their clothes. Whilst the advert from Patagonia didn’t discourage Black Friday spending, it does suggest the ethical considerations of the company even when the production of the clothing isn’t as environmentally friendly as it should be! Students could create their own adverts to try and discourage consumerism based on the information they’ve read in the introduction of the book.
Part 1 Ready to wear
Within this chapter, the history of clothing production is considered alongside the reasons why fast fashion has developed. There are clear links to the Industrial Revolution, and students could make links here between population growth, climate change and fashion – have we had a problem longer than we think we have?
Pages 27 to 32 discuss the rise and fall of fashion production in the USA, this could be adapted to create a timeline or living graph activity. There are also links to migration and globalisation within this. Students could also categorise the information into reasons for the rise of the fashion industry and its decline.
Pages 29-36 would work really well for the AQA A Level Global Systems and Global Governance unit as NAFTA is discussed as well as other trade blocs. Key vocabulary such as tariffs, common market, exports, quotas and discussions are included throughout the text. Information here could be adapted into a Guided Reading or comprehension style activity to check students’ understanding of the key vocabulary within the trade section of the GSGG unit. Page 31 also branches into content that could be used to provide examples of protectionism in the USA.
Pages 33-34 introduce students to QR – quick response using the example of Zara – this leads into fast fashion and some of the reasons for the rise of fast fashion. Students could complete a case study of Zara and why they continue to be so successful within Fast Fashion – maintaining their position at the more expensive end of Fast Fashion. This then leads to how disposable fashion is and how some lines are pulled from the shop floor if they do not sell out within a week. What happens to those clothes? This would be a great discussion point and could lead to conversations about garment dumping sites such as in the Atacama Desert – where so many clothes have been dumped it can be seen from space. Many items of clothing, especially synthetic clothing will not naturally break down, leading to the destruction of many fragile ecosystems such as deserts.
Whilst locations of the supply chain are not specifically mentioned on page 38, a revamp of the ‘globalisation of jeans’ could be created based on the information given. Exemplifying the supply chain and gaining an understanding as to why different parts of clothing are made in different places will also provide further clarity on what globalisation is.
The price of furious fashion.
The second chapter begins with a description of some of the working conditions in fashion-producing factories. Students could discuss the image that springs to mind when the word ‘sweatshop’ is used. Can students describe where they think they might be located? It is likely that they might mention countries commonly associated with clothing production, the ones on the labels in their own clothes. However, the description on page 43 is of a factory in the USA, and such working conditions may not be considered as the expectation in HICs such as the USA. Parts of pages 43-44 could also be read to students – where do students think this page is describing. Why don’t students think this describes working conditions in a HIC. Students could also discuss the workers in those factories, and why are they migrant workers? Why are they treated in that way? The description here could also be added to the impacts of the fashion industry, as the treatment of workers is often hidden.
Pages 48-51 could be used to explore colonisation and how the cotton industry was linked to enslaved people in the USA and the Caribbean. The content here could also be used in history lessons. Information on these pages is difficult reading and there are descriptions of the treatment of women and children and the disgusting conditions and suffering that they experienced. It certainly does not make you feel proud to be British.
Page 57 discusses an incident from 2003 where the clothing brands Sean John and Rocawear were found to be produced in Honduran sweatshops. Students could guess the price of some of the clothing items in comparison to the wages that the garment workers were being paid. The impacts of the working conditions could also be explored, and a clear description has been provided of SETISA where the clothing was made.
Page 60 discusses the garment industry in Bangladesh, a case study that many of us use in Development. Students could weigh up why the government in Bangladesh allows companies to build factories poorly to produce clothing for brands such as Gap and Tommy Hilfiger. The events at Rana Plaza are also investigated on pages 63-67, this could be used for a case study activity, but sensitively as tragically so many people lost their lives or were seriously injured. There are often activities around events that become ‘mystery’ activities, trying to find out what happened, however, this isn’t appropriate when we are discussing what happened to real people – and something that is still having an impact today.
The discussion around sweatshops and ethics is a really important one to have with students. They could weigh up whether it is better to have expensive clothing produced ethically or inexpensive clothing produced in poor conditions. Could there be a halfway point between them? Oracy could be practiced here with a debate, splitting the class in two to argue the two sides.
Towards the end of that chapter, there is a discussion about companies and buyers no longer wanting to be connected to Bangladesh due to tragedies such as the Rana Plaza collapse and terrorism. With older students looking at GSGG or development, this would be interesting to investigate – what might happen if those industries closed? What will the impacts be socially, economically and environmentally? A Venn diagram could be used to interrogate this.
Dirty Laundry
This chapter starts with an interesting discussion around cotton, which could be adapted into a mapping activity, for example:
- India – Macedonian army using cotton for bedding and saddle pads
- Italy – Ancient Romans used cotton for awnings
- India – The largest producer of cotton
- China – second-largest producer
- USA – the third largest producer and their currency is 75% cotton
This could be added to with other facts about the cotton industry to show not only the importance of the cotton industry but its reach and scale also. The chapter then moves onto the environmental impacts of cotton including embedded water, pesticides, and water pollution. Students could investigate the scale of each issue or rank the issues from most damaging to least damaging.
The story of denim jeans is also explored in this chapter alongside the natural indigo industry, therefore as well as the growth of cotton students could also explore the environmental impacts of a pair of jeans and the processes that are behind the construction of denim jeans. A lead into this could be looking at the East River, a tributary of the Pearl River in Xintang, Guangdong Province. A photo could be shown of the damage to the river ecosystem and a pair of jeans and ask students to discuss the links between the two. An article that explores this can be found here https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/dyeing-pollution-fashion-intl-hnk-dst-sept/index.html and here https://www.theguardian.com/environment/gallery/2011/feb/09/pollution-china-manufacturing-towns .
Further exploration could also be carried out of the town of Xintang and the health of its residents due to the chemicals used in the dying process.
There are links here also to the AQA A Level Population and the Environment unit. Pages 96-97 investigate the impacts of pesticides and genetically modified cotton, at A Level students could investigate the impact of growing cotton on farmers and water supplies.
Part one of Fashionopolis contains a wealth of information that could easily be adapted to be used in Geography lessons from KS3-KS5. At KS5 copies of the book could be given to students to digest as wider reading, as there are so many synoptic links to the units that they study. If you haven’t read Fashionopolis yet, you should give it a read!
