Being Caringly Stylish Helps Humans, Animals, and the Planet

Source: Pexels/Pixabay.

I've long been interested in the clothes we choose to wear—who and what we don—to express our individuality or to look fashionable.¹I thought I had a pretty good view of the totality of the all-encompassing fashion industry until I discovered Collective Fashion Justice, when I came to realize that my and others' views only reflected the tip of the "fashion iceberg." I immediately reached out to their founding director, Emma Håkansson, and I'm thrilled she agreed to answer a few questions about a wide-ranging caring ethic and comprehensive fashion system "which prioritises life and wellbeing for all."² Emphasizing that we must have concern for humans, nonhumans, and the planet forms the foundation of a model eclectic ethic for others to follow. "Caringly stylish" means choosing who and what we wear while feeling and exhibiting concern and empathy for others.

Marc Bekoff: Why do you do what you do to change the fashion industry?

Emma Håkansson: Collective Fashion Justice was formed because the fashion industry is far from operating within a framework that respects and prioritises life over profit—despite both the environmental and long-term economic sustainability of the industry demanding it (there’s no other planet for us to make money on should we destroy this one).

Specifically, it exists because the current definition of ‘sustainability’ in fashion is sterile and lifeless. It considers greenhouse gas emissions, chemistry, water use, and other important factors, but fails to acknowledge that the environment we work to protect is made up of biodiverse and sentient life—both human and other than human. The fashion industry remains unable to truly grapple with the idea that for it to be sustainable it must not only operate within planetary boundaries, but moral boundaries, where sentient life is not exploited and taken for profit. As humans, we are one of many phenomenal animal species, and all of us animals don’t just live in nature, we are a part of it. Our work exists to look at sustainability through this more holistic and accurate lens, towards policy change that respects and protects life.

Source: Emma Håkansson

MB: How does your work relate to your background and areas of interest?

EH: I began my relationship with fashion as a model, and as I learned more about the harm the industry causes, I became increasingly uncomfortable using my face and body to sell it. Fur, leather, clothing made through modern slavery, through environmental destruction.

As I moved into consulting to transform the industry and into the NGO space, I found that social justice movements working to change the industry often operated singularly. I worked for an animal protection organisation that wanted only to address the ethical crisis of wool but not its methane emissions, and equally in an environmental space that did not care to acknowledge the moral bankruptcy of a wool industry profiting from a cycle of breeding, exploitation and ultimate slaughter.

My dedication to ensure autonomy for all comes from being a survivor of child sexual abuse. That lived experience allowed me to see how autonomy is stripped from so many of us—animals viewed as mere commodities, humans treated like machines made to work in poverty for a business with a billionaire CEO. I feel strongly that if we all considered what it means to value autonomy, freedom and life over profit and greed consistently, this would be revolutionary.

MB: Who do you hope to reach with your work?

EH: The general public, whom we hope to see recognise themselves as active citizens capable of change-making, not only as consumers. Fashion industry members, who we work with to transform the industry, its policies and sourcing strategies. Academics, as we contribute to a world of thought and knowledge on how ethics and the environment relate to fashion. And finally, policymakers at a government level, who can influence the industry when it does not act fast enough alone.

MB: What are some of the major focus areas?

EH: There is a need to consistently consider people, our fellow animals and the planet alike. Our key campaigns focus on shifting the fashion industry beyond the use of animal-derived materials. It is in these supply chains where all three are harmed, and so all three can benefit from this progress.

There are reports of how the leather supply chain impacts all three groups (though they are interconnected and one), as well as how we can justly transition towards more responsible materials. There are campaigns to move fashion beyond the false notion that killing wild animals for their fur, skins and feathers could be a form of ‘conservation’—given that commodifying and killing these animals inherently devalues their lives, and the goal of conservation demands the opposite. It's also important to look at how fashion is taught to students, transforming this so that sustainability and ethics are at the core of this learning, so the next generation can design more justly.

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MB: How does your work differ from others that are concerned with some of the same general topics and how has it been received?

EH: We take a holistic approach and by being pragmatically utopian—two things I think are essential to change-making.

I coined the term ‘total ethics fashion’ to highlight the need for fashion to consider people, our fellow animals and the planet ahead of profit at all times. This was required because ‘sustainable fashion’ is so often viewed only as relating to fashion’s emissions, deforestation, waste and other environmental factors, ‘ethical fashion’ often considered only about human rights, and ‘vegan fashion’ viewed as a fringe notion to protect animals.

Realistically, we can protect some but not all of us. We can’t expect a leather supply chain to shift beyond its modern slavery practices or deforestation when both of these are rooted in a lack of care for life, and the animal-derived leather supply chain necessitates killing and skinning of sentient beings—an undeniable lack of care for life. We cannot focus on symptoms without addressing the source of fashion’s oppressive destruction.³

MB: Are you hopeful that as people learn more about total ethics fashion they will change how they dress?

EH: Absolutely. Over the last couple centuries we have seen whale skins no longer used for Hermes bags, Amazonian hummingbirds no longer deemed acceptable to stuff as earrings, dog skin gloves outright banned and the European fur industry massively shrink in size. We have a long way to go, but this historical context gives me hope for where we will be in coming decades. But we need to act far faster than we are now.